Harrison hits Borough Market

Thursday 03 December 2009

Last Friday our Company Executive Chef Mark Stower took a group of 12 Harrison chefs to Borough Market for a seasonal shopping and cooking exercise. The chefs came from a range of Harrison contracts and all were looking to benefit from Mark's huge experience of buying and preparing fresh ingredients. This is a regular training exercise which Mark uses not only to help chefs learn new skills in food preparation and cooking, but to show the chefs exactly what to look for when checking the quality of their daily meat, fish and fruit and vegetable deliveries.

After a good hour's searching, they settled on a range of fish, fruit, vegetables and mushrooms - and once that was done, the chefs teamed up in our kitchens at the University of London and got to work preparing a fabulous 3-course meal:

Asparagus, chanterelle and mixed leaf salad with parmesan shavings

Grey mullet and red mullet with saffron mash, confit of fennel and bouillabaisse sauce

Sicilian lemon and fig puddings with crème fraiche

After a busy, hot couple of hours in the kitchen the chefs were only too happy to tuck into the fruits of their labour - and I for one can only wish I had been there to join them! Many of them were inspired to take aspects of what they had learned back to their sites, and the following response from school chef Paul Hatch was typical of the enthusiasm for the event:

"The market itself was fantastic and seeing the wonderful produce - and how it was displayed - was very inspiring. It is easy to forget how wonderful food is when you are in your daily work mode! It also inspired me to try a few different options based around what I saw at the market: I am planning a theme day based around a ‘mini Borough Market' so the children can see how wonderful the ingredients we actually use can look, and try some more unusual foods. I also have a Governors' lunch this week, for which I am going to do a fish dish - with sea bream - based on the grey mullet dish we cooked at UoL."

Posted by Giles Cooper

«Back to Blog page