“THERE’S AN EXQUISITE PLEASURE IN CRACKING INTO THE THIN SHELL, REVEALING THE WANTONLY PLUMP, FRAGRANT FLESH WITHIN”

Image: Regula Ysewijn

In the midst of British winter, there’s something especially cheering about a haul of fresh lychees. At this time of year, you can find them at markets and greengrocers across the country, snuggling together in their boxes, their rusty, pangolin-esque shells blushing out at you invitingly.

Lychees, which, like ackee, are members of the soapberry family, are native to the Guangdong and Fujian provinces of southern China, where records of their cultivation date back more than 2,100 years. China is still the largest producer of the fruit, closely followed by India, southeast Asia and South Africa, which is where most of the UK’s lychees come from at this time of year. Their translucent, alluringly perfumed flesh won the hearts of the wealthy and powerful, and they became a delicacy of the Chinese imperial court, a favourite fruit of emperors and their concubines. Such was the demand for lychees that the court arranged for them to be couriered by horse at great expense from the orchards of the south to the palace in Xi’an, Shaanxi province, covering hundreds of miles in rapid time before the fruit spoiled.

It’s not hard to understand why. There’s an exquisite pleasure in cracking into the thin shell with a thumbnail, peeling it back to reveal the wantonly plump, fragrant flesh within. I was so excited to find a box of particularly good looking specimens at the greengrocer on a recent winter’s stroll that I unapologetically made my way through a bag of them as I walked home, their sweet, sticky juices spilling down my chin as I squinted in the low winter sunshine, dreaming of warmer climes. Spitting out the pips might not have been particularly ladylike, but who cares when you’re enjoying a tropical treat in the cold?

The lychee’s short season and tendency to spoil quickly meant that in China they were often preserved, either unpeeled in a salted brine, or dried and soaked in alcohol – like a very early version of the lychee martini, my drink of choice around 2011. This cocktail’s potent charms once helped me overcome a dodgy date and an agonising case of plantar fasciitis, induced after a long day standing at my street food stall at Brixton market in the wrong shoes (Topshop brogues). Thanks to several lychee martinis, I managed to make it through the date, which dragged on far too long, and the lonesome walk home. It’s fair to say that the only good chemistry on that date happened in my martini glass. Around this same time I took to making lychee martinis for dinners in my shared flat, pleased by the relative ease of shaking together lychee syrup, vodka and a dash of white vermouth and freezing lychees to make chic ice cubes, utterly sure I was impressing my guests with my sophistication. Were the lychees from a tin? Absolutely. Did it matter one jot? Absolutely not. Were we squiffy on them? Always.

In fact, while I might now coo over the superior aroma, delicacy and texture of fresh lychees in their shells, my lifelong appreciation for this fair fruit was built on the tinned lychees of my childhood. I’ll always remember the Halloween party where my mum filled up a large glass bowl with terrifying but delicious floating ‘eyeballs’ made from lychees, into which she’d pushed seedless black grapes. To this day, I have a habit of stuffing grapes inside lychees if the two happen to appear together in a bowl of fruit salad.

When it wasn’t Halloween, lychees meant one thing – mum’s outrageously delicious lychee and hazelnut pavlova, my favourite childhood dessert, and one whose recipe I pilfered for my first book, A Lot On Her Plate. The lychees’ sweet, juicy flesh works beautifully chopped and folded through clouds of whipped cream, sweetened slightly with lychee syrup, the crunchy meringue flecked with nuggets of toasty roasted hazelnuts. This is definitely a dessert to make with fresh lychees from the Market, and grab a passionfruit while you’re at it – the sharpness of the seeds spilling over the top of the creamy pavlova is a delight. I also love Nigel Slater’s refreshing, pleasingly simple lychee sorbet, which involves making a sugar syrup with fresh lychees and then mixing it with lime juice. In a similar vein, try suspending fresh lychees in a loose, delicate jelly made with lychee syrup infused with kaffir lime leaves and lime zest – beautiful with some whipped double cream or thick, creamy coconut yoghurt.

There’s no doubt that the fruit lends itself best to dessert, but I do also quite like the idea of combining its sweetness and juiciness with rich, fatty meat, such as slow cooked, spiced lamb shoulder or duck. Ken Hom and Gordon Ramsay offer different takes on a Thai curry of duck with lychees, both making a spiced sauce with coconut milk, shrimp paste, soy sauce and various other aromatics. It sounds delicious, though I can see how some of the nuances of the fruit’s flavour could get slightly lost in the cooking.

The lychee’s balance of sweetness and sourness make it particularly well suited to a salad, be it sweet or savoury. As well as making for a very special fruit salad with papaya, passionfruit and pineapple, they add an interesting, juicy dimension to a hot green mango salad with chilli and king prawns or marinated tofu. There’s also an intriguing traditional Thai recipe called ‘sohm choon’ – a dish of lychees in a fragrant syrup infused with pandan, jasmine flowers and bitter orange peel, topped with julienned green mango and young ginger, with toasted peanuts, fried shallots, shaved ice and sometimes roasted coconut.

The heritage of this dish nods to the culinary influence of Chinese immigrants who came to Thailand in the 18th century, before lychees were cultivated there. They began importing earthenware pots of brined lychees, which were often in varying states of fermentation when they arrived. The Thai chefs who worked in the noble kitchens used their skill to offset the sourness of the fermented lychees by soaking them in aromatic syrups flavoured with bitter orange peels, ginger and shallots. And speaking of fermented lychees, there’s a rather good sounding fermented lychee soda on the internet that uses a ginger bug starter to kick-start lactic fermentation. Perhaps this could replace the lychee martini in my affections – if mixed with a good slug of vodka of course…

“I TURN TO DISHES THAT, RATHER THAN SWADDLING US FROM THE WIND OUTSIDE, INSTEAD REFLECT IT: FRESH AND CLEAR AND BITTER”

Image: Regula Ysewijn

It is an unavoidable fact of the British culinary winter that by the time the weather actually starts to howl and bite in January and February, most of our enthusiasm for rib-sticking stodge has come and gone. Even a warm, wet autumn makes me reach for the stock pot and the casserole, eager after summer’s salads and assemblies to really get down to the business of cooking, of starting every meal with a sizzle of onions in pork fat or beef fat, olive oil or butter.

