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Do you want to be on our tequila tasting panel?

Following a flurry of excitement amongst our facebook fans, we are now looking for an exclusive panel of 5 tequila experts from amongst you lot, the followers of our facebook, blog and twitter pages, to join us for a tequila tasting with a difference, to be held at Wahaca Soho on Wednesday 23rd February 2011 at 6.30pm.

Do you know your agave from your auto-clave, your piña from your pot still? What on earth would you do with a Tahona Stone?

If you would like to join this tasting, send an email to ola@wahaca.co.uk explaining in no more than 100 words why you are qualified to help us select the next top tequilas that will be featured on our bar list. The deadline for entries is the end of Monday 20th February, so get cracking.

On the night, we’ll taste a range of tequilas which have been sent to us by the Mexican Tequila Board that aren’t available outside of North America. They’ve kindly searched out 30 top quality tequilas from Mexico’s smaller distilleries just for us. It’s not just for fun though, at the end of the tasting, we’ll pick out 4 favourites, which will be appearing as guest tequilas in our bar over the next year. We’re hoping that by putting them on our list, we’ll help to introduce these brands to the international market, and their amazing products can start to be shared with the world.

The tasting will start at 6.30 with a cocktail to get us in the mood, then it’s down to the serious business of choosing our top tequilas. The tasting will be led by the all-knowing tequila aficionado Henry Besant, who will help guide us through a range of platas, reposados and añejos and will finish at about 8pm.

Don’t get confused, this is not the same event that is being organised by QYPE (That’s one’s going to be just as good though!) This one is just for all you Wahaca fans out there in the world-wide-webernet. (If you’re looking for the Qype event, head over to their page for details).

We’ll look forward to hearing why you think you’ve got what it takes to help choose our next favourite tequilas. Those still looking for a worm in the bottom of their bottle need not apply.

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Celebrate Dia de La Candelaria at Wahaca with free Tamales

Tomorrow, February 2nd, the Dia de la Candelaria festival will be celebrated across Mexico. The tradition goes that whoever is lucky enough to find the small baby Jesus figurine in their Rosca De Reyes cake on the 6th of January should treat all of their friends and family to a meal of tamales on February 2nd. Anyone eagle eyed enough to have read about this year’s winter menu will have spotted that Tommi was hugely excited to be able to put two types of tamales on our menu for the first time. And very delicious they are too!

So, never one to let up the chance to have a bit of a party, tomorrow, we’ll be giving free tamales to anyone who comes in with a small baby Jesus figurine. OK, that might be a bit tricky. We’ll be giving free tamales to anyone who comes in with a picture of a baby Jesus figurine, and funnily enough, we’ve put one just here:

So, if you feel like getting into the Mexican party spirit, print out this picture, and head over to Wahaca any time tomorrow and get your tamales on!

Here’s some Ts and Cs:
One free tamale dish offered per printed picture, and no more than one per customer.
Offer only valid during restaurant opening times on Februrary 2nd 2011.
Anyone found not having fun may be evicted from the restaurant at any time, or asked to stand in the corner with a bag on their head, it’s a party after all.

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Not just great Mexican food, sort your Christmas shopping too!

Last night saw Tommi hosting our first ‘in-house’ cooking demo in our brand spanking new Soho bar, to celebrate the launch of The Observer Food Monthly’s brand new book “Cook: A Year in the Kitchen with Britain’s Favourite Chefs”. 

We were delighted to welcome the editor, Rebecca Seal to introduce the book.  She gave an eye-opening peek behind the scenes of what it’s like to put together a cookbook with contributions from over 80 of Britain’s best loved chefs. No easy task by the sound of it!

Tommi made child’s play of our brand new demo equipment, elegantly splicing together an amazing range of salsas – Chipotles in Adobo, Roast Chipotle Salsa and Chipotle Mayonaise – Who knew Chiptole could create such amazing flavour?! They were all delicious and can be found throughout our menu if you look closely.

But we’re not just telling you this to make you jealous, you can join in the fun too. The Observer & Guardian Book Store  have very kindly offered you, the good readers of our blog, a chance to buy the book for half the normal price. All you have to do is visit their website and pop the code “Wahaca” into the field marked ‘promotional code’, then start impressing your pals with a whole range of seasonal treats throughout the year.

Whilst we’re on the subject of books, if you did fancy cooking up your own version of Tommi’s salsas, then you can learn all about them in her book, Mexican Food Made Simple, which you can find nestled nicely here. It’s really rather good.

So that’s this year’s Christmas shopping sorted then.  Inspired by the markets of Mexico you could say.

