Book Fests and charity shops: ‘River Cafe 30’
… or, pumpkin soup, and other stories.
In celebration of Wimbledon’s annual October Book Fest, we’re taking a look at our curated cookbook collection – purchased using a practiced eye and an understanding of both good design and good cooking. All of the books featured in this three part series were found in our neighbouring Wimbledon Village Charity Shops, where there’s always a good chance of a good find.
We’ve selected a few gold standard classics – and we’ve tested some of the recipes in them using the technology available to us in our Wimbledon Village showroom, where we have working ‘test’ kitchens including all the latest tech in steam ovens, vacuum drawers, induction hobs, etc.
River Cafe 30
First up, we have a book published in 2017 in celebration of the iconic Hammersmith River Café restaurant and its 30 year anniversary. Serving ‘simple’ Italian food made from the highest quality ingredients, at commensurately high prices, the restaurant’s most vital ingredients, according to its co-founder Ruth Rogers are, “the people who come to eat here and the people who work here”.
Many of us perhaps know the restaurant by reputation, and/or from listening to its celebrity-studded – and ever so slightly baffling – podcast. We may recognise its joyfully bold colour choices, its free-flowing logo, its famous alumni (Jamie, Hugh F-W, the two Sam’s from Moro, Theo Randall, Ed Baines, April Bloomfield … – the list is long, lustrous and lucrative). Some may have eaten there, most I know want to, and some may even remember Julian Barnes linking the ‘hubris’ of cooking from a river café recipe with its all but inevitable ‘nemesis’, by way of an ingredient-hungry and notoriously hard to handle chocolate dessert.
Core recipes are re-published in this special edition from the very first River Cafe ‘Blue’ book – less ‘as they were’ and more ‘as they have become refined over time’ – with tradition given due reference and reverence, as required by the original vision.
The qualifications of this book to sit proudly on a shelf marked ‘classic of its genre’ are manyfold: intended for an audience that includes artists, designers, architects, cooks, and eaters, it serves as testament to the art, design and ethos that have nourished the founders’ viewpoints and values: from its vibrantly pink-painted page edges – signifying ‘no expense spared’ in the print run – through its saturated colours and the pedigree of its Joseph Albers font, it wears its convictions and connections on its sleeve, happily juxtaposing art with food, ‘change’ with a sense of ‘timelessness’, and in its insistence that good ingredients and strong traditions matter – and, of course, in its demonstration that good design – from books to buildings – is fundamentally important.
We chose to test pumpkin soup, a chocolate and almond flourless cake, and some simply extravagant vanilla ice-cream – our notes, recipes and innovations can be found below.
Main Course | Zuppa: Pumpkin Soup
The pumpkin we used was the most expensive vegetable (or fruit, for any scientific purists reading) that I have ever purchased – a Natoora sourced ‘Delica’, complete with wax seal of authenticity – entirely appropriate for the River Café’s idea of a ‘best quality’ ingredient, and worth its weight in flavour. Bread, for serving, was fresh from the enticingly aromatic Thames Ditton Bakery, where queues now form early on a Monday for a once a week 48-hour sourdough loaf – catch it if you can!
We followed the recipe, as pictured above, except, instead of covering the pumpkin with stock and simmering, we transferred the pumpkin mix to a large size vacuum bag, vacuum sealed at maximum pressure, and then cooked it ‘sous vide’ in the steam oven for 2 hours at 85ºC – locking in and enhancing all the flavours. Once cooked, we chilled it down (in the bag) so that it could be stored in the fridge until we were ready for it – it would keep safely here for up to a week.
When ready for a hotly anticipated staff lunch – we transferred these pre-prepped ingredients to a blender/food processor, adding enough of the stock to blend it easily, and from there transferred the soup to a saucepan, adding the rest of the stock, and then heated, tasted and adjusted for seasoning before ladling into bowls and adding grated Parmesan and good olive oil.
Dessert | ‘Dolci’: Torta di Capri
An entirely flourless chocolate and almond cake, held together with a wing, a prayer and a generous dash of blind faith – as River Cafe cakes often are. Soft, dense and chocolatey on the inside, with a thin crisp crust, the aroma as this cake cooks is intoxicating, the initial hit is richly intriguing, and it only gets better as it matures.
Our advice for this cake is to use a regular fan oven (you don’t need to worry too much that it might dry out while cooking!), and to keep the faith as you enjoy the aroma of the baking cake, and while managing any anxiety about not knowing quite what the finished texture should feel like as you test the inside to assess if it’s cooked. We followed the recipe, left the cake to cool on a rack, and then froze ours, well wrapped, to keep it fresh for our lunch – it may have helped to freeze it, it certainly didn’t harm it, but it’s a cake that keeps well regardless.
Dolci: Vanilla Ice Cream
We paired the cake with vanilla ice cream (recipe above) – using the recipe proportionately – 15 egg yolks may be a staple for a restaurant, but we were good with something closer to half a dozen. We made the ice cream entirely sous vide (so much easier than a saucepan for a custard that is inclined to curdle with a degree of heat too much).
Our method:
- whisk together the egg yolks with the sugar
- stir in the milk, cream and vanilla (pods, seeds and all)
- place in vacuum bag and seal at minimum pressure in a vacuum drawer (liquids and vacuum sealing are a tricksy combination – check manufacturer’s instructions if you don’t have a drawer)
- cook in a steam oven with ‘sous vide’ functionality at 83ºC for 25 minutes.
- chill immediately in an ice bath or a blast chiller, then
- transfer to an ice cream machine for churning
Freezer Top Tip:
A Fisher & Paykel freezer with adjustable freezer zone temperatures is an ideal place to store ice-cream before serving, when you need it to be frozen but still ‘scoopable’ (it also tastes better when served at the right temperature). We have one on display, and in use, in our Wimbledon Village showroom, should you want to see how it works in practice.
Our showroom is open 7 days a week – Sunday is often a ‘test cooking’ day. If you have a kitchen project in mind and would like to test out our choices in the best of current appliance technology, come in and see us, or call us and make an appointment, and we will gladly demonstrate it for you, or arrange for you to cook on it yourself.
Pumpkin Soup