By the time the last of the Christmas leftovers have sulked their way out of the fridge, the parsley sauce repurposed as sandwich spread, the brandy butter melted absentmindedly into coffee, even my considerable appetite for rich blandness is sated and I find myself turning back towards dishes that, rather than swaddling us from the wind outside, instead reflect it: fresh and clear and bitter.

I don’t remember when I first encountered a radicchio – I suppose it was in a supermarket bag of Italian mixed leaves or something similar – but I can’t imagine I particularly enjoyed it. The taste for bitterness, which is the defining feature of all radicchios – the standard round chioggia, feathering treviso, tendrilled tardivo, and dappled castelfranco – is supposed to be the last acquired in the development of the palate, as far as you can get from the raw love of sweetness and fat we learn literally at our mother’s breast. Bitterness, after all, is often in nature the taste of poison, and there is a reason a child’s first reaction to, say, an olive, is so often to spit it out. Hoppy beer, black coffee – these are tastes we acquire. Much of the cultivation, in fact, of wild greens into the spinaches and lettuces which now fill the aisles has been to breed out the bitterness. Be that as it may, and without wishing to make wild generalisations, it is also true that the Italian tolerance for bitterness is far greater than that usually found in this country.

Although supposedly medicinal and perhaps originally endured as such, the drinks known as amari – dark, herbal and astringent – are enjoyed all over Italy and like much of its cuisine, paraded with a stubborn local pride, from the sickly Averna of Sicily to the more serious concoctions of the north, chief among them Campari and Fernet-Branca. These last two, being best known in the UK, have perhaps contributed most to a growing appreciation for bitterness – alongside, of course, the radicchio.

While shredding finely and mixing with an array of other leaves is not a bad way to treat radicchio, offering a contrast of both flavour and colour in a mixed salad, it is more in keeping with their dignity to make their bitter redness the star of this particular show. Whatever variety you have, remove the core and pull the leaves apart roughly to maintain the shape. The dressing might offer a contrasting warmth, with the hum of raw garlic and just-toasted nuts, or the complementary coolness of buttermilk, but either way should be at least a little sweet.

Citrus, suitably wintery and suitably Italian, is always welcome with radicchio, whether filleted neatly into one of the above salads (perhaps alongside a good vinegar) or juiced or zested or cooked alongside it in some fashion – radicchios respond extremely well to cooking. You can make a quick pickle by blanching the thinner leaves of tardivo or treviso in a simple pickling liquor, made with some of that good vinegar, as much water, a spoon of sugar and a pinch of salt. Drop the leaves in for 30 seconds before fishing them out again. When they’re cool, chop them into some raw beef and season with pecorino or salted ricotta for a sort of tartare, or just eat them with cheese.

To my mind, one of the best vegetable risottos (risottos in general being mainly a showcase for good vegetables and good stock) is made with radicchio and red wine, seasoned with gorgonzola and walnuts as well as the usual butter and parmesan. In a similar vein, you can always make a radicchio ragu, which is something I thought I invented but it turns out, as is usually the case, I did not.

Having said all that about freshness and light, a radicchio ragu is definitely a dish to warm us a little against the cold. There is something austere in its bitterness that suits the later winter. Start, as all the best stories start, with a sofrito of onion, celery and carrot, chopped more or less finely and fried gently in fat – I would incline towards the sweetness of rendered pork fat as the cooking medium, which might mean that you in fact start with a few lardons of pancetta or bacon, placed in a cold pan so they release their fat as it heats up. If you are vegetarian or otherwise uninclined towards eating pork, then butter would be my next choice, and good olive oil, while not in any way undesirable, a distinct last.

While this is sweetly sweating, chop up a head or two of radicchio and proceed as you might if you were making a ragu of meat: browning and charring it in batches in a hot pan, adding each caramelised batch to the sofrito as you go, then finally deglazing your hot pan with red wine or sherry and orange juice to boil up and pour over the radicchio, stirring everything together. Cook for 10 minutes or so until soft. It probably won’t need any more liquid.

This isn’t a recipe, but rather a suggestion. A recipe, besides specifying the amount of vegetables to use, might have included a tablespoon of chopped thyme and a couple of sliced cloves of garlic, a pinch of chilli or maybe a little juniper, though the latter’s tendency to make everything taste like cheap gin means it is not something I cook with often. A recipe, moreover, might be something you cook once and never think of again, whereas I would like this suggestion to encourage you to eat the bitter leaves of our late winter, purple or white or spotted or green, to cook the ones you usually eat raw and to shave and massage the ones you usually cook, dressing them richly and heavily in your largest salad bowl.

Raw, their icy bitterness speaks to the late winter’s need for lightness and lift; cooked, especially with orange, sherry and thyme, the bulk of the vegetable collapsed and concentrated into the kind of ragu that acts more as a dressing for carbohydrates than as a dish in its own right, they can be stirred into buttered noodles or dolloped onto creamy polenta – to be eaten with a spoon while we wait for the spring.

“WHEN IT’S COLD I TURN TO SLOW COOKING. IN COME THE STEWS, BRAISES AND SLOWLY ROASTED JOINTS.”

Words: Tomé Morrissy-Swan

It’s late on a cold, windy, rainy Thursday evening but tomorrow’s dinner is already on the go. Into the slow cooker go pearl barley, dry white beans, potatoes, paprika, fried onions and – the pièce de résistance – fatty bricks of well-browned beef short rib. A bit keen for Friday night dinner, you might think, but well worth the wait. The resulting cholent, a slowly simmering pot of culinary comfort popular among Ashkenazi Jews on the sabbath, is sublime: rich and unctuous, each ingredient tasting of every other, in a way only hours of cooking can provide.

When it’s cold I turn to slow cooking. Out go summery salads and grilled fish, replaced by stews, braises and slowly roasted joints. It’s not just me. By autumn, customers are “fed up to the back teeth of steak and salad”, says Tim Wilson, founder of Borough Market’s Ginger Pig butchers. “You want brussels sprouts and roast parsnips, and when that comes along, slow cooking comes back in.”

Almost every culture has a treasure trove of slow-cooked dishes. Often out of necessity, people who couldn’t afford or didn’t have access to prime joints turned to the tougher cuts, eking out flavour with time. From Brazilian feijoada to Asturian fabada, from salt beef to barbecue brisket, slow cooking can be found everywhere.