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Margaritas get Mims to Mexico

Those of you who have read my first post know that come March next year, I’ll be cycling 680km across Mexico in 8 days, raising money for Macmillan Cancer Support. It’s my first biking event and the most physical challenge I have ever set my mind to.

On the 19th December, Wahaca is helping me host ‘Margaritas will get Mims to Mexico’ – half price cocktails, good chat, the chance to win some great prizes in a raffle or two and a good old foosball tournament.

The most important thing to point out is that ALL PROFITS from this fiesta will be donated straight to Macmillan Cancer Support through my justgiving page (www.justgiving.com/miriam-smith) – meaning a margarita really could be the difference between life and death for a cancer patient.

I would love you to join me – I’ll be shaking the margaritas – so if you’re free on the 19th December and fancy a half price margarita and a game of foosball, pop into Wahaca Soho, 80 Wardour St, from about 5.30pm onwards.

And please feel free to invite your wives and husbands, brothers and sisters, girlfriends and boyfriends, your best friend or any random people you meet in the street or on the tube!

Hoping to see you there!

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Wahaca goes tweet for Avocado week

We’re really excited to be taking part in the worlds first tweet-along to support Avocado week and all those wonderful people at the Avocado brotherhood.

On Tuesday evening Tommi will be taking part in a head-to-head cook off with Tom Parker Bowles outside our (soon to be open) site on Wardour Street in Soho. So if you’re in the area, come along and check it out. You might even be able to try the dishes if you’re very lucky.

But if you can’t come along, then don’t worry. The idea of a tweet-along is that you can follow their progress live on twitter and cook the recipes yourself from the comfort of your own kitchen. Just follow twitter.com/wahaca or twitter.com/avacadobrother from 7pm on Tuesday, we’ll both be tweeting the recipes as they are cooked, and you can get get stuck in. We’d love to find out how you get on.

You can try cooking either recipe, and the details of the ingredients you’ll need are shown below (No bias, of course, but surely you’ll be cooking Tommi’s recipe, won’t you?!). For full details about the tweetalong and avocado week, check out the avocado brotherhood blog

Thomasina’s chicken, avocado and basil salad with yoghurt and garlic dressing

2 Chicken breasts poached or roast chicken left from the weekend, torn into pieces
1 Hass avocado, sliced
8 baby tomatoes, halved or quartered
A small handful green beans, cooked to al dente
10 small jersey potatoes, steamed for 20 mins (optional)
1 small bunch of basil, leaves picked
2 handfuls of mixed salad leaves
Olive oil
Crostini bread
Juice of ½ lemon
200g Low fat Greek yoghurt
1tbsp Low fat crème fraiche
1 small clove garlic, crushed
½ tsp Dijon mustard
Pinch of sweet paprika
½ tbsp parsley, chopped (optional)
Small squeeze of lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper

Tom Parker Bowles’ Lime marinated prawn and avocado pittas

400 g small Atlantic prawns, peeled
4 Hass avocados, mashed
2 red onions, finely chopped
Pinch, sea salt
Small bunch of coriander, chopped
6 birds eye chillies, chopped/or half a Habenero if you want real heat/ or a couple of standard green chillies if you really can’t face heat/finely chopped
1 lime, juiced
Fresh black pepper
6 mini pittas
2 limes, juiced
Big glug Tabasco
Sprinkle sea salt
Pepper

If you’re going to get involved, we’d love to hear about it so please let us know by leaving your comments below. Don’t forget to buy your ingredients and have them well prepped so you don’t get left behind on the night.

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The Cacao Margarita

There’s a lot going on around London this week. Not only is it The London Restaurant Festival (Don’t forget to come along and try out our award winning menu before Monday 18th), but it’s also London Cocktail Week – A Celebration of London’s mixology heritage and a tribute to the world’s capital of cocktail culture.

So to mark this momentous occasion in the discerning drinker’s calendar we thought we’d give you a sneak preview of one of the new cocktails that will be hitting our menus in the next couple of weeks – The sublime Cacao Margarita.

Seldom has such a wonderful match of flavours been left undiscovered for so long, than that of tequila and chocolate, and the Cacao Margarita is the perfect way to indulge in this mystical pairing. Think velvety spice, with undertones of agave alongside the subtle kick that this slow burn margarita gives.

And here’s how you make it:

Be sure to use a good quality 100% agave tequila, any cheaper imitations just won’t do it justice.  We’ve used a blanco tequila in this recipe, but it works very well with the slightly sweeter reposado and añejo too.

