last friday i was lucky enough to head along to my fourth taste event, this time the taste of london winter over at tobacco docks. thanks to electrolux, i was booked into another couple of fantastic sessions with their guest chefs; with chef...italian, let's call him because i've forgotten his name, in the chef's secrets where we learned how to make pumpkin gnocchi, and then also in the secret ingredient with chef... american, let's can him, because as above... no memory of his actual name.
with chef italian we mixed and kneaded and rolled out fresh pumpkin and mashed potato gnocchi, before boiling it until al denté and frying it off gently in some garlic and parmesan buttered cream. seriously how good does that sound? it should, because it was effing incredible. even if i had to cook my own dinner in a food event.
in the chef's secret session, chef american took us through how to use the very clever combi steam sous vide cooker, which cooks your food to perfection. actually cooks to within one degree of perfection, and locks in all the excellence of the food you're cooking with vacuum seal technology. probably all a little fancy for my occasional home cooking, but just the thing to come in pretty handy when it comes to cooking a whole bird, or marinating meats for slow cooking.
after that, we drank. we pretty much drank our way around the stalls, using our crowns to sample the finest salted caramel gin from boxer gin, the sparkliest pink bubbly from t'north, and the tastiest damn cocktails from the manning boys at the shack revolution (the only guys accepting crowns after 9:45pm! wahey! lads!). everything after 8pm is a very boozy memory, and sadly, i've gotta be honest and say that this taste was definitely my least filling so far. i'm told there were stalls from the likes of duck and waffle, barbecoa and shake shack, and yet the only food i ended up leaving with was a six pack of cupcakes, and three bags of popcorn... a standard friday night for me!a massive thank you to electrolux for sending me (and fi who won my wee comp!) along again this year - one day they'll catch on that all i do is cook a bit then mostly drink, but no matter what, i always enjoy myself! did you make it along at all this year? which was your favourite bar? ha!
