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Cracking Crackling

Pork scratchings with guacamole are probably the most popular snack in Mexico, especially when accompanied with an ice-cold beer and they’ve been a feature of our menu ever since we opened. Tommi’s a massive fan, as you might have noticed…

Tommi tucking into a Meixcan Scratching

In the last few months we decided our recipe was up for a refresh. We use specially selected cuts of back rind from outdoor reared British pigs which are slow cooked for four hours, then cooked twice more for that soft, but lighter crunch. Our new scratchings are finished off with a fennel seed dusting which we LOVE! It gives a subtle and earthy anise flavour. The saltiness of the pork is a wonderful foil for the creamy avocado, whilst the vibrant flavours of guacamole (fresh lime, chilli, fresh coriander) adds a delicious seasoning to the pork. All in all, it’s winning flavour combo.

Fennel dusted scratchings with guacamole

Mexican style pork scratchings are on the up these days. So good are they that Rene Redzepi of Noma fame put a rendition of the pork scratching on his world beating tasting menu after he’d done a month cooking in Mexico. He’s clearly onto something that guy.

So, next time you’re in and thinking of starting things off with your regular guac and chips, ring the changes and give our new fennel dusted pork scratchings a try. You may never look back.

If you’ve given them a try, we’d love to know what you think – you can let us know by leaving a comment below.

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Bloggers cook-along at Wahaca Stratford

Check out this great video of our bloggers cook-along event that we held in Wahaca Stratford last week. Tommi cooked up 3 dishes from the new Wahaca book (Did we mention that we had a new book?) and then 9 willing blogger volunteers valiantly had a go themselves. All in less than 30 minutes to add a little bit of extra fun to the proceedings.

We were all very impressed with the bloggers who pretty much took the whole thing in their stride and created some beautiful looking recreations, so Tommi had better watch out!

If you like the look of these dishes, then you can get your hands on a copy of our book, Wahaca, Mexican food at home in any of our restaurants or they’re just a click away. You might also see the Beetroot salad cropping up on the new specials menu at The Wahaca Southbank Experiment from July 4th.

Thank you so much to all of the lovely guys from HJonesyFeeds, Cherrapeno, Mintcustard, Crumpeats, Humbugs & Handbags, Hot & Chilli, Robert Giorgione, Roswensian, and Pukkapaki for making it such a great event.

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Wahaca – Mexican Food at Home

Over the past 5 years we’ve had countless queries and requests from people wanting to recreate our magical Mexican street food in their own kitchen. We like their style. So with these hungry people in mind, Tommi has been compiling a book of her favourite recipes since we opened up our doors on Chandos Place and it hits the shelves on 21st June.

Just like the restaurants, the book is inspired by Mexico’s markets, cantinas and a love of parties, and it’s stocked full of recipes made using ingredients easily found in Britain so you can create authentic Mexican food without having to schlep across the Atlantic.

It has everything from breakfasts bursting with energy, hearty and healthy dinners, sensational puddings and zingy cocktails. There are little plates for sharing and larger dishes that are perfect for scooping up with a warm corn tortilla and a splash of your favourite salsa. And yes, it does have the much sought after secrets of our juicy Pork Pibil.

Having given away over 4.5 million packs of chilli seeds since we opened, there’s also a page dedicated to chilli growing with photos provided by the green-fingered readers of this very blog. A special thanks to everyone who entered our competition and sent in a photo (you’re on page 223!).

The book will be for sale in all of our our restaurants as well as in any bookshop worth its salt, but if you just can’t wait, you can order your copy online now.

Wahaca, Mexican food at home is our way of encouraging you to spread the word of Mexican food far and wide. We hope you’ll join in the fun.

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New Dash of Wahaca salsas arrive on our tables

If you’ve been into Wahaca recently, you might have spotted the first of our new Dash of Wahaca salsas which have landed on the tables in the last few weeks.