35ml measure of 100% Agave Blanco Tequila
10ml cinnamon syrup
35ml milk
60gr chilli chocolate

First make your cinnamon syrup by melting 100g of sugar with 100ml of water and a stick of cinnamon. Once the sugar has completely melted, bring to a boil and simmer for about 5 minutes until it becomes a syrup. You can use the remainder to sweeten hot chocolate, or in your coffee.
In a saucepan, warm the milk and add the chocolate. Stir and continue to heat gently until completely melted.
Add all of the ingredients to a shaker with cubed ice. Shake well and strain the liquid into a chilled glass. Serve with a sprinkle of chocolate and a cinnamon stick. 

If you have a go at making the Cacao Margarita for yourself, we’d love to hear about it. Post a comment below, or why not whack a photo up on our facebook page.

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We love the London Restaurant Festival

We’ve been loving the London Restaurant Festival this week. It’s such a great celebration of the amazing restaurants we are lucky enough to have on our doorstep in this fair city. Today we sent some of the team out to sample one of the highlights of the festival – The Street Kitchen caravan in Covent Garden.

They returned with glowing reports of the braised beef with carrot and celeriac, and the hot smoked salmon salmon with beetroot and horseradish, which looks amazing from the photos.  It’s so exciting to see such brilliantly turned out food, coming from an airstream caravan in the middle of Covent Garden. Our hats are well and truly doffed.

Last year we won the Discovery Award for the food we served at the festival and you might remember  we were delighted to be presented our award by Giles Coren. This year we are back with a menu offering a selection of our favourite street food for 2 people to share – That’s pork pibil and chicken mole tacos, broad bean quesadillas, black bean tostadas, and new potato taquitos all served with green rice and black beans.  And if all that’s making you thirsty, then at lunch there’s a Hibiscus agua fresca to go with it, and at dinner a choice of Hibiscus or Tamarind Margaritas. The special London Restaurant Festival price is £20 for 2 people for lunch, and £30 for 2 people at dinner. A total steal.

So if you fancy getting into the festival spirit, come along and discover our award winning selection for yourself. The London Restaurant Festival is running from Monday 4th October to Monday 18th October, please ask our staff for more details about our special menu.

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Tips from the Chilli Expert #2 Repotting your plants

So, you’ve planted your seeds, waited with baited breath and crossed your fingers, and all of your dreams have come true – Your chilli seeds have sprouted! But before you get ahead of yourself, just hold on a second, you’ve got to make sure you look after them well if you’re going to be rewarded with precious fruit. In the second of our installment of Chilli Expert videos, our guru grower talks you through repotting your plants to ensure you get an even growth. Over to you Craig…

When your chilli seedling has developed its second set of leaves, it is time to pot it on to another pot.

A mistake that some people make at this stage is to repot it straight into a huge pot, thinking that this ok. If you do this, all that will happen is that the chilli plant will grow to fill the pot, but concentrate on producing foliage, but no flowers. If the plant does not produce flowers, then you will not get any chillies!

As a general rule of thumb, your chilli plant should be potted on to a larger pot when the roots start to appear out of the bottom of the current pot. Personally, I pot on plants from a 3 inch to a 5 inch and eventually to a 7 inch pot.

Keep an eye on your plant and water it if the compost looks as if it is drying out. Again, the idea is to keep the compost moist and not drenched. In the colder months, you will find you only have to water every two or three days, but as the weather heats up, you will probably need to water every day.

When flowers start to appear on the plant, you can give it a helping hand by adding liquid tomato feed to the water. It should be diluted at half of the recommended ratio for tomato plants.

Alternatively, you could use one of the feeds that are specifically designed to be used with chillies.

In the next video, I’ll be giving you tips about how to make sure that all the flowers on your chilli plants turn into lovely chillies. See you then!

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Mexican Cooking comes to The Dock Kitchen

Stevie is an old friend who I met at Ballymaloe, rather a long time ago now. He is an amazing cook with a passion for exotic spices from around the world, beautiful ingredients and unfussy food. The result is a wonderful mix of simply presented food from around the world, never with too many ingredients competing for attention. His flair with spices produces some sensational marinades, delicious chutneys and daals and he makes a mean biryani. One day he is going to teach me how to make his chaat masala too.

He occasionally lets me come and play at the Dock with him. A coulple of weeks ago we cooked Mexican together. We sat down with three-week old Samuel, his first-born and devised a menu together which we cooked all of this week at the Dock (I only did Tuesday and Wednesday as had other menus to do at Wahaca).

It’s a delight cooking there, as like Petersham Nurseries, you can just pop out of the kitchen to the herb garden to pick whatever herb you think might make all the difference to your chillie paste, sauce or soup…

The kitchen is also completely open lined with glass, rather than the conventional walls. How Stevie moved from the River Cafe, with all that beautiful light, to the only other kitchen in London that I know of, that is also an ode to light, is beyond me, but fairly typical of his natural jamminess. On August 21st they are closing for a fortnight and building a souped up kitchen courtesy of Wolf/Sub-zero, possibly the sexiest, coolest kitchen makers in the world, and the restaurant will double the number of seats it has to 80. What excitement.

