Food & Drink

Local recipe

Matt Dell of The Box Kitchen & Bar

The Box Kitchen & Bar inhabits a magnifi cent space beneath a fl otilla of fi gureheads, where you can enjoy everything from carefully curated menus and high-quality food to an impressive bar serving a range of delicious drinks. The restaurant offers a unique space for friends to catch up, a special place for those early evening date nights and the opportunity to slow down after a busy day out with the kids. There is a hearty all-day brunch and a daytime menu suited to all tastes. Head Chef Matt Dell delivers an ever-changing seasonal menu that showcases the best of the South West. His stunning dishes use the very best local ingredients raised, grazed and grown in the surrounding landscape and fi shed from nearby waters. The modern dining space is a great place to start or end your visit to The Box, or to enjoy a special Plymouth evening out. Event menus and special occasions are also catered for – keep an eye on the website and social media for details.

Maple roasted carrot & chickpea ‘nut’ roast

Ingredients

800g/28oz tinned chickpeas 50ml chickpeas in water 1 white onion finely diced 4-6 cloves of fresh garlic - crushed 2 red peppers – finely chopped 1 red chilli – finely chopped 200g gluten free breadcrumbs 20g fresh thyme 50g fresh parsley chopped 10g table salt

To glaze:

40g of the chickpea water/aquafaba 1 tbsp of icing sugar 1 heaped tbsp of maple syrup 1 tbsp of strong wholegrain mustard 1 tsp Sea Salt

Method

• Start by preparing your vegetables. Set aside. • Preheat your oven to 180°C. • Weigh all dry produce up by having a mixing bowl on your scales. • Pulse your chickpeas in a food processor with some of the reserved aquafaba. • Mix everything together to form a dough. • Line a bread tin with parchment paper. • Bake for 6 minutes and prepare your glaze in the meantime. • You need to thicken up the aquafaba for a minute until slightly thicker. • Fold in the rest of your ingredients • After six minutes of baking in the oven, take out the loaf and prick it with a cake needle or a chopstick. • Drizzle the glaze over the top & bake for another minute and set aside to cool or serve straight away.

What’s in a name?

It’s very satisfying when a customer announces they don’t like something – Chardonnay or even French wine, for example – then later leaves with a bottle of French Chardonnay! Often this follows a discussion about “terroir”, the French word used to describe every aspect of the environment in which grapes are grown. The same name does not equal the same wine...

“Terroir” literally means “land”, but in wine terms a great deal more besides. Soil is certainly vital – vines usually produce the best grapes when they struggle to survive, sending long, searching roots to fi nd limited water and barely adequate nutrition. They grow best on loam, clay, and on sandy or volcanic soil. So the reason the vine you planted 5 years ago has never fruited is probably because you treat it too well! Sunshine and warmth are important, though the combination is not always obvious – you can grow great Malbec high in the Andes because although there’s little warmth, there’s lots of sunshine. Vines can therefore be planted in areas of more or less sun as required. Chablis is a hill village in France that grows Chardonnay (though it’s never called Chardonnay, just Chablis). Exactly where on the hill grapes are planted determines whether they will make Petit Chablis, Chablis, Premier Cru or Grand Cru wines – the prices of which vary enormously. The parts of the hill with the best exposure to sun, best drainage and the right soil type are the most valuable. Proximity to water is frequently a decisive factor in the quality of Dave Anningwine. Large bodies of water moderate temperatures around them, allowing grapes to ripen evenly over a longer time, which is a very good thing (consider sea-swimming in October – water warms slowly during summer and releases the warmth slowly when the weather cools). Moisture and humidity encourage diseases and pests – especially moulds. Yet the world’s fi nest dessert wines are made by encouraging botrytis cinerea, a mould that depletes the water in grapes, intensifying the fl avours. This requires cool, misty mornings and warm, sunny afternoons – a great example of how tricky “terroir” can be.

Of course there’s more to this, but in simple terms if the right grapes are grown in exactly the right environment, the result is perfectly ripened grapes and great wine. Naturally, few places are perfect, so the resulting wines vary! A Chardonnay grown in French limestone soil will taste very different to one grown in Chile, on volcanic soil. Other factors such as wine-making techniques (e.g. barrel ageing) are also very signifi cant, but I’m afraid I’m out of space. The bottom line? The more wines you sample, the more you will properly understand the variety available!n

Dave Anning, SW Bottle Shop

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