At Borough Market, Dominic McCourt is guiding me through the different cuts at Northfield Farm, a butcher’s stand where much of the meat comes from the family farm in Rutland. He sells more meat intended for slow cooking in winter, but not necessarily at the expense of the premium cuts. In the colder month, people spend more time at home, more time at the hobs, and eat more meat. Dominic points to oxtail, beef shin, short ribs, beef cheeks. “Chuck is a really good entry-level cut for slow cooking,” he explains. “It’s quite forgiving – you can do it in an hour or so.” His favourite is lamb neck cooked overnight, cooled, glazed with barbecue sauce then flash cooked. “The meat falls off the bone.”

‘Unfashionable’ cuts were once far more economical. When Tim Wilson launched Ginger Pig in the late 1990s, slow-cooking joints didn’t fly off the counter. “Years ago, a lady came into the shop and said: ‘I want a piece of belly pork, please,’” he recalls. “The next person in the queue said: ‘I give that to my dogs.’” At the turn of the century that began to change. “All of a sudden, shoulder became more popular than leg,” says Tim. Why did things change? “Jamie Oliver. It was chefs.”

Price gaps have contracted but, overall, tougher cuts are still cheaper. “You’re still looking at roughly a third of the price for shin versus a ribeye,” says Dominic. “It’s still worthwhile financially.” There are exceptions, like oxtail, once cheap but now increasingly costly for what is mostly bone. Brisket, on the other hand, is still good value and practically all meat.

Heart and tongue are currently seeing increasing demand at Northfield Farm. Today’s trendiest cut, though, is ox cheek, spurred on by chefs and their obsession with cheek ragus. “We’ve got a massive demand now, more than we ever have,” says Dominic. Tim agrees: “We probably sell as much ox cheek as fillet steak.”

Slow cooking evokes beef, lamb and pork, whether stewed, curried or roasted. But one of the best dishes I’ve made was a 10-hour roast chicken in a clay pot. It simply disintegrated, in a good way. “You can slow roast any bird and it will just fall off the bone,” says Lin Mullet, founder of Wyndham House Poultry. Lin likes to roast duck legs marinated in Chinese five spice at 150C for a couple of hours. “The flavour intensifies. It’s absolutely lovely. It’s not something you need to stress about – you don’t need to be a clever cook to do it.”

Slow cooking is forgiving. Going over won’t affect the outcome, as long as the pot doesn’t dry out – it’s much harder to ruin a stew than a steak, even though cooking it requires more planning. Roast chicken convention says to cook fast for crisp skin and succulent breast but, according to Lin, slowly reared premium poultry have the texture and bone structure to withstand time. “Pot roasting is brilliant. A layer of vegetables, put the bird on top, liquid halfway up to the side of the bird, and they can be in there for quite a long time,” she explains. “That’s across all birds.”

Darren Brown, founder of Shellseekers Fish & Game, is rare among London’s butchers and fishmongers: he dives for scallops off the south coast and is a professional stalker with deer-culling contracts. He explains that 750,000 deer need to be culled per year, due to the environmental havoc they cause: “We need to eat our problems.”

Sika and red deer are the main species at Shellseekers, and Darren is enthusiastic about slow cooking them. “Why treat it any differently? It’s the same setup. You’ve got shanks, necks, shoulders, all of which require slow cooking.” They can be marinated in the same way as lamb. Slow-roast sika deer, he says, “pulls off the bone”.

In a cost-of-living crisis, leaving the oven on for hours may be a challenge, but there are countless ways to slow cook. Low and slow on induction may not be as charming as a battered old dutch oven in an Aga, but the results are similar and the bill considerably lighter. A slow cooker comes out cheaper, too, as does a pressure cooker, speeding up the process but providing the same outcome. And slow cooking is much better for leftovers – you can do a lot more with succulent pulled pork than dried-up slices of roast beef.

Back in my kitchen I’m making a Tuesday-night dinner in the morning. I brown the brisket before frying off onions. In throw in carrots, thyme, bay and stock. They get well acquainted in the oven before I pop in some dumplings. Slow-cooked beef and dumpling stew on a cold winter night? Until the sun comes out again, I’ll take that every time.

“A BOROUGH CHEESEBOARD IS THE PERFECT CULINARY PLAYGROUND ON WHICH TO SAVOUR SOMETHING A LITTLE UNCONVENTIONAL”

Words: Gurdeep Loyal

Christmas feasting can be a risky time to be risky in the kitchen. With several generations to appease at once, the big Christmas dinner tends to remain rooted in timeless traditions. But that doesn’t mean that even the staunchest traditionalists can’t get experimental with flavours outside of the main event – and a festive cheeseboard from Borough Market is the perfect culinary playground on which to savour something a little unconventional.

The key to cheeseboard adventures lies in both the selection of cheeses and the unexpected delectations you couple them with. Pairings can either be through complementary flavours that accent existing notes within a cheese, contrasting flavours from opposite ends of the spectrum, or bridging flavours that connect different elements. The fun lies in mixing and matching across this continuum to find exciting new combinations.

1. THE BOLD BLUE

A bold blue cheese should always take centre stage. Stichelton from Neal’s Yard Dairy is raw cow’s milk cheese made on the Welbeck Estate in Nottinghamshire by Joe Schneider and his team at Stichelton Dairy. Made to a traditional recipe, the use of unpasteurised milk gives it its light creamy texture and signature nutty-toasted flavour with delicate blue notes. Classically, Stichelton is matched with Rosebud Preserves’ red onion and port marmalade, Sheridans’ Irish brown bread crackers and luscious, sweet wines with deep fruit flavours, such as the Banyuls Rimage 2021 from Domaine du Traginer. Drizzling over a little John Mellis Scottish heather honey is equally exemplary, the floral sweetness countering the elegant tang of the blue.

But for daring flavour explorers after something a little unexpected, Stichelton pairs wonderfully with high cocoa-content dark chocolate, the cheese’s refined blue funk amplified by the bitterness of the chocolate. It is also surprisingly delicious with fudgy medjool dates or even paired with citrussy Rosebud Preserves’ almond and orange mincemeat. To serve alongside these salty-sweet combinations, try the malted tobacco-leathery flavours of Kernel’s London 1890 export stout or 1890 or the same brewery’s juicy cherry-like damson saison.

