Wahaca

What's Happening > Events at Wahaca > Food & Drink > 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!

What's Happening > Events at Wahaca > News > News > Our News > What's Happening

Little Chilli Give Away – The Results!

We hope your little chilli pots have survived the cold Christmas and you have a nice little chilli plant growing! Its time to come and show us how you’re doing, perhaps get some advice or share notes with the team at Canary Wharf Wahaca, who have been growing their own plants too.

Visit us this January with your pot and enjoy a free Guacamole & Tortilla Chips from us. If you missed out on the chilli pots do not worry! Pop into Wahaca and we will give you some of our Serrano chilli seeds and some tips on how to grow them.

Bring some heat and spice into your life over the cold months at Wahaca!

(This is only available to those who received a Little Chilli Give Away Pot, the free Guacamole & Tortilla chips are to be enjoyed in the restaurant alongside a meal and only at the Canary Wharf Wahaca restaurant).

What's Happening > Events at Wahaca > Food & Drink > Food & Drink > Food Topics & Trends > Food & Drink > Pairings > What's Happening

A Mexican wine evening

On Wednesday night Bibendum Wines & Wahaca got together a group of wine experts for a food and wine pairing with Thomasina Miers of Wahaca and Hugo D’Acosta – a Mexican wine pioneer.

Mexican wine to most people is a new discovery and for me it was an incredibly enjoyable one. I am not a “wino” at all and whether a bottle is good is measured by me wanting another glass or not but I found it very interesting to match it with food and enjoyed combining the flavours.

I am also very interested in anything mexican (obviously!) and the whole history of wine and the culture around it I found fascinating.

Hugo gave Wahaca a book on The Wine Valleys of Mexico which are based in Baja California – a very beautiful dramatic region of Mexico just near the border to the US. I am actually planning to go there in February so will definitely have a lot more to say and show on it while out there.

This book gives a little history of the origin of Wine in Mexico with it starting back in the 16th Century when the vines were brought over by the Spaniards and renewed themselves – achieving their own personality and essence. But some grapes did actually already exist in Mexico before the Spaniards arrived – a wild or Cimarron grape from which a juice was extracted and which the Aztecs mixed with honey and fruits to make a beverage called acachul which can still be found in Mexico using the traditional recipe. These grapes were not able to be made into wine though so the Spaniards quickly planted the European grapes Vitis vinifera and due to unbeatable conditions the vines were to be found in many different regions.

By 1595, the enormous production of grapes in Mexico became a big problem for the Spanish winemakers and also the owners and managers of the merchant fleets in Cadiz saw their wine producing business diminish so pressure was put on the King to pass a law which forbade more vines to be planted in Mexico. Many vineyards were burnt down as well.

This led later on in 1848 to Baja California being the centre for wine growing in Mexico as it was at this time not part of Mexico due to the war between the USA and Mexico and therefore enabled the missionaries to plant their vines without the threat of the law.

Can’t wait to find out more about this when I meet up with Hugo in Baja in a months time.

The wine experts at Bibendum have written a more detailed tasting blog on the wines which has got a couple of awesome videos in it as well.

It was a really great evening with Tommi creating dishes such as this delicous fresh ceviche and Hugo providing a wonderful selection of interesting and enjoyable wines.

To taste a very good example of Mexican wines come to Wahaca where Estacion Porvenir is served at the moment which is the only one of these wines available in the UK at the moment.

Here is the menu for the evening – we hope to see many of these wines over in the UK soon.

Guacamole and Tortilla Chips

Emblema 2008

~

Scallops ceviche with tortilla chips

Piedra de Sol 2008

~

Tostada

Black Bean

Herring

Kerubiel 2007

~

Tacos

Mole Taco

Steak Taco w. cheese

Estacion Porvenir 2007

~

Huitlacoche Quesadilla

Chorizo cheese Quesadilla

Ensamble Arenal 2007

~

Churros

Maat 2007

If you want to read more about Mexican wine have a look at these great posts:

Bibendum’s Mexican Wine Night at Wahaca
Mexico’s Valley of Wine
A Toast to Mexico’s Undiscovered Wine Country
Trailblazers named Mexican Wine Persons of the Year

What's Happening > Events at Wahaca > News > News > Our News > Wahacos > What's Happening

Mariah Carey to turn on the Christmas lights at Westfield

On Thursday (19th), global superstar Mariah Carey will be coming to Westfield to switch on the Christmas lights. As if that’s not enough to entice you down to Westfield, there’s going to be pyrotechnics, VIP carpets, and butterfly confetti, all on the Southern Terrace!

Mariah’s due to arrive at 6pm, and will later be holding a special signing of her new album Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel.

It may be quite cold on Thursday night, so remember to wrap up and of course pop into Wahaca for some warming food before or after the fun!