Designed to be splashed on liberally

It’s been a labour of love but for the last year Tommi has been working tirelessly on the recipes with a specialist company who has created the great looking bottles for us. To give you an idea of the amount of effort that has gone into each one, just check out the list of ingredients – All of which are totally natural with no nasty preservatives anywhere in sight. In fact, if you have a look, you can see all of the little bits of chopped up herbs and spices swimming around inside the bottle.

Tommi has made 3 salsas for us to start off with. A brand new searingly hot chile de arbol sauce and new (and even tastier) versions of our yellow habanero and our smoky chipotle chile salsas that have been used on the tables in the last few years. So now there are 3 very different flavoured salsas each with a different level of spicines for you to choose from.

The brilliant news is, if you want to take some with you to give your home cooking a dash of Wahaca (see what we’ve done there?), you can buy them in our restaurants for £2.50 a bottle, just ask one of the waiters. Over the next few weeks, we’ll post a couple of recipes on the website so that you can discover some new ways of spicing things up in your own kitchen.

As always, we’d love to hear from anyone who’s tried them out already. What do you think of the new bottles? Do you have a favourite? Would they make the perfect Christmas present? (Yes they would).

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Wahaca butchery day

We’re always looking for new ways to come up with recipes and to use different cuts of meat at Wahaca, so a couple of days ago Tommi invited all of our chefs over to her house for a day of butchery and recipe development.

Our lovely butcher brought along half a pig, along with a couple of more random cuts to see what we could come up with. It was brilliant to see all of the chefs’ minds whirring at the same time and the results were as tasty as you might imagine.

Dishes included Elki’s rather scary sounding pig head tortas, drowned in chipotle salsa (‘tortas ahogadas’ to you and me) and Leo’s slightly less Mexican, but no less delicious pork and herb sausages! There was also Mexican Pozole, chicken liver tacos and beef cheeks cooked in a red mole.

Are there any Mexican inspired dishes that you would love to see us try out for the Wahaca Menu? Or indeed that you’ve tried out yourselves and would like to share with the team? Don’t be shy.

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Tommi pays a visit to Ednica, our street project in Mexico City

Earlier this year, our co-founder and executive chef, Tommi went along to see the great work that gets done by Ednica, the Unesco backed charity that we have chosen to support.

Check out this interview that Tommi filmed with Violaine Dulin who has helped us set up the fundraising partnership we have going on. We think it gives a nice feel for the amazing work they are doing.

Next time you’re in the restaurant spend some time perusing the “Street food special” section of the menu and you’ll see that every time you order one of these dishes 20p is given to Ednica to help educate and feed kids who work on the streets of Mexico City. At the momement we have the huarrache and a cactus queso fundido on offer, which are totally-knock-your-socks-off-delicious so you can have a extra big smile on your face when it comes to ordering.

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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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Events at Wahaca, Food & Drink, Recipes & Cooking Tips, What's Happening

Thomasina Miers book signing in Canary Wharf

Join us on Tuesday 9th March from 1pm in Canada Place Crossroads in Canary Wharf’s mall for a chance to meet Thomasina Miers and get an exclusive signed copy of her new book “Mexican Food Made Simple.”

“A world away from Tex-Mex sizzling fajitas with cheesy nachos, Thomasina Miers, former MasterChef champ and Wahaca restaurant founder, is bringing a large slice of genuine Mexico to the mainstream” The Independent

To mark the occasion, Wahaca will be giving away delicious guacamole and chips fresh from their restaurant in The Park Pavilion, Canada Square.

Hope to see you there!

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Smoked Haddock Ceviche with Corn & Sweet Potato Pancakes by Alicia Fourie

Alicia’s recipe is a deliciously alternative idea for Pancake Day. Using smoked fish is inspired and goes beautifully with the sweet potato and corn pancakes which might be a little too sweet for normal ceviche. The pancakes are also outrageously good with streaky bacon and slow-cooked tomatoes for breakfast. You can use either smoked pollock or coley for a more sustainable option.