2. THE SOUTH LONDON MOUNTAIN CHEESE

To contrast this creamy blue, there is no better cheese than Bermondsey Hard Pressed from Kappacasein. Made by cheesemakers Bill Oglethorpe and Pietro Alberti, its recipe is based on a Swiss gruyere, using raw organic milk from Bore Place in Kent. Visually it has a deep tan rind and golden yellow centre and is texturally closer to a British farmhouse cheddar than an Alpine cheese. Its clean sharp flavour is deeply umami with a festival of nuances that develop as the cheese ages – from spicy Szechuan peppercorns in younger cheeses, to tropical notes of fresh pineapple in older wheels. Classically, Bermondsey Hard Pressed is paired with crisp apples, toasted walnuts, medium sherry, and sweet gewürztraminer wines.

For a break from tradition, amp up the sharpness even further by eating it with Pimento Hill’s hot banana chutney, or contrast the savouriness with the same stall’s sweet, fragrant quince and rose petal jelly and a glass of hazenutty Côtes du Jura vin jaune.

3. THE KENTISH PERSIAN FETA

An eclectic cheese addition to a festive cheeseboard is Graceburn from Blackwoods Cheese Company. Created by cheesemaker Dave Holton on a regenerative farm, where a single herd of mixed-breed dairy cows feed on pasture of herbal leys and lush grass just a stone’s throw away from the dairy, Graceburn is a Persian feta-like cheese with a slightly creamier texture, lower acidity, full buttery flavour and distinct roast-dinner-like aromas. There are three variants, all sold in strikingly labelled jars that make a great gift: one marinated in rapeseed oil with garlic, pepper and thyme, one with added black truffle, and a punchy chipotle and lemon zest version.

Classically, Graceburn is either spread over good crusty bread, paired with rye digestives biscuits, or roasted with winter root vegetables. For something a little surprising, fennel crackers add a pop of flavour, along with a sweet, mustardy spoonful of Wendy Brandon aubergine pickle from Pimento Hill. This unique taste explosion is amplified further if combined with a shot of the Levantine aniseed grape spirit arak, whose liquorice tones juxtapose superbly with the rich creamy cheese. Absinthe, pastis, sambuca or ouzo are equally excellent alternatives – served without ice and sipped slowly!

4. THE SPOONABLE SEASONAL TREAT

One very special cheese – only available in the winter months – is the comforting vacherin mont d’Or from Mons Cheesemongers, made by Sancey Richard, the only small, family-run producer of this historic cheese still in operation. Unlike other vacherin producers, the cheesemakers ripen the milk overnight, allowing naturally present bacteria to acidify the milk before adding starter cultures in the morning. They also stir the curds and whey by hand. As a result, the cheese has a custardy pudding-like consistency that can range from firm and spoonable to runny and oozy, bound up by a thick strip of spruce bark, which imparts a sweet, woody resin flavour to the rind.

Vacherin tends to be warmed in the oven with herbs, wine, garlic and honey, then paired with cornichons, pickled onions, cured meats and white wine from the Savoie region. For something more unusual, this vacherin is exceptional with jalapeño chilli jam from Single Variety Co – the piquant sweet-spicy pepperiness contrasting wonderfully with the brightness of the cheese. A Brand Bros sparkling German pet nat is an exciting pairing. Similarly, a pickle brine whisky sour can add a whole new dimension, the smoky saline cocktail complementing the piney aromas of the cheese remarkably well.

5. THE SWISS CEREBELLUM

For something visually striking, the Swiss cheesemakers at Jumi Cheese are renowned for their aptly titled Blau’s Hirni which translates to ‘Blue Brain’, reflecting what this deceptively delicate cow’s milk cheese looks like. It has an airy, almost whipped texture and a mildly sour fresh ricotta-like taste, with notes of smoky rosemary and a little spice from the blue. The younger cheese is aged for one, four or 10 weeks, with the older ones having a beautifully well-rounded roasty flavour. If, however, you’re feeling especially adventurous, there’s also a one-year-old with an intense spicy funk that will knock your Christmas stockings off!

Blue Brain is good spread on crackers with truffle honey or Jumi’s own sweet, tangy fig and apple mustard, served alongside full-bodied reds or sparkling wines like crémant or prosecco. For something less conventional, pair it with fruity sodas, hoppy beers or even cold-brew coffee, whose sharp acidity curiously contrasts the gentleness of the cheese.

6. THE SOMERSET SOFT

To complete this cheesy Christmas voyage, try prize-winning Wyfe of Bath from Bath Soft Cheese Co, made by Hugh Padfield and his team of cheesemakers at Park Farm. This is a beautiful, bouncy oval cheese made with milk from the Hugh’s own herd of Friesian and Brown Swiss cows. Their rich milk gives it a sweet, fudgy, nutty flavour that lasts long on the palate – becoming deeper in its caramel flavours as it ages. Wyfe of Bath is classically paired with fruit like pears and apricots that cut through the rice creaminess, and the scrumptious perry-like notes of Bay Tree cider apple jelly. English sparkling and rosé wines also go beautifully.

For something a little unexpected, try this cheese as a replacement for clotted cream with scones and jam. It’s equally superb on sourdough crackers with a generous dollop of rich tangy passionfruit curd from Pimento Hill. Try this twist on afternoon tea with a dram of single malt whisky or add even more sweetness by pairing with Taylor’s Chip Dry white port.

“IT IS EASIER TO CUT OPEN A HARD CHEESE LIKE A COMTÉ WITH A WIRE THAN WITH A KNIFE, PARTICULARLY ON A COLD DAY”

Interview & illustration: Ed Smith

The tool you will see us using all day every day at the Mons Cheesemongers stand is the double-handle cheese wire. It’s the best tool for cutting open and portioning up the blue cheeses and hard cheeses. Of course, it is possible to use knives – the Swiss and Dutch often do, for example. But, on a practical level, the wire is superior.

It is easier and more efficient to cut open a hard cheese like a comté with a wire than with a knife, particularly on a cold day at the Market, when the cheese becomes quite brittle and susceptible to splitting. While the front edge of a knife is sharp and thin, the back edge can be quite wide, and this forces the cheese apart as you cut – it can cause the cheese to crack and split, creating less than perfect wedges and potentially leading to waste. You don’t have this problem with a wire. Also, a wide knife blade creates friction, so becomes pretty tiring for the cheesemonger.