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

A few of our favourite Day of the Dead recipes

Day of the Dead Cocktail

For Day of the Dead, we got Sami our barman to dream up a delicious Day of the Dead cocktail which is so good we’ve given it a permanent place on the menu.

In a cocktail shaker add:

35ml of aged 100% agave tequila

80ml of fresh pineapple juice

and the juice of half a lime

Shake vigorously and pour into a tall glass filled with ice.

Carefully top with a good splash of red wine and garnish with mint. (To get an eerie effect pour the wine in over the back of a table spoon so it sits on top).

Chorizo, pumpkin and thyme quesadillas

Quesadillas, crispy and oozing with melted cheese and anything else you fancy is always a winner.  The sweet flavour of pumpkin seems to go incredibly well with chorizo.  This very easy recipe will take very little time to put together and makes a delicious, relaxed dinner.  I like to eat it with a crisp Cos lettuce, sesame seed and avocado salad.

Enough for 4 large quesadillas

500g slice of pumpkin, peeled and cut into rough chunks

½ onion, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, chopped

200g chopped chorizo sausage meat

A small bunch of thyme, shredded

Olive oil

200g extra mature cheddar cheese, grated

200g grated mozzarella

4 large corn tortillas

Steam the pumpkin until tender, about 15-20 minutes.  Allow to cool, before dicing up into small pieces.  Cook the onion in a heavy-bottomed pan with the chorizo until the onion is soft and translucent and the chorizo has started to release its oil.  Add the garlic and cook for a further five minutes before adding the diced pumpkin and thyme.  Season to taste.

Spread the chorizo mix on one half of the tortilla and sprinkle with the cheese mix.  Fold the tortilla over so that you have a half moon. Brush it with a little olive oil (so the tortilla doesn’t stick to the pan) and place in hot, dry frying pan or griddle and cook until golden and crisp.

Cut into wedges and serve with a roast jalapeno salsa or fresh tomato salsa and sour cream.

What's Happening > Events at Wahaca > News > News > Our News > What's Happening

Day of the Dead comes to Wahaca

I hope you enjoyed our post on Day of the Dead and the history behind it. Wahaca has its own way of celebrating Day of the Dead – i hope you will come join in on Monday 2nd and Tuesday 3rd November at both Covent Garden and Westfield restaurants.

We have some fun and colourful decorations by artist Talulah who has made the most amazing crazy large skull masks, each individually painted. We think these may become a permanent fixture! Photos to follow….

We are also giving a shot of Gran Centenario Reposado tequila to all our customers from Monday through to Tuesday – hope you will all come make the most of this! The caramel, tropical fruit and spices of this tequila make it a wonderful treat to enjoy with your food.

Make sure you look out for the t-shirts designed by us especially for Day of the Dead that the team will be wearing and some of our favourite Day of the Dead recipes are on the way too!

What's Happening > Events at Wahaca > Food & Drink > News > News > Our News > What's Happening

Day of the Dead Celebrations

Any recipe that can lure a spirit back from the dead must be worth trying! So we thought we’d look at a few famous ideas from Mexico before we tell you what we’ll be doing next weekend.

Similar to many other countires, pumpkin is very popular in Mexico at this time of the year. Pumpkin slices are slowly simmered with Piloncillo (like Palm Sugar) and other spices to make “Candied Pumpkin”.

A special Bread of The Dead or Pan de Muerto is also cooked. This is a soft bread decorated with bone shapes or sometimes even moulded into the shape of skulls like the ones here from La Familia Brophy.

The most famous delicacy over DOTD is the Sugar Skull. Simply made by moulding sugar, water and meringue powder into skeletal shapes, these skulls are highly decorated and handed out for all to enjoy. We found some great examples captured by Glen on Flickr:

Of course, no Mexican celebration would be complete without tequila cocktails! Highly prized competitions are held every year to see who can invent the tastiest concoction, often prepared in the craziest of ways. Who knows what our fabulous bar staff will create this year!

Stay tuned to hear what we’ve got planned to celebrate Day of The Dead at Wahaca.

What's Happening > Events at Wahaca > News > What's Happening

Day of the Dead

Image from Paul and Jill on Flickr

Every year, on November 1st (All Saints Day) and 2nd (All Souls Day), something unique takes place in many areas of Mexico: Día de los Muertos or Day of the Dead. This eerie sounding festival is Mexico’s celebration for when dead relatives, both young and old, are allowed to return to the mortal world for two days. Spirits come down and walk among the living, sampling earthly treats and joining in the festival.

