We rejoice the world’s greatest consolation meals by asking cooks and meals writers from various backgrounds to speak concerning the dishes they love.
The acclaimed chef talks about swapping a profession in music for one in meals and in addition shares a recipe from his native Lithuania.
See Tomas’s recipe for cepelinai (meat & potato dumplings).
Tomas’s favorite dish
At Turnips, chef Tomas Lidakevicius is difficult meals’s established hierarchy. “All my life, everybody’s gone loopy about meat and fish being the celebrities,” says the 34-year-old. “To be trustworthy, they are not.”
Reflecting this, his Borough Market restaurant – which is a collaboration with the specialist grocer and wholesaler whose premises and identify it shares – celebrates unimaginable seasonal greens utilizing: “Meat or fish because the garnish”. For instance, even in a dish of caviar-topped celeriac: “Celeriac is the star. Identical with the Jerusalem artichoke and buckwheat dish with lamb on the facet. The menu is 80% greens. I’ve realized that I and different cooks had been mistaken.”
Given the meat-heavy weight loss plan Tomas grew up on in Lithuania and his 15 years in prime London kitchens, this veg-forward conversion is radical. However Tomas has by no means been afraid to strike out in daring new instructions.
Aged 18, the then-named MC Thomukas was each enrolled in chef’s college, to placate his anxious dad and mom, and a rising star on Lithuania’s music scene with the band 8’as Maršrutas (whose members included Lithuania’s 2022 Eurovision competitor, Monika Liu). But simply because the band’s debut album, 13, was launched, Tomas took the ‘spontaneous’ determination to ditch music and head to London to prepare dinner.
Hip-hop’s loss was the restaurant world’s achieve as Tomas: “Fell in love with superb eating.” In meals phrases, it pitched him into a really totally different setting to the one he was raised in: “The 90s noticed enormous change in Lithuania. Not lengthy after [independence from the Soviet Union in 1990] large supermarkets and different firms got here in.”
However the Soviet-era really feel carried on some time after it formally ended. For a time, households would get a set quantity of tickets every month for issues like milk, bread or sausages.
“Till I used to be seven, I’d by no means seen pineapples or mangos. Meals was super-local. Biscuits and sweets had been Russian or Baltic. On the most, you would possibly get just a little packet of Pringles in your birthday.
“I grew up in Klaipėda, a port metropolis with an iconic meals market. Looking, foraging and growing-your-own was large, too. Lithuania has a tradition of fermenting and pickling as a result of we had the house, and wanted to see ourselves by winter. Exterior cities individuals grew every thing of their gardens. That’s the way you survived. You couldn’t exit and purchase it.
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“My grandad would forage for ceps and girolles and, in season, mum and grandma would smash by pears, strawberries or something they may get to make preserves.
“At dwelling, mealtimes had been free and straightforward. We lived in these five-storey blocks the place, in summer time, there’d be 30 youngsters exterior taking part in soccer or basketball. By 8pm, you’d hear mum calling me and my youthful brother: ‘Tom! Lukas! Come eat!’
“Me and my brother had been large boys and like dad, who was a fireman, we ate lots. Mum cooked lots of meat for us, typically pork. We’d purchase a complete pig, break up it with the neighbours, and mum would make a terrine from the ears, nostril and trotters. We’d eat it with horseradish and boiled potatoes.
“Cepelinai is Lithuania’s nationwide dish. They’re super-heavy (two with a beer and you’ll’t stroll!), however superb. And even higher the following day, halved, pan-fried and all crunchy.
“Making cepelinai is lots of work. We’d make them for large celebrations. You begin by finely grating potatoes; my dad and mom dwell in London now however nonetheless have our Soviet-era grinder. Mum could be mixing every thing whereas large pans boiled on the range, as myself and pa pressed the potatoes and Lukas portioned out meat.
“My curiosity in meals began early. I used to be at all times within the kitchen. Mum labored from dwelling as a seamstress and, round eight, I might make desserts or sandwiches for purchasers who got here round for measurements. That’s why, when my dad and mom realised
“I wasn’t going to be a physician or solicitor, they tried to place me in cooks’ college. They stated ‘look, you understand how to do it.’ They noticed one thing in me.”
5 key Lithuanian substances
Potatoes
“We’d have them 5 instances every week: mashed, roasted, boiled, as rösti or fries. Like cepelinai, kugelis pudding is made with grated potatoes however oven-baked with eggs, rooster legs or pigs’ trotters. Lithuanians realized to do heaps with potatoes.”
Smelt
“We eat smelt through the winter ice-fishing season. It’s a tiny fish which you prepare dinner entire with the top on, pan-fried as a snack. Recent, they scent like cucumber.”
Pork
“Lithuanians use the entire animal in dried meats and salamis. The fridge may very well be full but when there wasn’t any ham, mum would say, ‘we’ve nothing to eat’. As youngsters, we’d take a bit of rye bread and prime it with soured cream, uncooked onion and smoked meat to have as a snack whereas we watched telly.”
Cottage cheese
“In Lithuania, cottage cheese curds are thicker and drier. My brother and I might have it for breakfast with fruit in summer time. Then cottage cheese merchandise got here in flavoured with strawberries or chocolate. In Japanese European outlets, you should purchase cottage cheese snack bars.”
Horseradish
“As a child, I don’t bear in mind chillies. Horseradish was the spice. Mum would grate it contemporary with soured cream and maintain it within the fridge to eat with smoked meats or to make mash.”