Meanwhile a brief sypnopsis of our menu. We started with some corn which we shaved off the cobb and sauteed with sweet onion, garlic, a chipotle paste I made and masses and masses of butter. The result, a sweet, smoky, fiery filling for a white corn taco. It was so popular that I think I am going to put it on the wahaca menu next summer. Yum.

Next up was courgettes, a thoroughly Mexican vegetable, sauteed with girolles and summer herbs…

And then a plate of octopus which we rolled in crumbed crisy pig skin, deep-fried and served with a fruity, fiery habanero salsa…

This recipe was thanks to a friend Roberto Solis of the restaurant Nectar in Merida. Totally yummy, thanks for the idea Roberto, I hope you are enjoying Noma this week, you lucky so-and-so.

We did a sopa de guia next, which is a broth flavoured with wild herbs and leaves, which I first had at Casa Oaxaca, cooked by the wonderful Alejandro Ruiz…

And finally a slow-cooked shoulder of saltmarsh lamb, marinaded in ancho, chile de arbol and pasilla de oaxaca chillies and slow cooked over a bed of carrots, celery and onions and served with the classic shredded cabbage, radish and coriander slaw.

The pudding, which I failed to capture (please excuse my crummy photographs) was blackcurrant, hibiscus and tequila made by the lovely Hannah (ex-Ballymaloer) and Mexican wedding cookies made by the equally lovely Lewen (also ex-Ballymaloer maybe?). I had to go back to take these picces on Thursday, when I was no longer cooking and bumped into Mary Portas, Queen of Shops, who was eating there! Quelle excitement! I love Mary’s love of independent shops, what a woman. She was looking as stylish as ever.
So all in all an idyllic week, cooking with Stevie’s amazing team (here is Stevie and Lewen).

Creating food, talking to great people and feeling that life is good.

Thanks so much for having me guys, good luck with the refurb and thanks for the cooking tips.

tommi xxx

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Puerto Nuevo, Cabo San Lucas, Baja California

A couple of weeks ago, I was lucky enough to go on a trip to Baja California, and just had to tell you all about a wonderful cantina on the outskirts of Cabo San Lucas that I was taken to called Puerto Nuevo. It is a total favourite with all the chefs who I met out there. Antonio de Livier from La Frida described it as the best fish place in Los Cabos. So obviously I was very keen to try it out.

The entrance entranced me. All those bottles of salsas. I do love a hot sauce. The more the merrier. This is just what I love about eating in Mexico.

The first thing we had to try was the fish tostada. I don’t have a very pretty picture of it here. Just a close up of the chopped onion, white flesh of the sea bass and snapper and the layer of mayonnaise that was utterly delicious spread over the crisp tostada. Man, I can’t tell you how fresh it tasted! Yummy, yummy, yummy. This was one of the highlights.

Next up was the aguachile. Aguachile means chilli water and it made by whizzing up green Serrano chillies, masses of fresh lime juice and plenty of coriander leaf until you get a lovely vivid green dressing which you dress your seafood with. I normally add raw scallops or mackerel, but here they had tossed in fat, juicy prawns and amazingly tender pieces of octopus along with lovely half-moon slices of cucumber and thin slithers of sweet, red onion. If only we could get a good sweet onion here like the ones in Mexico….

These are the cheerful chefs, cooking in blistering heat. Although the cantina is literally on the side of the road, open to the elements with the tables on sand, the kitchen, as you can see, is spotlessly clean. I love eating in places like this. Places where the locals go. So much more fun than some of the swankier restaurants that are full of tourists, and the food costs a fortune. This is the real Mexico.

This was our last dish, after the lobster quesadillas which I didn’t photograph as I am not entirely sure about fish in a quesadilla. Once they put this down I started smelling a rat. This looked distinctly Veracruzan to me. I can remember eating a jaiba enchipotlada in Veracruz and not being able to stop eating until every morsel had been finished. I asked the waiters about it and it turns out that the owners of this place are indeed from Veracruz. Sadly this jaiba was not quite up to the one I had all those years ago on my roadtrip to Veracruz. The sauces should be smoky, garlicky and sweet from the crab flesh. It certainly wasn’t bad though, just not quite to the par of their delicious tostadas, the yummy aguachile and the pulsating raw clams that they presented to me as a kinda amuse-bouche. This was a lunch to remember.

Tommi xx

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