Tomorrow, 5th July, I'll be donning my chef hat for the new and fabulous Jazz Nursery - an exciting new Jazz night held once a month under the railway arches in Southwark. Eccentric, underground, and trendy with a penchant for variety: Pintxos seems an ideal food accompaniment. Inspired by the pintxos bars of Barcelona, I'll be serving miniature tapas in an entirely unique atmosphere.
First on the menu are some refreshing gazpacho shots. Delicious! Thinking of doing this at home? Be warned: many gazpacho recipes you find suggest adding cream, eggs, stock, and even mayonnaise. GRIMSBY. Gazpacho should be made from easily available ingredients and served nice and cold, perfect for the heat we all long for this summer.
I've been given two recipes by two of my most esteemed chef friends: one a head chef at a two michelin star restaurant and the other a clever git who has cooked in some incredible michelin starred places and now teaches at Leiths School of Food and Wine.He's not really a git at all but his recipe caused me some serious pain and this is his punishment.
The first recipe demands the best tomatoes around - you want them to be slightly soft. Whizz them up in a food processor with basil and sherry vinegar, loosening with water if your tomatoes aren't juicy enough. Then pass it through a seive and add salt, pepper and olive oil to finish.
Love it. Simple, delicious, fresh and so distinctly without peppers. I hate peppers. But is this now simply tomato juice?! As far as I'm concerned that's a joy.
Second recipe calls for twenty tomatoes, two red onions, two cucumbers, two red peppers, one red chilli (deseeded) basil, thyme, salt ketchup and cab sauvignon vinegar. The idea is to chop everything chunky and leave it over night in the salt. In the morning the salt should have released all the juices. Then blend and pass it through a seive.
I got excited about this plan mainly because I love salt; the effect it has on things is magical. But tragedy truly struck during the chopping process. Yes...I put my finger in my eye after deseeding the chilli and then while blowing my nose I somehow got chilli up both nostrils. I then cried a lot, which in turn hurt more. Turns out water and chilli are a no-go: lesson, very painfully, learned. The result? After scanning the internet threw bleary eyes for chilli burn remedies I sat for 40 minutes (that is not an exaggeration) with two olive oil soaked tissues one held to my eye and one to my nose until the burn went away. The recipe creater proved himself to be even more dislikable when he said I'd obviously been tricked by a joke remedy web site. Rubbish. Olive oil totally works.
Pain aside, it's looking pretty cool. To find out how this one turns out come along tomorrow, the rest of the menu will include:
Traditional spanish tortilla
Chorizo skewers
Chicken liver pate
Olive and Goats cheese loaf cake
Gazpacho shots (!)
Prawn and Octopus skewers
See you there!
7:30pm, Arch 61, Ewer Street, SE1 0NR. Nearest tube Southwark Station (Jubilee Line), 5 mins walk down Union Street