Feeds 4 as a light main meal

Ingredients:

For the ceviche:

300g undyed smoked haddock fillets
1 serrano chilli
1 red shallot
Juice of a lime
Tabasco (optional)

For the pancakes:

120g coarse cornmeal
1 red shallot
1 serrano chilli, grated
Zest of a lime
Kernels cut from 2 cobs of corn
200g sweet potato, grated
2 whole eggs
About 100ml milk
2 egg whites
Stems from a big bunch of coriander
Salt & pepper
Sunflower oil for frying

To finish:

Juice of half a lime
Splash of olive oil
1 ripe avocado
Leaves from a big bunch of coriander

Method:

Remove the skin from the smoked haddock and cut it into thin slices, across the grain. Place the sliced chilli, sliced shallot and slices of fish in a non-reactive dish and pour over the lime juice. Sprinkle on a little Tabasco if you like it really hot. Leave for 45 minutes to cure.

In a large bowl combine the cornmeal, diced shallot, diced chilli, lime zest, corn and sweet potato.. Stir through the whole eggs and the finely chopped coriander stems. Add enough milk to make a thick batter. In another bowl, whisk the egg whites to soft peaks and fold through the corn and sweet potato mixture. Season with salt & pepper.

Fry pancakes gently in oil (about 4 minutes a side – the first one inevitably falls apart and it takes a long time to cook out the sweet potato) and keep them warm.

When ready to serve, drain the fish from the marinade (discarding the juices but retaining the sliced shallot and some of the chilli slices) and combine with the coriander leaves and scoops of avocado. Dress with the lime juice and a splash of olive oil. Correct the seasoning.

Serve the hot pancakes topped with cool, fresh ceviche.

Alicia’s recipe is very special indeed. The contrast of textures, temperatures and acidity make this a real joy. The corn and sweet potato pancakes are so good that you should make a large batch so they you can enjoy them for lunch the next day with a zesty topping of prawns and guacamole.

Thanks to everyone who entered my competition. For more Mexican recipes, including the winning recipe from Steve Gale you’ll have to buy my book – Mexican Cooking Made Simple!

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Huevos Borrachos by Gicela Morales

One of the star recipes submitted for my Recipe Competition was by Gicela Morales a wonderful Mexican woman who is fiendishly good with salsas. Eggs are a staple in Mexico and there is nowhere that you will eat a better breakfast. The green sauce on these eggs is as fiery as they come and perfect for blowing through the steamiest of hangovers. It is also incredibly good for you, a properly healthy start to the day. If you are looking for a way to blow away some cobwebs then look no further. Over to Gicela:

This is a hot green salsa with eggs for anyone with a hangover. It’s very easy to make and only requires very basic ingredients and a few green chilles.

You can make it as hot or as mild as you wish, but the idea is to make it as hot as you can stand it! Also makes a good brunch.

Ingredients (serves 2)

For the eggs

5 free range eggs
1 small onion
2 table spoons of good frying oil
Salt to taste

For the salsa

3 to 5 green chilles
1 small clove of garlic
1 cup of water

Method

1. Seed the chilles and roast them with the chopped garlic. Remove any burnt skin and put them in a food processor with the water until chopped roughly.

2. Chop the onion. Heat the oil in a frying pan and add the onion. Saute the onion and add the eggs; mix until scrambled.

3. Add the green salsa to the egg and mix it gently. Bring it to to boil and add salt to taste.

Serve and eat with fresh bread, a roll or on a taco with a strong mug of coffee. Depending on the extent of your hangover, you may not even feel the heat!

Enjoy!

This is a great dish for blasting away a hangover. Thank you Gicela for sharing it.

Stay tuned for more contribution to my Mexican recipe competition. And if you make this dish please let us know how you get on by leaving a comment.

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