We use a 90cm wire when opening up a wheel for the first time and a 45cm wire when cutting it to a manageable size for a customer. You cut up and through the cheese, ending up with your arm almost vertical above your head. It looks like you are pull-starting an old lawnmower!

Our wires are disposable and probably last a couple of days before we throw them away, so we get through a fair few every week. I don’t use a wire at home, though. It’s the cheesemonger’s job to cut cheese into manageable sizes, so by the time it’s at home, the work has been done and a sharp knife will do just fine.

“THE WINE IS A SWEET PASSITO FROM SICILY, MADE WITH GRAPES THAT HAVE BEEN DRIED IN THE SUNSHINE”

1915, Treviso, north Italy: the first year of the Great War – for the Italians, at least – and the first harvest to be subject to requisition by embittered Italian forces. The demands of soldiers for food and shelter are beginning to take their toll.

But there is one thing the villagers are determined the soldiers shall not plunder: the cheese made that year, and still slowly maturing. A peasant, whose name history does not record, had a bright idea. Why not hide it in the wine vats, under the fermenting grapes? Goodness knows what it would do to the taste, but it would be edible and in these times of scarcity, that’s what matters.

“They can take our lardo, but they will never take our cheese!” the peasant may or may not have muttered. Thus began the phenomenon that is L’Ubriaco: drunken cheese.

“They started experimenting,” says Lorenzo on the L’Ubriaco Drunk Cheese stall. We are now of course, in 21st century Borough Market. “Different grapes, different maturation times. Then, in 1976, Antonio Carpenedo set up La Casearia Carpenedo” – the company L’Ubriaco source from.

He’s from a long line of cheesemakers and has produced a few more of them, in the form of children and grandchildren who help out in the business. It is they who are behind the name of today’s cheese, Basajo. “When his niece was very little, she couldn’t pronounce formaggio, the Italian word for cheese, properly,” explains Lorenzo. “She always said Basajo. So Antonio named it for her.”

It is a raw sheep’s milk blue, which makes it sound far more confrontational than it actually is – for as raw blues go, this is an entry-level experience. Those pockmarks of mould may look strident, but their vociferous tendencies have been reined in.

How? Well one of the many, many ideas dreamt up by Antonio with regard to cheese was that of soaking it: not in grapes that were fermenting but in the wine itself, embalming its creamy body and salty veins in a liquid as infinitely rich and varied as cheese can be.

The wine in this case is sweet wine: the precious passito from Sicily made, says Lorenzo, with wine grapes that have been dried in the sunshine. As you can imagine if you have ever tried to press raisins, very little is made.

“It is a very small drink, and very sweet” – hence the strains of honeysuckle, even bubblegum, that run through the cheese, which slides down your throat indeed almost like a liquid. Not for Basajo the crumbliness of its northern counterparts, Stichelton and Danish blue.

“It is sweet, it is fruity and it melts in your mouth,” says Lorenzo. It’s bedecked with wine-soaked raisins and passito grapes from Sicily, but the sheep’s milk is “from his friends around the countryside near Treviso”. It looks beautiful, like the crown of the Faerie Queene. The passito kicks in later. There is a degree of blueness, because “no alcohol enters the cheese. It is on the outside” and the cheese is aged for six months before its wine bath. All the same, it tastes heady, luxurious, and summery. It may be made in northern Italy, but it carries Sicily with it. And that, after the deluge of recent weeks, is just what we need.

“IN HARD CHEESES, THERE’S GOOD REASON TO SUGGEST THAT HERE WE HAVE THE GREATEST SEASONING OF THEM ALL”

Image: Regula Ysewijn

“Hard cheese, pal.”

I wouldn’t normally advocate turning to or relying on the website urbandictionary.com. But I have to admit, I accidentally stumbled across it (as you do) when typing ‘hard cheese definition’ into Google. Clicking on the top-ranked search link revealed the following: “Tough luck, a shame. Something that’s not very good but you can’t really do much about it. As in: ‘You ran over the neighbour’s puppy, that’s hard cheese.’”

It struck me that, though this absolutely nails the meaning of the phrase ‘hard cheese’, it does hard cheese a real disservice. Hard cheese is not a bad situation, or something that is not good. Hard cheese is amazing. Hard cheese makes pretty much everything better.

By definition, cheeses that are ‘hard’ have been left in a cold room (or cave) to dry out. Over time, they ‘mature’, meaning all sorts of flavours emerge and intensify. Crystals of umami develop (you know, the crunch you get when biting the older varieties of comté on offer at the Market, or the parmesans and cheddars that crumble more than they slice). Hard cheese is the good stuff. Of course, our cheesemongers and affineurs want us to appreciate the subtle complexities of fresh and mild cheeses, too. But it’s hard (pun intended) to step away from a cheese that’s so mature it makes your gums recede.

As ever, the best place for quality cheese is on a cheeseboard. However, from time to time you can and should use specialist, artisan cheeses in your cooking. Because of their calibre, a little tends to go a long way – and in the case of hard cheeses, there’s good reason to suggest that here we have the greatest seasoning of them all. Sweet, salt, sour, fustiness; layers and layers of flavour in a few flakes, crumbs or shavings.

Hard cheeses provide a punchy final flourish for a wide variety of dishes. Any soup – even (especially) fish soup – is better when finished with a snowstorm of cheese. Salads of all types welcome a hit of dairy, which might be a crisp and fresh spring or summer salad topped with shavings of chalky Ticklemore, chopped kale salads finished with finely micro planed pecorino, or autumnal roast squash platters made moreish with crumbs of mature Lancashire.

Even beef appreciates cheese – think of an Italian steak and rocket tagliata and ponder what makes it so good: is it the steak, or the parmesan? Grains and pulses too. Polenta and chickpea flour – whether wet and sloppy or firm in, for example, a panisse – are lifted by cheeses like mature comté. And then, of course, what is a risotto or fresh pasta dish without a heavy dusting of cheese?

