Food Diary #1
First of all, we should really introduce ourselves. We are Meli, Vasi and Lucy, one happy couple plus a hot sauce-addicted neighbour along for the ride. Steamy & Co, also known in its previous incarnation as Food Factory Project, has been around since 2016 - in other words, our baos and gyozas have been doing the rounds and making Londoners happy for a good while. Now that we’re in the business of selling the hot sauce and chilli oil we’ve been making to serve with the food at our Mercato stand, we want to match the branching-out business with a branched-out presence. So far, we’re delighted to see so many people sharing our taste in street food and condiments and we hope you share our curiosities and passions too, which is why we’ll be putting those out there a whole lot more from now on.
We thought it would be fun to share our food diaries for weeks that offer up significant eating and cooking. All three of us are sure to ask what food’s been had, and what food is coming up, within just a few minutes of almost any conversation. We can’t possibly be the only ones! At least if we are, we’re in happy company.
In the week leading up to our street food reopening, we gorged on fresh fish and seafood in Suffolk and enjoyed a very refined French dinner to celebrate Vasi’s birthday. After that, it was drilling the menu, meaning that many baos were harmed in the making of this blog post. Join us in the comments if this gives you any food for thought!
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May 8th, just over a week until our street food Steamy & Co reopens, and we're in need of some wide open spaces. We've worn holes in our shoes pacing circles around Bermondsey while laying out plans together over the past few months, dreaming small and big, but for now we need to breathe a little deeper.
We drive up to Aldeburgh, Suffolk in pouring rain with a quick breakfast stop in the Tiptree Jam Factory tea rooms to break the drive. OK, it wasn’t so quick - we each had a full english and scones with cream and jam. Fun fact, this is where Lucy learned to drive 10 years ago!
When we park up at Aldeburgh beach the wet wind blows at us from all directions, and the sea is an angry greige force slapping the beach. Training our eyes on a distant horizon feels like therapy though, and we realise how long it's been since we last looked at distances further than across our beloved Thames. A quick stagger to the fish and seafood huts on the beach yields dressed crab, truly gigantic seabass fillets, smoked prawns and cod's roe.
A couple of hours later, we're warm and dry indoors with Adnams beers poured and are loading up thick slices of Two Magpies rye bread with yuzu kosho butter* (certifiable #VasiMagic), dressed crab, mayo and Original Hot Sauce. We're dipping smoked prawns into yet more hot sauce and there's a bowl filled to the brim with creamy taramasalata, Meli and Lucy’s absolute favourite.
The next day, some more #VasiMagic materialises when we crack out the enormous seabass fillets: the thick parts end up as a crudo topped with a dressing based on yuzu kosho, olive oil from Lazio and distilled soy sauce. It's impossible to evoke that dish in words. Our closest attempt is 'buttery and fresh', but honestly how cheesy and non-descriptive does that sound?! You’d think we were crazy if we said it tasted as though salt were a live animal, or like citrus trees growing out of liquidized seabed. Point being, this dish was so inspiring and came together in a five-minute impulse - that’s the meaning of #VasiMagic. We'd share the recipe, but there isn't one, sorry folks, just the freshest wild fish, native to the area, sliced thin and served with a delicious balanced dressing that's got it all in a Samin Nosrat salt fat acid heat kind of way. OK maybe still cheesy, but - had to be there, had to eat it.
When not in the kitchen over that long weekend, we were taking slow and lengthy phone-free walks on the beach, through the saltmarshes throwing up fragrant wild fennel and gorse, and along the scenic meanders of the river Alde. Thinking of more chefs we admire, we tried to be brave enough to nibble on the foliage René Redzepi style, but we’ve been known to numb our mouths for 48 hours trying this in the past. Better safe than sorry - we have eating to do.
The culinary highlights of the week continued on Tuesday 11th, Vasi's birthday, with a sunset table at Le Pont de la Tour, much closer to home. Champagne to start, of course, and classic tummy pleasers like confit duck, steak with béarnaise sauce and individual tarte tatins - we’re all Joeys. If you know you know.
This is 31.
To a great year ahead!
what a handsome chef.
The rest of the week serves up our REOPENING MENU!!!!!! Yes, we’re excited. We’re keeping what you love and adding even more!! We’re back on the baos, back on the ‘yozas, simmering the ramen stock, soy-ing the eggs, sriracha-ing the mayo and up to all sorts of culinary good back in Mercato Mayfair. Our coastal break has put the wind back in our sails for a long, busy, delightfully spicy summer of street food and Hot Stuff's launch.
The fishy and frenchy carbo-loading week was definitely what we needed. What have you needed?
À bientôt!
*well done if you scrolled down for the yuzu kosho butter recipe! We see you, we are you. It’s here.
Take 1 part yuzu kosho (we love this one from Sous Chef) to between 6 and 10 parts spreadable butter and beat it up. Taste as you go with that ratio, to get the best spiciness and colour for you. Bung it in the freezer for 15 minutes to get a bit harder, and we promise it will melt deliciousness into your steamed asparagus, add zing to your fish on toast, and pretty much liven up anything. While editing this we’re eating it on popcorn. If you use this particular product linked above, which is blackened with bamboo charcoal, you’ll get a very trendy pale dove grey butter which also looks fancy as f...
