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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!

What's Happening > Contributor Competitions > Food & Drink > Food & Drink > Recipes & Cooking Tips > What's Happening

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!

What's Happening > Contributor Competitions > Food & Drink > Food & Drink > Food Topics & Trends > Wahacos > What's Happening

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.

Food & Drink > Food Topics & Trends > News > Our News

Today in Trafalgar Square, Feeding the 5000

Tommi & Tristram - thrilled with the turnout today despite the cold and snow!

Tommi and I just got back from the freezing conditions and snow in (of all places) Trafalgar Square, where Tommi was giving a cooking demonstration as part of the feed the 5000 event.

Please click here for link to an article in the Daily Mail.

Tommi in action

Tommi handing out some of Wahaca's chilli seeds to those who came along to watch.

It was a great event and an amazing cause – we were so thrilled to be involved. We look forward to doing more on this in the future.

Food & Drink > Food & Drink > Food Topics & Trends > News > News > Our News

Feeding the 5000, Trafalgar Square December 16th

Pop by Trafalgar Square on Wednesday 16th December to witness the Feeding of 5000 between 12-2pm for some lunch. Tristram Stuart has organised with a partnership of campaigners, charities and other supporters to serve lunch to 5000 members of the public to highlight the problem of food waste, and the many practical ways to solve it. Wahaca’s Tommi Miers will be doing a live cooking masterclass between 12-2pm to show everyone how to best use their leftovers or food that would otherwise be thrown away.

Rich countries like the UK currently waste up to half of their food supplies therefore all the food handed out on the day to passers-by will be made from fresh and nutritious ingredients that otherwise would have been wasted.

The menu will include a winter-busting curry made from vegetables cast out because they are not cosmetically perfect and freshly-made fruit smoothies, pressed on the day by customised bicycles.

Organised by the author and food waste campaigner Tristram Stuart, Feeding the 5000 will highlight the work of the partner organisations, Save the Children; ActionAid; This is Rubbish; and FareShare.

The organiser Tristram Stuart explains:

“Feeding the 5000 is a wonderful partnership including food companies, farmers and charities. The aim of our lunchtime feast is to highlight how food waste can be avoided by putting food to good use i.e. feeding people.”

A few facts:

There are 4 million people in the UK who are unable to afford a healthy diet. Food is a basic human need.  There is plenty of it in this country and FareShare works with the food and drink industry to ensure quality surplus food – that would otherwise go to landfill or be recycled – is given to the vulnerable people who need it most.

UK households waste 25% of all the food they buy. This is Rubbish works to raise awareness of how individuals, as well as retailers, can reduce the amount of food waste they produce.

According to Save the Children, 3.1 million children die from hunger every year while billions of pounds of food are wasted. The average UK family wastes around £480 worth of food a year. For that price three children could be saved from malnutrition. Rich governments should be encouraged to make combating hunger a priority and ensure that resources saved by reducing food waste are put into feeding hungry people around the world.

Hope to see you there! For more information click here. Also worth checking out Tristram’s book on the subject called Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal by clicking here.

Food & Drink > Food & Drink > Food Topics & Trends > News > News > Our News

Mexican Food at the British Museum

We are thrilled to have Mel from Travels with my Fork writing a guest blog for us on the exciting talk that took place at the British Museum last week. If anyone else out there wants to write a guest blog for us do just let us know.

Last night, myself, Kelsie (the other half of Travels With My Fork) and dozens of people converged at the British Museum to hear a panel discussion about Mexican food. This was a rare opportunity to hear from some people I personally really admire talk about a subject near and dear to their hearts.

Moderating the panel was Fay Maschler, food critic of the Evening Standard. She was joined by Wahaca’s very own Thomasina Miers, as well as Fiona Dunlop who has recently published Viva la Revolucion! , Chef Enrique Olvera who runs the prestigious Pujol a restaurant in Mexico City and my hero when it comes to Mexican cooking, Diana Kennedy.

The talk traversed a wide range of topics, including these highlights:

Diana Kennedy giving a ‘tip of the iceberg’ description of the mostly unknown regional differences in cooking and ingredients.  She spoke about how there are many varied bio-regions which have led to these regional differences and sounded a warning call against big agribusiness which has the potential to wipe out these micro-crops.

FIona Dunlop describing the recent rise in visibility of a new generation of Mexican chefs who are propelling Mexican food to international recognition.

Enrique spoke at great length about the balance between maintaining traditions and their natural evolution.  I was particularly impressed by how he described a shift in cooking from obtaining legitimacy from European influences to honouring the well developed classic techniques from within Mexico itself.

Thomasina described how what she and the Wahaca team are doing is a challenge directly tied to the availability of produce and ingredients that are only found in Mexico.  She also described the different ‘races’ of corn available in Mexico and sees, with the lime slaking technique used there, the opportunity to develop corn as the next superfood.

Following questions from the audience, I learned about a ‘magic’ rock used by one woman’s grandmother when making beans that imparts a unique flavour.  There was a very animated discussion about the difficulty in reversing most UK people’s association of Mexican food with that of stodgy, sour cream laden Tex-Mex abominations to the wealth of flavours and ingredients that Mexican food truly is.  A question about tamales, got Diana really excited and she was ready to spend another two hours discussing all the different varieties she has come across.

It was a great mix of viewpoints and experiences and as the evening wore on I was hoping it would never end.

An apt closing question asked each panelist to talk about a memorable experience or memory of Mexican food.  Both Fiona and Thomasina described Mexican versions of ‘Underground Restaurants’ with their meeting women who sold their specialities from the front of their homes.  In the case of Fiona it was Mole sauce, and in the case of Thomasina it was empanadas.  Enrique spoke about his grandmother’s food which has had a lasting influence on his cooking and described her dish of Frijoles Puercos (pork and beans).  And finally,Diana described an expedition to find a particular nut that is only found in a small area.  After travelling and searching she found the bush only to be informed by a local woman that all the nuts had been eaten that morning by a flock of parrots.

And if the talk were not enough to get our appetites going, the Wahaca folks laid on a spread of food afterwards with a selection of Mexican beers and Margaritas to complement the food.

It seems clear from this experience that Mexican food is finally getting the recognition it deserves for being a rich, well-developed classical cuisine of it’s own right.

Viva la revolucion of Mexican food!

PS: I was extremely honoured at the end of the panel discussion to meet Diana Kennedy and ask her to sign my 20-year-old foodstained and dogeared copy of The Cuisines of Mexico.  She urged me, as she had urged the audience throughout the evening, to pick up a copy of her new release Essential Cuisines of Mexico.

Check out Tommi making a Mole on the British Museum website here.

Thanks to Mel for a fantastic Guest Post.

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Wahaca wins award at the London Restaurant Festival

Last night Mark and Tommi accepted on behalf of Wahaca the award for Discovery – for a restaurant pushing the boundaries in its style of cuisine. The 6 awards were judged and chosen by a foodie panel including Fay Maschler, Giles Coren, Tom Parker Bowles and Charles Campion. We were really excited to be part of this inaugural festival and look forward to doing more and more with it over the next few years. Thanks to everyone who voted for us.