With so many cheesemongers at Borough Market, there can’t be a better place to pick up a portion of hard cheese. I’ve mentioned some of the deservedly classic and obvious options, but it’s possible to step beyond those. Paski sir is a salty, strongly flavoured sheep’s cheese from the island of Pag in the Adriatic Sea, stocked by Taste Croatia. It’s really, truly complex and long lasting, perfect for those occasions when you might otherwise have been thinking of pecorino. At Jumi Cheese, from the Emmental region of Switzerland, there’s something called Cironé – a mature cow’s milk cheese with many of the qualities you’d expect in a good parmesan – the tang, the long-lasting richness, the umami crunch.

You may already know Jumi’s Belper Knolle: a stone-shaped ball which, even in ‘fresh’ form, is hard and chalky, but also sharp, salty, and deceptively creamy. It needs to be sliced very finely, with a mandolin or indeed the truffle-style slicer Jumi sells, and even the lightest curl adds so much – not just a dairy tang, but also the undertone (or is it top note?) of garlic and a touch of fire from the black pepper dusting. Excellent with salads (particularly tomato), pasta, meat… might this be the ultimate embellisher?

So, off I head to Urban Dictionary to update it with my own definition: “Hard cheese: a very good thing.”

“‘LIVING’, IN THIS CASE, IS ABOUT MORE THAN JUST SURVIVING. IT’S ABOUT HAVING ENOUGH TO ENJOY A DECENT LIFE”

Words: Mark Riddaway / Images: Sim Canetty-Clarke, Issy Croker, RED Agency

All roads lead to London, or so the saying goes. But in recent years, with the cost of living spiralling and wages stagnating, the direction of travel along those highways appears to have reversed.

“This city is becoming a black hole,” says Jon Thrupp of Mons Cheesemongers. “People are thinking: ‘I couldn’t possibly dream of buying a house here. I couldn’t set up my family here. I could do that in Bristol or Brighton. I could go to Scotland. I’d rather be in Leeds than spend half of the money I earn on rent and have no chance of ever getting a mortgage.’ We’re a London-based company, so that’s such a big pressure for us.”

Jon’s business involves sourcing fine cheeses from continental Europe and the UK, maturing them in Mons’s cellars, then selling them through shops, market stalls and a wholesale business. It’s skilled work – the selection, the ageing, the cutting, the serving – so the business is reliant upon having talented people willing to do it. The good news for him is that plenty of potential employees would love to spend their days tending to the world’s best cheeses and sharing their knowledge and passion with customers. The bad news is that, in a city as expensive as this one, love alone is not enough. “You can’t talk to your landlord and say: ‘Can I pay some of my rent with my passion?” says Jon.

That’s why Mons Cheesemongers (like Borough Market itself, which signed up in 2016) decided to become an accredited Living Wage Employer. What this means is that Jon has committed to paying every member of his team more than the hourly wage set each year by the Living Wage Foundation.

As the name suggests, this charitable organisation’s mission is to secure for workers a level of pay that meets their essential needs and rises in line with the cost of those essentials. Living, in this case, is about more than just surviving. “It’s about making sure people have enough to enjoy a decent life,” says Elise Craig, who runs the Living Wage Foundation’s south London programmes. “That means covering all the basics but also engaging in a cultural life and social activities.”

The rates are updated each year to cover the cost of a ‘basket’ of goods and services that, based on a regular series of public surveys run by Loughborough University, are considered necessary for a person to live with dignity. As well as having a roof over your head and food in the fridge, that might include an annual holiday, the occasional trip to the cinema, a birthday celebration. Nothing truly decadent, but enough for a happy, fulfilling life.

The Living Wage Foundation’s current rates are £13.15 per hour in London and £12 across the rest of the UK. By comparison, the current National Living Wage (the misleadingly named wage that employers are required by law to pay to workers over the age of 23, the calculation of which is entirely unrelated to the actual cost of living) is currently only £10.42, regardless of where you live.

There are clear moral and reputational reasons for wanting to pay your staff properly. But Jon is very clear that, if you’re a business owner, seeking Living Wage Employer accreditation is not something you should do just because you want, in his words, to “seem like an honourable person when you’re in the pub, chatting about your business over a craft beer”. It’s something you should do because you want your business to thrive – and because you want London to be a viable base for cheese maturing caves as well as hedge funds.

According to Elise, the data collected by the Living Wage Foundation is unequivocal about the benefits accrued by employers: “People stay in their roles longer, and those increased retention rates mean lower costs on recruitment and training. We see better relationships between staff and management. It’s good for organisational morale, and it’s also a cost-saving exercise in the long term.”

For Jon, the primary benefit has been his ability to draw from the shrinking pool of talented people who want to start a career in the artisan food world and haven’t already fled London for Scotland or Leeds. “The accreditation is a really valuable tool for potential employees to understand,” he explains. “They’re like: ‘I know what its concept is and what it’s there for, and if I can see it on the job description, it makes sense to me.’ The Living Wage as a brand speaks more clearly and more immediately than an interview where we describe the contract, the work, how people progress. It gives that sense of certitude.” As well as being paid properly today, employees want to know that they’ll continue to be paid properly tomorrow, allowing them to make plans and put down roots. That certainty is what the accreditation provides.

For any big company, not paying the London Living Wage is pretty much indefensible. For small businesses like Borough’s traders, there are some understandable reservations. As Jon says, most market traders “are product based and have 50 per cent – if not more – of their turnover spent on actually procuring and transporting the goods.” Right now, with those core costs raging out of control, committing to annual pay rises determined by a third party involves a significant leap of faith. As Elise explains, “because of inflation, there’s been a big uplift in the rate over the past couple of years”. Jon, though, has no regrets.

His biggest concern had been the knowledge that investment in staff isn’t always repaid in kind. Training and mentoring inexperienced people involves a significant cost, particularly in an industry as heavily regulated as food. “The responsibilities from day one are quite mega, so the doubling up of staff is unavoidable,” says Jon. “Eventually, maybe after three months, you get to a position where you’re working responsibly through your day, without needing supervision and intervention from others.” The worry is that new staff will come in, cost a small fortune in pay and support, then decide on a whim that the job’s not for them.

To ease this burden, the Living Wage accreditation allows for a lower rate to be paid to trainees for the first eight weeks. “Eight weeks into the training, we move them to the full London Living Wage and it’s fine, there are no issues. By that stage, the commitment is there. If there are going to be problems, they tend to rear their head in the earlier weeks.” The reality, says Jon, is that having that guarantee of a pay uplift goes a long way towards securing genuine buy-in from trainees.

