There are three great things about this book; the author, the recipes and well, the book itself. Thomas Keller is without doubt one of the best chefs in the world, appearing consistently in the Top 5 with his flagship, The French Laundry. What surprises you is that he has no angry places, he is very calm and above all a really decent person. The kitchen at The French Laundry is a place of tranquil creativity which delivers amazing food again and again.

The recipes in this book may be difficult to reproduce in the home kitchen unless you have access to vacuum packing and high accuracy water baths. Don’t let this deter you though as the explanations, combinations and preparation are key elements in taking cooking skills up a few steps. Whilst some of the recipes may look daunting, it is the manner in which they come across which allows you to take this book as an idea generator. A lot of why questions are answered and understanding how a large variety of stocks and base ingredients are made is very valuable information.

As a book, this is a fairly heavy tome which would probably be used more for research and browsing. It has a great feel and to be honest, is very inspirational. There is a lot of writing about suppliers, the relationships with these people and where great  ingredients come from.  If you have a favourite food fan, this would be a ‘wow’ read for them.

Available from Amazon – Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide

When the British Cheese Board asks a question such as what is your favourite cheese, they will get a very biased answer from us. Of course, this is going to be The Staffordshire. This cheese recently won protected designation of origin (PDO) from the European Union. According to their website the cheese is made from a rediscovered monastic recipe and can only be produced from milk from cows kept on Staffordshire farms.

One of our first jobs when opening the restaurant was to go out and visit potential suppliers. We took the long journey through the back roads of the Staffordshire moorlands to just outside of Leek. This is where Leek Brewery and Staffordshire Cheese Company are based. The cheese is made by hand on the premises and it’s quite a surprising thing to see this done on a reasonably small scale.

We use their cheese not only on our cheeseboard, but as an active ingredient in some of our other dishes. We’ve made a foam for one of our soups using The Staffordshire, as an ingredient in one of our vegetarian friendly dishes as well as on the cheeseboard. It’s a very versatile hard white cows cheese and will fit most roles that a good cheese should.

Given that Britain has had a resurgence in great cheeses, it is especially wonderful to see something so local and made with such care. The time and dedication it took to obtain their protected designation of origin was probably something they would not have done with hind sight. In common with a couple of other Staffordshire finds, this was down to the monks.

They certainly knew a lot about bugs, those monks, oh and of course beer …

Despite having Scottish heritage, today story is not about kind of freedom you’d expect from William Wallace. The Glens are safe in the Borders are free from the English invaders. This is more about one of our favourite subjects, beer. This all started when a posh car turned up at the end of our drive. Out steps a pretty blonde lady,  who walks up to a post box and delivers six bottles of beer. I did check, I was awake, this was not a dream. Someone had delivered free beer and that someone was Susan Mayman from Freedom Brewery.

Freedom Brewery is based in Abbots Bromley, only a couple of miles outside of Burotn itself. The brewery is situated down a very long single lane track in the middle of a small unit on a farm. They produce only four beer; a pilsner, a lager a dark lager in the latest vision Freedom Four. We stock the first three of these in bottles and they have proved to be rather popular. The history of freedom is based on two young entrepreneurs turning round a niche brewery business into something quite exceptional. The beer is extremely good quality, organic and even has vegan and vegetarian certification as it doesn’t use isinglass in the brewing process, which is created from the swim bladder of a fish. Freedom can be found at many places in and around Staffordshire and quite surprisingly in the departure lounge at Birmingham airport. One of the reasons we enjoy having Freedom at the restaurant is that this represents enthusiastic local produce at its best.

