Wahaca

Contributor Competitions, Food & Drink, Food Topics & Trends, Guerilla Chilli Growing, News, Our News, Recipes & Cooking Tips, Supplier Articles, Uncategorized

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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Food & Drink, News, Our News, Recipes & Cooking Tips, Uncategorized, Window to the Kitchen

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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Banter at the Bar, Cocktails, Events at Wahaca, Uncategorized, What's Happening

Murray Mound? Give Me Murray Mescal Bar any day

The sun is out and the summer screen in Canary Wharf has got to be hard to top as the best place to watch the tennis this weekend, especially if you’re in the Wahaca terrace bar sipping one of Sammi’s Margaritas, or sampling some of the great mescals.

The Canary Wharf Sumer Screen, conveniently located just opposite Wahaca in Canada Square Park, will be showing all of the remaining matches at Wimbledon. It’s free for anyone to come along and show the nations favourite Scott a bit of support.

For details on how to find us in Canary Wharf, check out our website, or head to the bottom of the really big pointy building – It’ pretty hard to miss.

To spice things up a bit, we’re giving you the chance to win a free drink at the Canary Wharf bar on Sunday during the final – all you have to do is correctly guess the final score in the last set of today’s Murray Vs Nadal semi final, and leave it as a comment below. So if Murray’s going to win 6-0 (wishful thinking) then just post “6 – 0 Murray” below. Entries have to be in before the beginning of the final set in today’s match. For full terms and conditions email loswahacos@wahaca.co.uk.

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Cocktails, Food & Drink, Learn at Wahaca, Uncategorized

Tamarind Margarita

The weather is getting warmer here in London, giving us at Wahaca that burning excitement for Summer – and we know just the place where you can enjoy it.   Come down to our new bar at Canary Wharf where you can sit on a swing, overlooking the square and sip a Mexican cocktail!

Allow us to whet your appetite over the coming weeks with posts about our cocktail favourites.  First up, the Tamarind Margarita.

The fun thing about cocktails is that you can experiment with different ingredients and different quantities so that you tailor them to your own tastes. We make our cocktails the way we do because that’s how we like them and we hope you do to! Don’t be afraid to play around.

To make our Tamarind Margarita, add the following to a cocktail shaker:
- 35ml 100% agave tequila
- 12.5ml triple sec
- 20ml sugar syrup
- 12.5ml fresh lime juice
- 20ml tamarind puree

We always use 100% agave tequila and we recommend you do too. Just like food, cocktails made from good quality ingredients = good output. Tequila has to be made from at least 51% agave, so 100% just means that it’s all of the good stuff.

Add ice to the shaker and attach the lid so that it stays on during your Tom-Cruise-in-Cocktail impression, then mixxxx it up. We don’t suggest you start throwing your shaker around immediately, the aim is to shake vigorously until the contents of the shaker are combined, not wreak havoc in your kitchen.

Dip the rim of your glass in fresh lime juice and then into salt to create a salt rim. Now pour the content of the shaker into your glass through a strainer to catch the ice.

Now all you need to do is enjoy this authentic taste of Mexico and send us your pictures and comments to let us know how you got on.

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Events at Wahaca, Food & Drink, News, Our News, Recipes & Cooking Tips, Tell Us, Uncategorized, What's Happening

Can you help us find our Mayor?

Those of you who are in the know about foursquare, will probably understand what we mean with this post. For those of you who aren’t, please don’t think we’re desperately trying to hunt down Borris and invite him for a taco (although if you’re out there Borris, we’d love to talk to you about introducing Mexican style VW’s to our taxi ranks).

Foursquare is a great site that helps you to find new ways to explore your city by checking in on-line when you visit restaurants and bars, and linking up with friends to discover their favourite places to go out. It’s also a great way to pick up tips that only people in the know would be able to tell you – Apparently our “Frijoles are off the chain” according to James M (thanks,we agree), and One Tamarind Margarita isn’t enough for Fergus M!