As is true of all small businesses, rising costs have forced Mons to look for efficiencies and innovations – securing euros in advance, for example, to avoid being stung by fluctuating exchange rates. It’s just that those ‘efficiencies’ don’t include underpaying people. The halo effect of this is seen by the staff, by customers who know that the money they hand over is being equitably distributed, and by the business itself, which continues to thrive. “We have to think about the future,” says Jon. “We’re either working towards something that steadily improves or we’re allowing it to steadily decline. If we want to survive, the question for us is: can we actually entice a young, passionate generation to work with us?”

Anyone who’s been served by the young, passionate generation at Jon’s Borough Market stand will know that – thanks in part to the financial security his business has promised – the answer right now is yes.

“WHAT WE TRY TO REMIND PEOPLE IS THAT THAI FOOD IS BROAD AND DIVERSE AND HAS SO MANY DIFFERENT INFLUENCES”

Interview: Mark Riddaway / Images: Harriet Langford, Ben Broomfield

Despite being Australian and British respectively, chefs Mark Dobbie and Andy Oliver have become impassioned, fast-talking evangelists for the food of a very different country: Thailand. After falling head over heels in love with this most diverse and characterful of cuisines, they’ve devoted their lives to exploring its incredible depth, first through their Som Saa restaurant in east London and now through Borough Market’s latest arrival, Kolae, which opened on Park Street in October. 

Mark learnt his craft at Nahm, the legendary restaurant run by his fellow Australian David Thompson, the first chef in Britain to win a Michelin star for Thai cooking. Andy, who abandoned an office job to gamble on a career in cooking, arrived at Nahm to complete a ‘stage’ (an internship, essentially) after a successful stint on MasterChef. After bonding over curry pastes, the pair began working on Thai cookery projects outside of the day job, including a pop up at Nuno Mendes’s highly influential Loft Project. After Nahm closed in 2012, Mark headed to America to work at Pok Pok and Andy spent a couple of years in Bangkok working at Bo.lan. On their return to London, the friends joined forces again to open Som Saa, initially as a year-long residency at Climpson’s Arch in London Fields, then, after a successful crowdfunding campaign, as a permanent restaurant in Spitalfields.

Days before Kolae’s opening, with the sound of building work clanging in the background, Mark and Andy sat down with us to explain the concept behind their new restaurant.

First things first, what’s the correct pronunciation of your new restaurant’s name?

Mark: I think we’ll be explaining this a lot over the years! When you translate from Thai script to the English alphabet, the sounds don’t line up perfectly – it’s never quite phonetically accurate. The name is pronounced somewhere between ‘Gol-ay’ and ‘Kol-ay’ – the sound is between a G and a K, basically. We like the way it looks with a K, so we went down that route.

So, what is kolae?

Andy: It’s a dish associated with the far south of Thailand. It’s incredibly delicious but not really known outside of Thailand. It’s based on coconut curry sauces – almost like a cousin of satay, but a bit more complex. The protein is dipped in the curry sauce and then repeatedly basted with it as it’s grilled. There’s lots of variety out there in the sauce, the technique and the proteins that are used. It’s most commonly chicken but it can be seafood – whole bits of fish or shellfish – and, particularly in southern Thai Muslim communities, meats like goat or mutton. Some of the sauces have lots of spices in them, making them almost Indian or Persian in their inflection. And others have no dried spice – it’s more like a classic Thai curry paste with lots of black pepper and lemongrass. It’s a whole family of dishes, and we’re going to be exploring it fully.

You’re cooking these kolae dishes over fire. Is that an important part of the concept? 

Andy: Fire is what forms the heart of so many Thai flavours and dishes. Even dishes that you wouldn’t think have grilled things in, do in fact have grilled things in – often in the curry paste. At Som Saa, we’ve always cooked over wood and charcoal but we’re now putting the fire a bit more front and centre, almost building the menu around the grill. At Kolae, we’re pressing fresh coconut cream in the kitchen, and the leftovers – they’re almost like used coffee grounds – are a perfect smoking medium on the grill, so we’re using a combination of charcoal, wood and coconut.

Of all the cuisines in the world, what is it about Thai that fascinates you so much?

Mark: I think, for me personally, it’s a thirst for knowledge. There are so many facets to Thai food. They’ve had relatively open borders throughout their history, so there are all these influences from trade and migration, and every region is different as a result. Learning about the history and culture is something that can keep you engaged for a long time, and the food is so tied into all that. In Britain and Australia, we enjoy our food, but I’m not sure we have quite the same cultural connection to it that the Thai people do.

High street Thai restaurants in this country have tended to dampen down some of the cuisine’s more intense flavours so as not to alarm the British palate. What’s your approach?  

Andy: I think our first port of call is always to represent Thai food as you would find it in Thailand. There are certain dishes that aren’t truly themselves if you change them too much. Some Thai dishes are notorious for having really big chilli heat as part of their foundation, and if you start reducing the amount of chilli, you’re altering the whole thing. What we try to remind people is that Thai food is broad and diverse and has so many different influences. Some of the traditions don’t have a spicy palate at all. There’s big Chinese influence, and chilli isn’t part of that. A lot of the Muslim food is not super-spicy. A lot of the Peranakan food in the south is not super-spicy. Our preference is to guide people towards ordering those dishes, rather than changing dishes that come with very intense flavours. Those intense flavours are the heart and soul of the dish.

Mark: There’s a big responsibility on front-of-house to help guide people. If someone comes in and orders a dish that’s full of fresh green peppercorns and little green chillis, and they don’t really feel like much rice, they’re going to blow their face off. If one of our team is able to help explain that kolae, for example, isn’t super-spicy, and you should maybe have that with some of the spicy things on the side, and some of the tart salads, you end up getting a balanced meal while also enjoying Thai food from a different perspective.

In many of the dishes, you’re using seasonal British ingredients that wouldn’t be found in Thailand. How does that fit into your ethos?

Mark: Good produce is just something that excites us. When you get good produce in, you want to use it. Knowing a bit of the cultural background, the history of dishes, you start to understand how a bitter herb in Thailand can also be represented by a bitter leaf grown in the UK, and can fit perfectly into that slot in the dish. You’re still being respectful to where that food’s come from, but also being conscious of your own footprint. Also, buying ingredients from our doorstep means we can support farmers who we know are doing things from a position of passion rather than profitability. That all flows back through into the dish. It’s about finding a balance between a dish being as it would be in Thailand, and using the best quality ingredients that we can, produced by people whose ethos chimes with ours.

