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Category Archives: The Deli Truck
Sweet applewood for smoked pork
A new source of sweet sweet smoking wood – one of the limbs of our very old apple tree at Deli Truck HQ, finally decided to break off under weight of this years crop and dropped into our track. Miri, showing her skills with the chainsaw, cutting it up to use as wood for our smoker. Will give a very sweet delicate flavour to our pulled pork.
Miri with chainsaw chopping applewood.
Skinning and trimming Fresh Salmon
The day of the big party has arrived and this morning we have been skinning 7 full salmon fillets and trimming to make a sensational Salmon en Croute with Nori and Serrano Ham. This should provide around 60 portions, with an average of 8 to 9 portions per filet depending on their size.
Skinning the salmon fillets, trying to have as little wastage as possible
Salmon skinning with completed salmon in the background
A really good Salmon Skinning knife helps make this sometimes very difficult job easy. There should be very little waste after the skin has been removed.
Making an amazing choc-tastic chocolate mousse, with cherry brandy and morello cherry jelly
We have just finished making 60 “individual chocolate mousses on top of fresh raspberry, morello cherries, and cherry brandy jelly” The jelly base was made from the juices from the morello cherries and about half a bottle of Cherry brandy – in that mixture we have added fresh raspberries and morello cherries – so a very fruity and adult flavoured jelly base – with home made chocolate mousse on top. Takes 3 blocks of chocolate for very 12 servings of Mousse.
Morello and raspberries in cherry brandy and sugar waiting to go into our mousse dessert
Melting the chocolate
Adding egg white to the chocolate, egg yolk and cream mixture
The end result – Chocolate mousse over a morello cherry and cherry brandy jelly studded with fruit.
Cooking up our simple version of Peperonata for a big party
One of our party clients wanted an informal day but some fairly formal food as a lot of the guests were coming from culinary school in Switzerland for her party. They clearly wanted different salads, instead of the usual, for their gourmet guests. We suggested our own home grown lettuce and leaves for a green and red salad, the leaves to be picked on the day of the event from the Deli Truck HQ garden. We also suggested an old favourite from the south of France – a fabulously simple red pepper, fresh basil and garlic salad with a side of anchovy fillets.
Stacks of Peppers ready to be prepped for the grill
We char the peppers under a very hot grill, then in batches let them sweat in plastic bags, so the burnt skin just brushes off. It’s wonderful at this stage how the peppers completely change flavour to a deep nutty richness. They also start producing their own oil, we just add a bit of extra virgin olive oil to help things along, oh and fresh garlic of course. And with many many peppers to do – this will be a half day bake and make – but the smell at Deli Truck HQ is worth the effort. I personally don’t think there is a better smell than peppers being charred.
The peppers after 10 minutes under a very hot grill
The blackened skins being peeling off the peppers
Peppers getting a big slurp of extra virgin olive oil
And the final result – peppers with Garlic on the buffet. We made 150 individual pieces of peperonata they all disappeared with in 45 minutes.
Making Strawberry and Rum Ice Cream
This morning – “we be making” – strawberry Ice cream with strawberry chunks that have been soaked in spiced rum and sugar for the last 48 hours. The rum adds great vanilla and spice flavours and the alcohol also stops the the strawberry chunks from freezing into little iceberg nuggets. They are like smooth little explosions of sweet spice when you bite through one.
The strawberries soaking in spiced rum for 48 hours
Strawberry Ice Cream ready to eat. We mixed in about 200ml of rum to 4 litres of ice cream. Tastes amazing.
Chocolate fudge sauce making – part of our sauce collection for our “Ice Cream Bar”
A bowl full of 70 percent chocolate over the double boiler.
Spent the last hour making our chocolate fudge sauce for our “Ice Cream Bar” next Saturday. To make it fudge we melt 70% coco solid free trade chocolate with a little bit of evaporated milk and a drop or two of cream. We thought we may be able to find a very good quality commercial sauce – but it seems all the chocolate sauces available in the UK are made to a budget. Some where OK but most tasted more of sugar than chocolate. So we felt we really had to make our own. The difference using pure high grade chocolate with no preservatives or additives is worth the extra 20 minutes it takes to make.
Chocolate saucecooling down after being made.
Inventing a new high powered “Cherry Bomb” Ice Cream
Just finished making our own Morello Cherry Ice Cream for a 21st Birthday party this Saturday. Been experimenting with lots of interesting ingredients to try and get the Ice Cream we like – and finally found a fabulous concoction at Sainsbury’s called Morello Cherry Compot. Never even knew it existed until researching for this ice cream. Brilliant flavour. So we blitzed the compote with real cherries in kirsch, Cherry Brandy, and a tiny touch of white chocolate. This turned out to be the winning set of ingredients. It really tastes sensational with that lovely little bit of bitterness from the berries – sweetness from the Ice cream custard and chocolate, and a zing from the booze. The colour is almost neon…
Morello Cherry Ice Cream
Fresh Home Grown Summer Salad for our guests
Growing our own salad again this summer for our clients parties. This year we have come up with a slightly different way of growing. Because this year we are almost booked out all the way through to October, we can plan our salad growing period for each individual party. For example – salad in photos below is just becoming perfect. We planted this lot specifically for a large 21st birthday party in 8 days time. Salad will then be at it’s best – so we will pick on the day of the party. It will be crunchy, fresh and additive free. Also adding beet leaves this year to our usual “green” salad. A large percentage of the young party goers attend a culinary school in Switzerland – so they know their food and expect the best.
This year we are growing yellow beets and using the leaf for our green salad selection. A slightly bitter leaf, works well with an mustard based emulsion vinaigrette, with a little bit of palm sugar added.
This years selection of leafs for our green summer salads.
A more smokey smoke for our pork shoulder
We have devised a new way of smoking our pork shoulder after we thought a stronger smoke would be better for our pulled pork recipe. So instead of using those silly little oak chips you buy from the internet or garden centres we now have access to a supply of oak timber. The smoking is intense and results in a much stronger smoke – as you can see here in our latest video on how we do it.
The Deli Truck 