THE SUN-SOAKED PLATE...Mediterranean recipes for family and friends

  Due to the current and evolving circumstances of COVID-19, our restaurants will now sadly remain closed until the New Year. We’ve made this decision with a heavy heart as our guests mean the world to us and we genuinely love what we do everyday, but we feel it’s the best option for all concerned right now. We cannot wait to have you all back in the dining room in 2021, but in the meantime we are also offering an exciting online food delivery service for the Island of Mallorca over the next few months and beyond.   Our aim is that you can say goodbye to take away with FOSH FOOD@HOME and order delicious, freshly cooked dishes to keep in your fridge or freezer for a simple lunch or dinner bursting with Mediterranean flavours. Cooked in our kitchen, just as you would in your own home, all our food will be freshly prepared to order and delivered to your door and ready to heat and eat. We make everything to order and we will never compromise on taste and quality. We only cook ...

“Some dessert connoisseurs may try to argue that Pâte choux is the ultimate, French, classic Pastry recipe” There is no doubt that Choux pastry is one of the lightest, crispiest pastries around. It is also so versatile and can be used in so many different ways both sweet and savoury. It has a reputation for being difficult to master, but in fact it’s so easy once you know the proper technique its almost child play. A pre-heated hot oven is essential to rise and set the choux and if you take it out of the oven before it’s cooked thoroughly it will collapse. Any filling should not be added until the last possible moment because it will make the choux pastry sag.   It’s made with plain flour, salt, butter, eggs, milk and a little sugar (if it’s being used for a sweet dish). Instead of a raising agent, choux pastry is puffed up by steam. It is used to make wonderful profiteroles, éclairs and forms the basis of the dramatic classic French dessert Gâteau St Honoré. It can also be use...

This is a busy time of year for families and workers in olive producing regions of the Island and beyond, preparing for the annual Harvest and carefully collecting the olives at exactly the right moment of ripeness. In much of Mallorca it’s a simple but effective process that hasn't changed in decades. Where most of the olives are picked and destined for the table, it is done painstakingly by hand, as so far no one has come up with a mechanical system that doesn't bruise and damage the fruit in some way. This is less of a problem, presumably, for olives that are used in production of oil and headed for crushers and bottles.   In the Mediterranean region we are blessed with a staggering 93% of the approximately 800 million olive trees in the world. The humble olive has been around forever (4000Bc) and has the distinction of being the oldest tree in cultivation in the Western Hemisphere. It has been the subject of mythology and a sign of longevity. Its oil h...

Now that Spain has declared another national state of emergency and imposed a night-time curfew between the hours of 23:00 and 06:00 in an effort to help control a new spike in infections, bars and restaurants will have to adapt their businesses accordingly over the coming months with plans to possibly keep the state of alarm measures in place until May. For the bars in Spain it is especially challenging and there is now just one question on everybody’s lips. Has the Covid-19 pandemic killed Spain's tapas culture?   Traditionally the Spanish have loved to congregate and converse (loudly if possible) in the cool interior of a typical tapas bar with clay-tiled floors, Serrano hams hanging, drying from the ceiling and a bar top overflowing with colourful, tantalizing little portions of food, tempting to be eaten. You’d normally fight your way through the crowd to the bar and shout to get served, anyone who has ever followed their nose around a Spanish town or vil...

One of nature’s seasonal gifts right now are plump, shiny skinned aubergines. They are one of my favourite summer ingredients as they are great at soaking up all kinds of flavours and work brilliantly in stews, tagines, curries and smoky Middle Eastern dips such as Baba ganoush. Aubergines also marry perfectly with lamb in the classic Greek dish, Moussaka, but I think that a little smoke and the flavour of the grill are what aubergine does best, so give yours some quality time over an open fire, on a barbecue, in a griddle pan or in a very hot oven. If you resist the temptation to separate them from the heat before they are totally deflated and almost burnt, you’ll be able to enjoy those silky strands of intense flavour in a multitude of exciting ways. The other day I just sliced a few aubergines, brushed them with spices and olive oil, seasoned them well with sea salt and threw them on the grill. After 2-3 minutes on each side I placed them on a large plate and scat...

At the restaurant we always offer a refreshing chilled soup during the summer months, and it’s invariably some form of Gazpacho. They are light and fresh, very healthy and utterly delicious!   From humble beginnings, Gazpacho has gone on to be the most revered and well-travelled chilled soup in the world. This refreshing soup has provided nourishment, quenched thirst, and sustained a body working in the hot sun for centuries. It even got a mention in the classic novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes when it was first published in 1605 and Gazpacho has been part of the fabric of Spanish culture ever since. Apparently, Cervantes completed his masterpiece in prison due to irregularities in his accounts while working for the government so he was probably starving at the time and longing for some fresh, tasty food.   Long before tourism, Andalucía was the poorest region of Spain.   Gazpacho, like most of the regions dishes, was considered “food of peasants” and was...

While the COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating economic impact globally, few industries have been as hard hit as restaurants and hospitality. Our restaurant is closed for the foreseeable future, our events industry has been shut down, corporate events cancelled, and any type of mass gatherings are no longer able to take place leaving thousands of small catering businesses struggling to see light at the end of the tunnel I’ve spoken to so many of my fellow chefs and colleagues over the last couple of weeks and we are all trying to remain positive in the knowledge that we will have a huge fight on our hands to survive this after the lockdown. But I’m sure the hospitality industry will eventually bounce back from this and, if I’ve learnt one thing from my recent conversations, it is that our business is full of warm, kind-hearted people who love nothing more than bringing people together sitting around a table sharing great food, wine and conversation and re...