Its similar to our Halloween, however instead of scary goblins and blood curdling monsters, the Mexicans welcome back the spirits of their families with the delicious smell of food in the air, tasty candies decorated like skulls, and lighted candles to guide them home again. Day of the dead is symbolised by skulls and skeletons (the Nahua speaking peoples of pre-columbian Mexico saw the skull as a symbol of life – not death.) which appear in abundance around this time in both shops and homes. Families and friends will gather together at the gravestones of loved ones where they will tell stories remembering them and engage in sprucing up the gravesite, decorating it with flowers, setting out and enjoying a picnic whilst paying respects to the deceased whenever they arrive! The meals prepared for these picnics are sumptuous, usually featuring meat dishes in spicy sauces and chocolate beverages. Because of this warm social environment, the colorful setting, and the abundance of food, drink and good company, the festival continues to be one of the most important in the Mexican calendar and is warmly embraced around the world.

The original celebration can be traced to the many Mesoamerican native traditions such as the Aztec festival presided over by the “Lady of the Dead” which was dedicated to children and the dead. In the Aztec calendar, this ritual fell roughly at the end of the Gregorian month of July and the beginning of August, but after the Spanish failed to eradicate the tradition post conquering Mexico the Spanish priests moved the event so that it coincided with the Christian holiday of All Saints Day (Halloween) This was a vain effort to transform the observance from a non-religious event to a Christian celebration. The result is that Mexicans now celebrate the day of the dead during the first two days of November, rather than at the beginning of summer.

Mexicans do not fear death they recognize it, embrace it, mock it and even defy it through this tradition!

Watch this space for some of our special Day of the Dead recipes leading up to our celebrations for this festival.

What's Happening > Events at Wahaca > Food & Drink > News > News > Our News > News > What you say > What's Happening

Qype Autumn Menu Tasting

We invited Qype’s top reviewers to sample our new menu that we’ve put together for the cold months and this is what they thought, in bite sized chunks:

SMOKED HERRING TOSTADAS by Alex Sheppard

Photo by @kelsiemortimer on Flickr

The smoked herring tostada is something that I’d probably never have tried – I wouldn’t have thought fish and tacos would work well together. But I’m glad I did as it will be the main (but certainly not only) reason why I’ll be coming back to Wahaca. Not only is the fish MSC-certified and sourced from Hastings, they were delicious. The smokeyflavour stayed in the mouth long after they’d been eaten, but it wasn’t too overpowering. For me, they were the highlight of the evening.

PORK PIBIL TACOS by Almost Witty (Andrew Wong)

The pork pibils – from memory I think that was Johnny Depp’s dish of choice in Once Upon A Time In Mexico – and definitely the best. They dripped off the tongue as they should.

MUSHROOM AND HUITLACOCHE QUESADILLAS by Kate Matlock

The quesadillas…oh good golly… the crazy mushroom quesadilla that was creamy and gooey and unpronounceable. It’s a fungus (called huitlacoche) that grows on corn. Seriously. Can I just say it’s the best damn fungus I’ve ever tried because I will be back for more.

BLACK BEAN SOUP by Qyper ‘ShakinSwedens’

The black bean soup which was so full of surprises it almost deserves a review of it’s own. The bowl was filled with goodies like avocado and roasted chillies and then the black bean soup poured over by the waiter. Each mouthful was different with a burst of fresh coriander in one or the piquant chilli in another.

MOLE ENCHILADA by Jenny from The Red Mangetout

Photo by @tikichris for Qype on Flickr

The mole enchiladas initially looked like more black bean soup, except this time it was topped with crema and rice. Digging in, it became apparent that underneath the sauce lay an enchilada stuffed with tender chicken and vegetables. The mole sauce was rich and spicy, with a good hint of chocolate. This was one of the stand out dishes for me, and a good introduction to Mexican flavours, without being too scary for the British palate. My only regret was that by this point I was getting too full to manage more than a mouthful!

FISH A LA VERACRUZANA by Su-Lin from Tamarind and Thyme

Photo by @Kelsiemortimer on Flickr

The Fish a la Veracruzana was a large piece of pollack with tomatoes, olives and capers, all baked in a foil parcel. The perfectly cooked fish broke off easily into large moist flakes at the touch of a fork and its lightness was complemented perfectly by the freshness from the tomatoes. However, as well as rice, this was accompanied by a salad whose toppings I found a little too punchy and acidic for the delicate fish.

SEASONAL VEGETABLE BURRITO by Simon Doggett

Photo by Su-Lin on Flickr

The burrito caused a bit of a stir round the room with one particular controversial ingredient. The cabbage. Now, it’s a veggie burrito. Of course we expected veggies. But cabbage? Turns out this has been a bit of a talking point over the years between owners, chefs and us lot – it’s prevalent in a certain area of Mexico, but we really weren’t sure. Then again, those of them on the other side of the table were excited about something a bit different. I guess we’re waiting to see if it actually makes a reappearance! Before the tasting I was pretty clueless about ‘proper’ Mexican street food, and nine times out of ten would have plumped for the burrito option. But now, ya know, having been presented with the excitement beyond burritos, I’m not so sure about that.

