This month I want to talk about veganism and vegetarianism and how it impacts on my cooking style, and most importantly in the restaurant, says Jamie Scott of The Newport in Fife.
I have massive respect and admiration for anyone who can live by either of these choices, especially veganism – it can be a lot of hard work, even just sourcing the ingredients to use.
We cater for both in the restaurant on our small plate offering and we also run a six-course tasting menu for each – a fantastic challenge both for me and my chefs. It keeps us on our toes looking for more of the amazing seasonal produce available and also making us look harder when we are out foraging.
The reason we work so hard on this is because in the last 10 years the number of vegans in the UK has risen by 350%. But I am a meat eater. I would not change I love it too much! I was raised on it and unless my children want to be vegan/ vegetarian I will raise them on it as well. We work just as hard to make sure our animal products are ethically produced from our free range chickens to our pork and beef suppliers.
We work closely with our butchers and farmers, we know where the animals come from and how they are treated. Our fish is line caught and shellfish handpicked, and all our game is from sustainable and sourceable gamekeepers.
At the Newport we focus on vegetable and plant based food in a big way – mainly because it tastes amazing. There’s no need to think about meat when we’re baking a beautiful carrot in a salt crust and serving it with a dressing made of tahini, garlic and smoked aubergine. Or when we cook a whole delicious cauliflower in a mouth-watering lemon rapeseed oil, roast till it’s golden and serve it with a puree of sweet caramelised onions and fresh grated almond. These ingredients stand alone on any menu because they taste delicious.
The biggest challenge in my opinion is the pastry section – normally using a lot of butter, milk, cream and refined sugar is second nature to us. However, we use a variety of plant based ingredients, nuts, seed flours to get us through, using amazing fruits as the star of the show. Like our bramley apple slowly cooked in malt syrup served with toasted pecans and a delicious refreshing almond milk sorbet topped with puffed barley. The ingredients are there so we must accept the rise in demand for this types of menu and work harder to give them the same experience.
Chef’s tip
One of our most popular dishes is free from gluten, dairy and is both vegan and vegetarian. It is our cauliflower fritter with sweet onion relish and salted plum sauce (hoisin sauce) The relish and hoisin are a bit special to us so I’ll keep their recipe a secret for a while.
Gradually mix 2 tsp curry powder, 1tsp turmeric, 2tsp ground cumin, 2 tsp fennel seeds, 2 tsp rennin seeds and 1 tsp ground coriander with 200g gluten free self-rising flour along with 50g corn flour, adding sparkling water until you have a light batter. Cut your cauliflower into nice flowers and blanch in salted boiling water for 3-5 minutes until tender. Chill in an ice bath, pat dry. Dip them into the batter. Fry at 175C until crispy and golden. Season and add some freshly chopped coriander. Serve immediately with a dip of your choosing.