What’s it like having a produce market right beside your restaurant?

Andy: We’re incredibly excited to be running a restaurant here. It’s an emotional thing, walking in here to work every day. On a personal note, markets are very special to me. A good food market is a happy place for anyone interested in food. Borough Market is somewhere that, 20 years ago, became the centre of the universe as far as I was concerned: seeing produce I’d never seen before, shopping for things I’d never cooked before. In Thailand, as well, markets are everything. Getting up early in the morning and being in a market as it’s getting going is like entering a whole different world. It’s not just about food, it’s as much about people as well. I love the idea of being part of a community – a community of traders, restaurants, shoppers. We feel very privileged to be here.

ROASTING PUMPKIN OR SQUASH PROTECTS AND DEVELOPS THE INHERENT FLAVOUR, OPENING UP A WORLD OF CULINARY OPPORTUNITY

Words: Angela Clutton / Image: Kim Lightbody

Every autumn and winter brings the sheer joy of seeing all the pumpkins and other squashes displayed across the Market stalls – so many different shapes, colours and sizes – and seemingly endless ways they can be used in all kinds of cooking.

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The ripest pumpkins and squashes will give a hollow sound when tapped. Stored in a cool, dark place, they can keep for months, should you want to. Different varieties come with different flavours and textures, and the following are particularly wonderful to cook with:

Acorn squash

Unsurprisingly, shaped like an acorn, with dark green ridges that, when sliced into, give a scalloped-edge appearance. Its flesh is a beautiful yellow with a mild, nutty flavour, but a little watery, so not the best for grating. Instead, it’s ideal for soups or sauteing.

Crown prince

These absolute beauties have a pale blue-green skin that’s so thick it can be hard to cut into, so take care. Once in, prepare to be stunned by the vivid beauty of its deep orange flesh that holds its shape well on cooking. Great for roasting. They store well too.

Harlequin squash

This one looks a bit like an acorn squash, but this time with speckled creamy green skin. Its watery flesh means it can disintegrate on roasting or grating. Best for soups or sauteing.

Onion squash

A small, teardrop-shaped squash that’s bright orange inside and out. It has a nutty flavour, is a little less sweet than others, and may not keep well for quite so long. Great for roasting.

Turban squash

Looks like a small stripy squash on top of a larger one. Its pale yellow flesh is, again, a little watery, and is better for soups than grating or mashing.

Roast

Roasting hollowed-out, sliced or chopped pumpkin or squash – particularly a crown prince – is very probably the very best thing you can do with it. It protects and develops the inherent flavour, opening up a world of culinary opportunity for what you can do with it once cooked.

Slice open and remove the stringy insides and the seeds. Don’t throw away the seeds – below.

Remove the skin if you want to for the final dish, but keeping it on helps with flavour and it’s easier to remove the skin after cooking.

Slice or chop, add to a roasting tin, then toss in oil or ghee along with spices and aromatics of your choosing – rosemary, sage, oregano, za’atar, cumin, paprika, cinnamon, caraway, etc – and a splash of balsamic or sherry vinegar.

Roast in a hot oven at 220-230C for 20-40 minutes, depending on the variety and the sizes you are roasting. (If you do remove the skin before cooking, keep it to make pumpkin-peel crisps: just toss the peels in oil and salt and roast in a very hot oven until crisped.)

Then perhaps:

• Serve as a winter salad with other roasted vegetables (maybe cauliflower or beetroots), feta, quinoa or spelt.
• Roast a mix of varieties and tear some kale or puntarelle into the roasting tray for the squashes’ last 10 minutes to take on flavours and crisp up. Add halloumi pieces if you like.
• Mash the tender flesh to use for kofte, gnocchi, as part of the filling for a tart or pie, as a bed for seared scallop, langoustines, fish or meat, stir into a risotto finished with crisped sage leaves, parmesan and lots of black pepper, or simply have it mashed, with lots of butter and grated parmesan.
• Blitz into soups.
• For roasted stuffed squash: Halve your squash, scoop out its strings and seeds, slash the flesh, rub with oil and salt, and roast cut side down for 30 minutes. (Use that time to make your stuffing by cooking whatever mix of grains, greens, herbs, spices, beans or meat you fancy.) Then turn it the other way up, stuff and bake some more to finish.

Simmer

• Bring pieces of pumpkin to tenderness by cooking them directly in all kinds of tagines, stews, dals and curries. It’s best to peel the skin away first.
• The simplest lunchtime soup is made by simmering peeled chunks of pumpkin in stock and then blitzing. Other flavour layers are optional.
• Cook peeled and diced pumpkin with onion, spices and coconut milk to use as the filling for a dosa.

Grate

• To include in the filling for dumplings, ravioli or tortellini.
• For baking into cakes, muffins and breads.
• Add to the batter of a chickpea-flour pancake, or to flatbreads.
• For fritters.
• Simmer grated squash with apple or pear and spices as a porridge or granola topping.

Raw

• Use a mandoline or vegetable peeler to make ribbons you can toss in olive oil, sherry vinegar and salt.
• Very thin slices of raw pumpkin are great deep-fried in a light batter as tempura.
• Make a pumpkin pickle.

Seeds

Wash the seeds to remove the bits of string (they can be used for stocks). Spread the seeds out on a baking sheet and roast just as they are – no oil or salt yet – at 200C for about 10 minutes or until turning golden and dried out. Use them as follows:

• Toss with olive oil, some grated citrus zest and soy sauce, then roast in the hot oven for snacking on.
• Toast in a dry pan with honey (or maple syrup) and salt, then let them cool on a plate until you can break them like praline for a sweet snack.
• Add when making granola.
• Use in flapjacks.

Flavour enhancers

Think about: strong cheeses (such as feta, cheddar, parmesan, and the blues like gorgonzola); anchovies; chilli; fennel or fennel seeds; sage; bitter leaves like kale, puntarelle and spinach; celery; lemongrass; coconut; mushrooms; nutmeg; soy sauce; lime; spices; tahini; miso; balsamic vinegar.

From Borough Market: The Knowledge with Angela Clutton (Hodder & Stoughton)