Now, we’re pretty new to this site, and are hoping for your help in tracking down the Mayor of each of our restaurants (These are the guys who have checked in the most times, and basically love us so much they can’t stop coming back). We know who they are, but can’t seem to contact them.

Can you help? Do you know these Wahaca super fans? If you do, we’d love you to send us a tweet @wahaca, or post a comment below and tell us, so we can get their details from you.

Do you know these men?

Nick H

Richard S (Although this may not be a true likeness)

David G

So… Nick H (Mayor of Wahaca Covent Garden), Richard S (Mayor off Wahaca Canary Wharf) and David G (Mayor of Wahaca Westfield) Come on down! We’d like to invite you to a very special dinner tasting our new summer menu.

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News, Uncategorized, What's Happening

La Linea latin music festival starts today!

When it comes to music, nothing get’s us moving quite like those Latino beats, and so we’re shaking our behinds with excitement at the thought that the La Linea latin music festival in back in London from today until the end of the month. In its tenth year La Linea is funkier, punkier, rootsier and spunkier than ever. It’s all about what Latin Music can be, has been and very much is.

To give you a taster of what’s on offer, let us tell you that Kid Creole & The Coconuts at the Barbican promises to be as much fun as you can have with your clothes on with their incomparable back catalogue and hyperactive technicolour show . Viva El Mariachi, also at the Barbican, will be an evening of high Latino passion, cathartic sobbing into your cerveza and surprise guests, all dedicated to the cause of mariachi. Salsa Celtica, with fine musicians from north of the border and south of the equator, bring their fiddles, whistles and bongos to the South Bank. Mexican guitarist Morgan Syzmanski’s invigorating Machaca returns to La Linea with some world premieres and a repertoire ranging from Villa-Lobos to Piazzolla; and Tango Siempre do their thing with special guest Gotan Project’s virtuoso Bandoneon player, Victor Villena. Barcelona’s Amparo Sanchez first appeared at La Linea leading her band Amparanoia and most recently as part of Spanish Bombs. Here she showcases her new project, Tucson Havana, on which she collaborated with Calexico. Kevin Johansen played La Linea previously as support, this time he’s headlining his own Jazz Café show alongside a mouth-accordion playing newspaper cartoonist with an overhead projector as La Linea once again proves that there’s more to Latin music than maracas and salsa dance classes.

To fine out more about it, and book your tickets for some of the best Latino music on the planet today, visit their site here.

And if you’re lucky enough to be going along, please let us know all about it by dropping in with a reply below.

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Banter at the Bar, Cocktails, Food & Drink, Uncategorized, Wahacos

The Mystery of Mezcal

You might have heard the news about the opening of our brand spanking new cocktail and Mezcal bar in Canary Wharf which is already serving a fantastic range of tongue tingling cocktails to the good people of Canada Square. You might even have read our post with a little background information about the “Elixir of the Gods” that is Mezcal. But we thought we’d share this beautiful film produced by the Oaxaca State Government, which brings to life all of the passion that has been bottled up in the production of this mysterious spirit for generations.

We’re always keen to hear from you, so please let us know if you have any Mezcal stories, or any favourite Mezcal cocktails by commenting below.

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

Tommi Thanks You

We’ve had a great response to Tommi’s request for your Mexican recipes to go into her new book, Mexican Food Made Simple, and we are now closed for entries.

We’ve spent the last month collecting together your wild, wonderful and occasionally mind blowing recipe suggestions, so there’s lots of deliberation, cogitation and digestion to be done before we make our final choice of whose recipe will be published for the world see.

Watch this space for more from the British Chilli Revolution soon.

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Events at Wahaca, History & Heritage, Uncategorized, Wahacos, What's Happening

Moctezuma, Aztec Ruler

The British Museum opens the doors on September 24th for its final exhibition in the series on great leaders with an exhibition on Moctezuma the Aztec Ruler. For more information on the exhibition check out OLA London coming out in October with an interview between Ignacio Duran (cultural minister for Mexico in UK) and Colin McEwan (the curator).