The Freedom Brewery Website

We are going to be asking some of the great people who supply 99 Station Street to share with us some of the unique story of their produce. First in the line up will be Steve Leighton who owns Hasbean near Stafford. Steve created our house blend for us on a Saturday morning over two years ago. We spent the morning with him going over various beans, smelling, tasting, cappucinos and espressos. Eventually we came up with a blend that we all liked and worked with the local water.

www.hasbean.co.uk

But first a cautionary tale about coffee:

“Like all good things in life, the drinking of coffee may be abused.
Indeed, those having an idiosyncratic susceptibility to alkaloids should
be temperate in the use of tea, coffee, or cocoa. In every
high-tensioned country there is likely to be a small number of people
who, because of certain individual characteristics, can not drink coffee
at all. These belong to the abnormal minority of the human family. Some
people can not eat strawberries; but that would not be a valid reason
for a general condemnation of strawberries. One may be poisoned, says
Thomas A. Edison, from too much food. Horace Fletcher was certain that
over-feeding causes all our ills. Over-indulgence in meat is likely to
spell trouble for the strongest of us. Coffee is, perhaps, less often
abused than wrongly accused. It all depends. A little more tolerance!”

All About Coffee, by William H. Ukers, 1922

A bold statement you would think? Burton is indeed only a few miles away from the dead centre of England (a farm near Fenny Drayton), so that’s one part of the claim held up. Another is the nations most popular tipple on a night out, Carling Lager. This is produced at the Coors Brewery on Station Street in Burton and apart from Bass and Marston’s Pedigree, one of our most famous exports.

Although Burton is as far from sea water as is possible in England, it is only a few hundred yards from the water that started the tradition of brewing in the town. No, not the river Trent, but deep welled water, with high level of gypsum. To create the same flavour of beer anywhere else, the water needs to be “Burtonised”, by addition of sulphates which bring out the flavour of the hops used for bitter.

This is a great tradition, which was brought back to life after over 300 years of the method ceasing to be used. West Country Farmhouse Cheddar on it’s own is a very distinct product which carries EU Protected Designation of Origin (PDO). To gain certification, which can take a couple of years, the product must be “produced, processed and prepared within a particular geographical area, and with features and characteristics which must be due to the geographical area.”. Ford Farm does all of these things in addition to being the only producer in the UK who cave ages the cheese.

Wookey Hole Caves - Aged cheddar

The cheese is wrapped in cloth and stored at the steady temperature of 11 degrees centigrade with a humidity of 100%. This is as close to perfection in conditions for optimal aging of the cheese. Sometimes, it is quoted as between 12 and 14 degrees, but the slightly lower temperature allows for a slower aging and the development of richer flavour. The legal requirement is that West Country farmhouse cheddar has to be matured for a minimum of nine months after being removed from it’s mould.

Currently, this is one of fourteen cheese that have EU protected names in the UK, four of which are local to our own area. The craft of cheesemaking has seen a resurgence and the passion that is put into the produce is commendable with very tasty results.

We have bought coffee direct from Steve Leighton and his team for home use and went to see what he could do for us when we opened 99 Station Street. What followed was a fascinating day at his roastery just outside of Stafford. A large part of this was tasting various coffee beans and then mixing these until we came up with a blend that tasted great.

Steve visits as many of his supplying farmers as he can each year and takes away a lot of the mystery surrounding who made the coffee and where it really comes from. He checks that not only is the coffee of the highest standard, but that the farmers are paid a higher price for excellent produce and that welfare is paramount. What Hasbean leave behind are proud farmers who grow some of the best coffee in the world.

www.hasbean.co.uk

Our first Local Food Hero has been very active in helping us source great seasonal produce and are always there at the end of the phone when we ring through with a last minute and often, daft request. Ian, Will, John and Keith are always on hand to advise us on what is available and to bring us one step closer to the farmers who supply them. Their meat is second to none, probably as a result of it being reared within a close few miles of where they are.

Don’t take our word for it, this is a  great family butcher, with very knowledgable and friendly staff, but expect a certain amount of lip and banter from Will

Ian Barker, Family Butcher, Chapel Lane, Rolleston on Dove, Staffordshire, DE13 9AG. 01283 812145