WINTER BUERZA SALAD by Jess

Photo by @kelsiemortimer on Flickr

So perhaps I wouldn’t have normally ordered a dish like this at Wahaca. Firstly, it’s a salad, and secondly, it’s chocka with what might appear menu-wise to be too many ingredients, ending up as one confused salad amongst loads of hearty Mexicana goodness. But oh, what a revelation to have been fed this little beauty! It’s bursting with surprises – from the delicately deep fried anchochilli pieces giving the crunch to the fresh orange and pickled hibiscus over the feta and butternut squash, right down to the spelt hiding underneath it all.

BAJA CALIFORNIA TACOS by Mel fromTravels with My Fork

The absolute hit of the evening was next: a classic Baja-California Fish Taco – crispy fried fish with just the right kick of chipotle mayonaise served in a soft taco. I could have eaten a whole tray of these alone and am now contemplating throwing a fish taco party in the near future. High marks for this one.

CHURROS Y CHOCOLATE by Gail

When we reached the meal’s finale, a platter of golden churros arrived on the table – infuriatingly out of reach, initially. Once the people at the other end of the table realised that our conversation had died and we were all staring at them with intent – ok, at the churros – they surrendered them to us. Almost without a fight. Beautifully light cinnamon-dusted horseshoes of crisp batter, with a dribbly dark chocolate sauce – they were never going to last long. They’re better than any others I’ve tried, probably because they were obviously fresh and quickly fried. The perfect sharing dish for the end of the evening – as long as you get in fast, they won’t last long.

TEQUILA by Epicurienne

Photo by @kelsiemortimer on Flickr

Under Mark’s guidance, we tasted three tequilas from the Wahaca stable: a Blanco (white), served cold, a Reposado (rested) served at room temperature and an Añejo (aged), also served at room temperature, with a lovely, caramelly tang. As many will confide, I, too, have had the occasional clash with tequila, but the selection we enjoyed last night was an utterly different sensory experience to student union layback sessions in a vintage dentist’s chair. This was refined, smooth, flavoursome liquid, to be sipped and savoured, not consumed in one swallow. This was tequila for grown ups and it was better than good.

And… the last word from Qype Guru Tikichris who helped to set this all up

By inviting us twenty or so lucky Qypers along last Thursday for a sample of their new “cold months” menu at their stylish Westfield location, the good folks behind sensational Mexican street food restaurant Wahaca succeeded not only in delighting our appreciative taste buds and filling our bellies with more than ample amounts of their flavourful Latin dishes but in raising the bar for future Qype events as well. Really, I can’t even remember the last time I saw so much food laid out in front of me. That so much of it was incredibly delicious left me a bit dumbfounded (or was that the cumulative effect of all that lovely, free flowing Tequila Corralejo?)

Thank you Qype for making the evening so much fun, for providing so much valuable feedback and for all your kind words. And thanks for your great reviews which you can read in more depth here:

Tamarind and Thyme
Ravenous Libby
Epicurienne
Travels with My Fork
Qype Blog

What's Happening > Events at Wahaca > Food & Drink > Food & Drink > Food Topics & Trends > What's Happening

Tommi cooking at Aldeburgh Food Festival

I had a fine time at the Aldeburgh Food Festival the weekend before last.  The sun came out in all its glory (lovely for us punters, not so great for the farmers) and I had the fortune to discover the unfathomably delicious fruit cream ices made by Alder Tree.  These ice creams are so packed full of fruit like gooseberry and elderflower, rhubarb and ginger, and my favourite of all of them, the summer fruits, that they are not technically allowed to call themselves ice cream.  Hence the lovely old fashioned name fruit ices.  They seriously reminded me of my childhood…these ices are just like the ones my granny used to make using home grown fruits, cream, sugar and not much more.  Delicious.

I was at the Aldeburgh Food Festival demo-ing a few simple recipes using the glut of tomatoes that crop up towards the end of every September.  I had a great time making a chilli and tomato jam and fideus, a delectable noodle dish from Veracruz using some local Cromer crab but the real highlight was cooking with the Orford Primary School.  Thanks to the enthusiasm and passion of Louise Holland, Jamie Oliver’s manager, the Orford Primary School have a garden where they are taught about growing vegetables, and then how to cook them.  Mark Hix and I were sous-chefs to four jubilant kids who barely reached my tummy-button but were nonetheless showing a tent packed with people how to make pizza from scratch.  The morning was a total treat and inspiring to see how much children love to cook and eat vegetables when they are involved in the magic of how vegetables are planted and how they grow.  If only there were more projects like this up and down the country, kids would learn to love real food again, obesity levels would plummet and the NHS would heave a sigh of relief – wishful thinking maybe but surely not impossible?

« Older Entries