Wahaca is really excited to be part of it with Tommi (our Executive chef) holding a demonstration and introduction to Mexican cooking, as well as a discussion with Fay Maschler of the Evening Standard. 

For more information on the talk on Mexican food with Tommi and Fay Maschler click here  and for Tommi’s demonstration and introduction to Mexican food on the 28th November click here.

Wahaca customers also get a £2 discount off their tickets – pick up a card in one of our restaurants which will explain how to redeem this (subject to availability).

Tickets are on sale – visit the British Museum’s website at www.britishmuseum.org or call the ticket line  on +44 (0)20 7323 8181.

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Street Art, Uncategorized, What's Happening

Graffiti Canary Wharf – Heat 4

We’ve been delighted with the amount of votes so far. Please keep up the good work! Here’s the 4th heat in the contest, so please have a look and let us know who you think would be best to decorate our new restaurant in Canary Wharf. There will be a final set of artists uploaded tomorrow, so keep checking back to have your say on who goes into the final 10, from which 1 lucky winner will be chosen by the Wahaca Team.

25. Brian Masters

As a boy, I said to my father I want to be a painter. What I meant was an artist, but father got me a job as a painter/decorator. My true passion though is to create art. I am inspired to capture the essences of people’s souls and have developed my own style which some might describe as flamboyant. I am completely self-taught. My vision for the walls of Wahaca would be to showcase the passionate people of Mexico – eating, dancing, cooking in the markets and the streets – all thoroughly enjoying life to create a feeling of warmth and wellbeing.

26. Mike Newton

I was basically sick to death of walking around and seeing so many boarded up houses which i felt were an eye sore and in some ways depressing so i decided to tackle this by bringing life back to those houses with a mix of street art and photography. I would describe my work as environmental activism!

27. Miss Bonnita

I believe that my art is perfect for Wahaca!!

I am a experienced street artist and I also have the skills and experience as i have  worked with interior decorators on massive hand painted wall installations..  No space is too big.

I am also passionate about colour and design. I believe that public art has a responsibility to lift the soul and create a sense of happiness and in return vibrate that energy towards the viewer so that they can feeling positively enhanced.

28. Ministery of Design

I’m a qualified French artist from Paris and i’ve been painting on the wall since 90’s. My style is a mixture of street art, aerosol bombs, stencils and collages. I also paint canvases for a gallery in Paris. My influcenes are the fashion, electronic music, contemporay art and a lot of streets artists and graphists (Blek, Futura, José Parla, Kaws, Brainwash, Faile, Beejoir, Invader, Obey, M/M, Mode 2, Frost, Jr, Micallef and Banksy). I am the creator of the french brand MS Wear (graphic tee shirts, www.mswear.fr <blocked::http://www.mswear.fr/> ) and i’m the artisitic director of the shop Ministry Of Design Paris. I like to mix the pastels colours with the flashy. I think art is a color in the life. The Street art is The Life !

29. Octopus Ink

This is Octopus Ink from the famous Monorex collective

30. Conzo

Conza from the famous Monorex collective.

31. Alfa

Alpha, from the famous Monorex collective

32. Mu Dae

I work as a textile visual artist in London, basically I draw words and images with different materials and textile fabrics, sometimes I embroider on my art. I am very much influenced by pop art, street art and equally traditional craft art in the world, and also poetry writing is a huge part in my creative process.

33. Claroscuro

Claroscuro is a duo of two artists.  One coming from a background of fine arts and the other with a background in Graffiti.  The symbiosis of these two mediums is created with the objective of using art as a social and communicative tool.  Claroscuro has left murals and posters around Europe as well as participating in gallery shows and exhibiting in Barcelona London and New York.  Claroscuro would be honored to get busy on the commission for wahaca and would prepare something freeessshhh.”

34. Patricia Pisanelli

I like the idea of a square comprising lots of rectangles and a circle where people put their clothes in. I also like the idea of a woman swimming in purple, jelly-like liquid that could smell of flowers and sugar, and that is just another product on the shelf of the off license. One thing becomes another that refers to something else that had nothing to do with it. This big play with reality is what I’m interested in.

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