Coming home, that’s how it feels stepping onto the sand of the staff beach as we get off the boat..
This island is paradise on earth and coming back feels so right, leaving 18 months ago there have been a few
changes, but with familiar faces it’s great to see some old friends. After the volcano saga we finally stepped onto the island on Monday 26th April, we settled in and had a day to rest.
It was Wednesday morning 7am back into the kitchen, things have changed, the place has had a well needed refurbishment and looking very welcome indeed, can’t wait to get stuck in.
Not knowing where to start and so much to do, a very full 11 days have passed since then, it has been 16 hour days, everyday and we really are flying there is so much already to put into this blog.
I am going to start the updates on a daily basis now, our kitchen compliment went from 15 to 12 within 48 hours of my arrival, it seems like we are going to be needing more staff then I originally thought, so any chefs out there drop me a line if you want to be in a kitchen that is going to earn a huge reputation this year.
In the first 24 hours I started taking steps to cementing our updated Food Philosophy, Exec Sous and I took a couple of buckets and headed down to the sea, we collected 24 litres of sea water and brought it back to the kitchen, passed through muslin and passed again into a boiling pot to start production of our own Indian Ocean Sea Salt. This is our starting point, our first little experiment and it has proved fantastic so far. The SALT is one of the elements which will be included in our unique food we are creating here. From the 24 litres, we managed to achieve a yield of 400gms, we tasted through the process and the taste profile was amazing changing along the way, we are going to be use the salt in so many different forms, before it completely dries and dehydrates it is a very subtle light flavour, getting sharper and slightly sweet before the final product is achieved.
We are now in the process of building a boiling pot and trough so we can make at least 1 -2 kg a day, we are going to use this in our curing, in all of our food for seasoning, even the spa are now after it from us for their scrubs, in this week we are going to refine the process and looking into flavouring the salt in the cooking process before drying..
There is far too much to write here on what has happened so far but I am going to be updating on a regular basis, we are building a state of the art new kitchen, changing and updating all the standards, the food philosophy is written and will become apparent over the next couple of posts. We are in the garden again, a trial hydroponics bed arrives in the next couple of weeks, the new updated smoker is being built now, the new dehydrator for fruits and also to make our salt beds is in the process as well, so much to tell you about, just not enough time..
1 comment:
It all sounds great and so exciting except: why go hydroponic when you're doing so much else to utilize the flavors of the land? Harvest directly from the soil - use the kitchen debris to make lush compost and add that to the garden, vermiculture is a super fast and clean way to do that, but they all work and the flavors are a radical improvement over the soul-less chemical baths of hydoponics.
Even if organic hydopon. are used, the solutions are not from your island and can't possibly infuse soul into the food. Just something to think about while you can still course correct. Good Luck! Sounds like a dream project.
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