Our plant-forward adventure with Marcus Wareing Nicola Harper, Chef at 14forty

I recently joined my fellow chefs for our second workshop on the Forward with Marcus Wareing Programme. Part of our chef apprenticeships, the programme is designed by Marcus Wareing and our Culinary Director Ryan Holmes. It’s all about giving us hands-on experience of issues like sustainability in food and developing our leadership skills through mentoring.

Day One – The Ultimate Sticky Toffee Pudding

We started our day in Tottenham Stadium with Marcus Wareing for a recap of our last workshop together at the Ground Up Cookery School in Devon, where we focused on foraging and zero waste recipes.

To kick off the workshop we talked about plant-forward ideas. Plant-forward means we’re increasing the veg content of our dishes while decreasing the meat content, as well as putting plants in the spotlight, without compromising on flavour. It’s inspiring that we can help the planet by serving more plant-based food and this is one of the many innovations that will help us at Eurest and 14forty reach our target of achieving Net Zero by 2030.

Next, we moved on to a tasting demonstration with some food created by the chefs at HIT? Training, our apprenticeship training provider, including a plant-based 'Scotch Egg', roasted white chocolate ice cream with roasted chocolate nibs, sticky toffee pudding and jackfruit sliders.

The one dish that stuck in my mind was the sticky toffee pudding. It was completely plant-based and gluten free! I thought to myself, “This is the best sticky toffee pudding I have ever had; how can this be vegan?!” I want to recreate this as it’s one pudding to suit all, rather than making a separate vegan desert. Not only would it mean cutting down on animal proteins, but it could also reduce our food waste.

Next, we started talking about menu creation, asking “how can we write a menu that inspires interest in plant-based food? How can our menus be more inclusive? How can we intrigue our customers?” After all, people make choices based on flavour and how excited they feel about a dish.

Our Challenges – MasterChef Style

We were put in teams of three and tasked with our first challenge. In true MasterChef style we were given a plate with a mystery ingredient concealed beneath a tea towel. "Right then chefs, you now have 90 minutes to create and produce a dish with your ingredient," said Marcus. Our eyes lit up, we grabbed our knives, put on our aprons and headed into the kitchen.

My team’s ingredient was celeriac. This seasonal root is often overlooked but can add great flavour and texture to a dish, so we were keen to do it justice! We were bouncing ideas around, all eager to showcase the celeriac.

Marcus asked what we had in mind and said, "Okay, great, but just remember a dish can evolve over the 90 minutes." We started coming up with more elements to complete our dish. The final result was an Asian-inspired infused celeriac couscous, celeriac fritters, crispy kale, celeriac and savoury granola, served with celeriac puree, sticky Asian-style celeriac puffs and a sesame and soy sauce dressing infused with ginger, coriander and chilli.

We enjoyed everyone’s dishes for our lunch - after Marcus and Ryan's taste test, of course!

After lunch, we were asked to step into the kitchen again, this time to create a recipe for a plant-based breakfast that we would eat the next morning. Our challenge was to work in teams to prepare one dish chosen by Paul Manning and the HIT training?team and one wild card dish, which could be anything we wanted. Again, we were given 90 minutes. This was another opportunity to get creative!

To finish off day one, we headed to the Seven Dials Market in Covent Garden and spent the evening sampling plant-based street food produced by Kerb.

Day Two – Carrot ‘bacon’ For Breakfast!

Day two started with everyone heading straight into the kitchen to prepare our plant-based breakfast; there was a real buzz as we looked forward to the day ahead.

I was teamed up with Levy chefs Josh and Adam and Eurest chef Phil. We created a smoothie, overnight oats with fermented pear, and a vegan pancake with carrot ‘bacon’. Every team created inspiring dishes, including a banana crispy, shakshuka, plant-based kedgeree with banana blossom, vegan poached eggs, muffins and much more. We cooked up a storm! Even though we were in individual teams, we worked as one to produce a plant-based breakfast feast.

After breakfast, we had an insightful roundtable discussion around agriculture and sustainable farming with Marcus and Ryan as well as scientist Dr Vincent Walsh and regenerative farmer Lulu Cox.

Before lunch, we had a demonstration on seitan, a food made from gluten which is the main protein in wheat. It was fascinating! We were all surprised to see that the finished product looked like a piece of steak. This got us thinking, could seitan be our next plant-based meat substitute?

To end the day, we reflected on what we had learned from this workshop. Another enjoyable two days was had by all, with lots of learning, interacting, and working together. Most importantly, the sessions opened our eyes to ideas, techniques, ingredients and flavours that will help us succeed in our apprenticeships and careers.

The Forward with Marcus Wareing Programme has been an amazing experience so far, and I know we are all excited for our next workshop!