Peach and pata negra salad
Back in London after a busy ’summer’ at the festivals and delighted to discover Heston’s latest discovery. He’s been in the lab again, toying with his favourite wine (what a proponent!) and has worked some things out that may never have occurred to the rest of us. It’s a ‘umami’ thing. I’ll attempt to explain – Heston and his science mentor, Professor Don Mottram, have found a group of compounds known as diketopiperazines (DKPs) in sherry. When paired with certain “umami-rich’ foods like cheese, meat and fish the idea is that it accentuates the flavour like nothing else.
So they’ve been busying away in that lab together in order to create the perfect combinations of DKP + umami = a taste sensation of complete and utter harmony, bar none.
When I found out about the event held at Shoreditch House on Monday night to unveil this magic I threw on my heels and hotfooted it over. It was all very exciting, ascending in the lift with a Master of Wine – like being escorted to the Pearly Gates by Mother Theresa, almost. In we swept to a sea of food and wine afficionados all eager to experience this taste nirvana. The place was abuzz with anticipation and when Heston took to the stage the room fell silent as we drank in this sacred knowledge.
“These are all dishes that can be made at home” he reassured us, “no need for the dessicator”. And he then tantalised us with promises of peach kernels, pata negra, rosewater coriander – all to be found reverberating off one another in both wine and food. All night long.
The trays came swooping round in no time. Dazzling identical glasses of pale, chilled manzanilla and accompanied by crab with paprika on toast. It was like some kind of Willie Wonka wonder: the manzanilla spoke of the crab and the crab spoke back. Food in mouth, wine in tastebuds, aromas bouncing around and then circling back to this melifluous moment. I dug it and was eager for the waiter to return with the next pairing.
This came in the form of a really good, clean fino matched with magic on toast. It was actually gruyere melted with cloves. And it was phenomenal. The cloves rounded out the cheese which was sliced through beautifully by the fino. Heston would say it was to do with the presence of eugenol in the sherry that is also a key molecule in cloves. I just really loved it and will dream about it for a long time to come.
On we sallied, enjoying amontillado with pata negra, peaches, almonds and balsamic, oloroso with good and then meaty smoked mackeral rilettes laced with coriander seed. A surprise hit came with the pale cream and Scotch quails eggs. Wow, que maravilla! Juicy packages of pork wrapped around soft boiled dainty little eggs. Everyone of us had at least three. We couldn’t get enough of the way the pale cream’s fruity aromas slunk along so nicely with the caramelised meat.
And then came the sweetness. Not that you really need sweetness by now as everything that had come thus far seemed to fulfill criteria for every kind of flavour combination. But we couldn’t ignore the tenacity of the Eccles cakes with stilton and sherry butter. Joder! Sweet, sticky dried fruit enveloped by the creamy acidity of the stilton – and with a cool cream to transform it.
The last spot belonged to the rosewater sherry trifle coupled with a PX. By this time we had had to carry ourselves up to the rooftop to regroup. And as our tastebuds reflected on their sensory safari, our eyes fell onto the magical view of the city by night, in turn reflecting back on us the magic of our sherry and omami-led evening.
