Speciality-Food-Magazine-JanuaryFebruary2025

39 LAST WORDS The final word on fine food CHIMMY’S SMOKY BBQ CHIMICHURRI Anything that offers a shortcut to extraordinary flavour swiftly becomes a go-to in my kitchen, and this sauce has truly become a storecupboard staple. Chimichurri is probably best known as a punchy sauce for steak, but since discovering this – my first foray into pre- prepared chimichurris – I’ve found it has a lot of other uses, as well. It’s super tasty simply added to great quality olive oil for a dressing for all sorts of salads, and partnered with grilled halloumi it’s a real eye (and taste bud) opener. chimmys.com BEMUSE POMONA MEAD Mead has a reputation for being heavy in terms of both flavour and alcohol content, not to mention a bit ‘rustic’, but Bemuse knocks all of these stereotypes on the head. Elegant, refreshing and a novel alternative to sparkling wine, everything in Bemuse’s range of effervescent honey wines is well worth experiencing, but the Pomona variety, with its warming notes of ginger, cardamom and orange peel, is my personal favourite. bemusedrinks.com BE TRUFFLE TRUFFLE PONZU SAUCE We’ve been drizzling this sauce over everything with glorious abandon since the bottle landed in our kitchen. Riffing off a classic Asian ponzu dipping sauce, it’s citrussy without being too sharp, and lingers with the aromatic, luxurious earthiness of truffle. There are so many ways to use it. As a classic dip for snacks such as spring rolls or sweetcorn fritters, as a drizzle over bowls of ramen, and sprinkled over sushi rice to bring added interest to poke and buddha bowls. We thought it was absolutely delicious as a dressing for smoked salmon and trout, finished with a few toasted sesame seeds. betruffle.com PARTNER CONTENT THE INDEPENDENT SHOPPER our sandwiches from St. Bride’s Poultry, who have also be a pleasure to work with. Hobz’s mantra has always been about simplicity in our bakes. We haven’t always held true to this, and sometimes we overcomplicate pastries. It’s not so easy to remove elements we’ve worked on, subtraction is vital if we’re to remain relevant. All our fruit and veg comes from the incredible folk at Phantassie farm in East Lothian. We take advantage of berry season in summer and use a lot of strawberries, blackberries, raspberries and cherries. We usually use them as is, without any manipulation, in our pastries. We currently have a danish on the menu that’s caramelised with a bit of demerara sugar, baked with some custard, and then topped with a cherry compote and a dollop of whipped H obz is right at the foot of Leith Walk in Edinburgh, a spot that’s quickly becoming the most exciting spot for food in the city. Our baking takes a classic approach to bread and viennoiserie, but adds in lots of inspiration from southern Europe and the Mediterranean, where I was raised, and is also inspired by the marvellous simplicity of Danish baking. At our heart however we are still a Scottish bakery, in that we try to source as much as possible from the Lothians and the rest of Scotland. All our flour is made from British wheat grown through regenerative or organic methods, and we especially love to use Scotland the Bread grain from the Balcaskie Estate in Fife, which we mill in house. Beef and pork is not often used in bakeries, but we love to occasionally source the best produce from the Butchery at Bowhouse, also on the Balcaskie Estate. We’ve recently started getting in chickens for MatthewMallia, owner of Hobz Bakery TRIED & TESTED specialityfoodmagazine.com cream fromMossgiel Farm in Ayrshire. We use their whole milk in our coffees, and the difference between their dairy products and the run of the mill stuff is extraordinary. Most bakeries struggle with waste. If you want to get perfect laminated pastries, you have to trim away at the edges. A lot of bakeries, including ourselves, add some of this trim to the next day’s croissant dough for flavour. We also use some of the off cuts from our final shaping to make our Panela Sugar Bun, which is basically croissant dough bits mixed with Panela Cane Sugar and baked in a tin. The outside is super crunchy and caramelised, and the inside is almost like a soft, sweet brioche. Our current goal is to forge more relationships with local farmers who would be willing to trade grain directly with us that we can mill in house. In the future, we’d love to be in a position where we can purchase a larger mill and mill all the flour we use in-house. The smallholder grain network in Scotland isn’t as strong as elsewhere in the UK, I think, and forging these connections is proving a bit difficult. If any of you reading this have some spare grain, give us a shout! We’d love to get it off your hands! THINK REGIONAL Treat provenance-seeking shoppers to a taste of true Italy R eel off the desires of fine food consumers and provenance is sure to one of the first words mentioned. From the connection to the land that hyper local products offer to the associations shoppers have with certain regions of the country, provenance is a tool that all fine food retailers are all well versed in using. By now we can all comfortably and comfortably reel off the attributes of, say, the cheeses hailing from a certain area of Britain and why they’re worth spending more money on than generic alternatives with no discernable heritage, but how well can we replicate this when it comes to Italian food and drink? As much as Italian food has a reputation and traditions that spell out tradition and great taste, not all food and drink is made equally – even in a country as food-centric as Italy – so it’s important to know what to look out for. Of course, items with Protected Designation of Origin and other certifications are an invaluable guide. If you’re looking for the best of any given item, look for the PDO/PGI sticker and you can be confident that you’re stocking the version that is truest to type and tradition. Prosciutto di Parma PDO, Gorgonzola PDO and Parmigiano Reggiano PDO are probably the best-known examples, but look further afield to the likes of Pane di Altamura – an all-too-rare PDO bread from Puglia – and Salama da Sugo – a spiced sausage from Emilia Romagna – to intrigue more adventurous palates. Storytelling is a key skill of the fine food seller, so whenever you bring in a product from Italy be sure to paint a picture to whet the appetites of your customers. The country revels in foods that have been expertly produced by generations of the same family, and that’s exactly the kind of tale that fine food shoppers are seeking, so look for the products with gourmet tales to tell and you have a built-in selling tool to add to your arsenal. We try to source as much as possible from the Lothians and the rest of Scotland