CHINCONFIDENTIAL TOM KITCHIN
TOM KITCHIN’S SEA URCHIN SOUP I first cooked sea urchins when my lobster supplier suggested them to me – the urchins get caught in the lobster creels. Serves 6 6 sea urchins 100g carrot, chopped 100g fennel, chopped 100g celery, chopped 1 teaspoon vegetable oil 100g samphire 150ml white wine sauce (see p.174) 1 lemon rock salt for serving Preparing the sea urchins: urchin spines are sharp so wear gloves or use a thick cloth when handling them. Using scissors with a pointy tip, cut off the top quarter of the shell, beginning from the soft area where there are no spines (the mouth). Discard the lid. Remove the digestive organ (middle of urchin). With a spoon, gently remove the coral (eggs) and set aside. Strain and reserve the liquid from inside the shells. Be very careful with the shells as you will need them for serving the soup. Making the vegetable mix and the soup: sweat the carrot, fennel and celery in a pan with the oil until soft. Add the samphire and cook until warmed through. Set aside. Put the white wine sauce and the strained liquid from the urchins into a pan and warm over a low flame. Be careful not to over-heat. Add some of the urchin eggs, then blitz to the desired consistency. The eggs thicken the soup so add more as necessary. Finish with a squeeze of lemon. To serve Warm the empty shells in the oven. Take them out and place a large spoonful of the vegetable mix into each shell. Froth the soup with a hand whisk and ladle into the shells. Place a shell on each plate, using a bed of rock salt to keep the shell steady. n Published in hardback by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Thu 6 Aug, £30.
boss, Alain Ducasse, has named Kitchin as one of his top ten up-and-coming chefs around the world, while he has also made appearances on TV shows such as Great British Menu and Saturday Kitchen. ‘I feel we’re representing Scotland. Hopefully that enthusiasm and that passion is coming over to viewers – that I’m proud of where I’m from.’ The results are sometimes further reaching than he expects. He tells the story of receiving some sea buckthorn from his forager, Ben Robertson from Crieff, and then seeing pastry chef Sebastian Kobelt enthusiastically making a sorbet from the
berries and pairing it with chocolate (Kobelt was a runner-up in the World Chocolate Master final). Shortly afterwards a Michelin inspector expressed his enthusiasm at seeing sea buckthorn on the menu – he was used to seeing it in Scandinavia but not here. ‘I do it because I enjoy it,’ says Kitchin, ‘but look what we get from it.’
From Nature to Plate is published on 6 August by Weidenfeld & Nicolson priced at £30 and launched at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on Monday 17 August (event now sold out). 23 Jul–6 Aug 2009 THE LIST 13
– do you cross over or not – have typified my whole life,’ he says. ‘Fortunately I’ve always been strong enough in character to cross that bridge and fight onto the next day. It has always made me stronger as a person, stronger as a chef. I have been faced with young chefs in my own kitchen breaking down, but I always tell them to stick it out if I believe they have the talent.’
Despite his pedigree, however, Kitchin is adamant that producing a cookbook is not a way of showcasing himself as a Michelin-star chef. ‘That’s a load of rubbish,’ he says. ‘This is what I’m passionate about: ingredients and my love for the seasons. If one day we have a brasserie, I hope that the kind of dishes we’d serve are the kind of dishes in the book. I’d want to have a crab cooked to order then cracked at the table. At the end of the day, that’s the food we love eating and it is great food. A real love of food doesn’t come from seeing a foam on the plate. What I’m trying to get across is that chefs have to understand nature and where the produce comes from and understand how hard the supplier is working. That only comes through working in kitchens where they work with seasonality, where that’s drummed into you, and you’re creating your menus from nature itself. ‘As a chef, and it doesn’t matter what level you’re cooking at, if your heart doesn’t start beating when you get the first Scottish asparagus of the season, or the first wild salmon, then you’re not doing it for the right reason.’
Kitchin is aware that his enthusiasm for Scottish produce combined with his achievements and the publication of a book does give him ambassadorial status. A former