Yemi’s Food Stories: snow days call for soul foodYemi’s Food Stories: a step-by-step Christmas dinner guideYemi’s Food Stories: make your own giftable Christmas hamperYemi’s Food Stories: a day with Grantley Hall’s pastry chefYemi’s Food Stories: Harrogate’s taste of JapanYemi’s Food Stories: one year of celebrating Yorkshire’s food

Yemi Adelekan is a food writer and blogger who was a semi-finalist in the 2022 series of BBC TV’s Masterchef competition.

Every Saturday Yemi writes on the Stray Ferret about her love of the area’s food and shares cooking tips – please get in touch with her if you want her to review a restaurant, visit your farm, taste the produce you sell or even share a recipe.

Yemi’s Food Stories was a year-old last week and it’s a perfect time to reflect on my journey since pitching the idea for a food column.

There have been many highlights over the past year, and I have been privileged to meet amazing chefs and independent food retailers. I have loved dining out and writing about my experiences and enjoyed sharing my recipes and stories.

Readers have been supportive with many of you sending in recommendations of places to go, pointing out the odd mistake and giving feedback that have made me a better writer. Some readers, like Ann Townson, have become friends and others have dropped my name when visiting places to encourage the food retailers.

A fruity entrement made by @babnaspatisserie to celebrate the anniversary milestone

I want to take this moment to appreciate everyone of you for coming along with me on this journey and taking time to read my posts.

After taking part in MasterChefUK 2022 competition, where I finished in the top six as a semi-finalist, I wanted to give back by recognising those behind the scenes of our food and drink: from farmers, producers to retailers by championing their produces, products and events.

More festivals

Despite having lived in Harrogate for over ten years, I never made it to the Great Yorkshire Show until last year when I was covering the event for my food column. This was a brilliant opportunity to meet those I wanted to write about, and I can’t wait to see them again this year and discover new products.

This year, I will be doing a chef demonstration on the main GYS cooking stage and covering the event.

A standout cauliflower dish

I visited many food festivals including the RHS Festival of Flavours, Harrogate, Wetherby, Ripley and Yorkshire Dales where I did food demos and covered the events.

This year I am going further afield to East Anglian Game & Country Fair, Manchester food festivals and Mountainview food and wellness festival at Kilkenny in Ireland so I will be bringing you any fabulous food and product finds.

More experiences

Some of my highlights stand out for reasons over and above the food and drink. For the scenery and scenic drives, the Himalayan Gardens, Bar & Restaurant EightyEight at Grantley Hall and Cocoa Joe’s in Boroughbridge were memorable.

For behind the scenes, visiting Rudding Park Kitchen Garden, baking at Bettys Cookery school and spending time with Chef Mehdi Boukemach at Fodders were fun and educational.

A dessert made by Samira Effa of Bar & Restaurant EightyEight

Some places have become the heart of the community where great food, drinks and friendly faces are waiting for you; visiting Folk Coffee House along Leeds Road was fantastic and felt like hanging out at a friend’s place.

More fine dining

For fine dining and exceptional classical cookery, Bar & Restaurant Eighty-Eight at Grantley Hall was a definite highlight for me along with Paradise Café at Daleside nursery, Kendell’s Bistro Leeds and Rhubarb Harrogate. Check out Ake & Humphris along Leeds Road for excellent wine selections and expert advice.

For great experiences and wonderful gifts ideas for your ‘foodies’, Yorkshire Appetite Food Tours, Yolk Farm & Minskip Farm shop and a tour of Ellers Farm Distilleries with a tasting of stunning cocktails are perfect.

Dining at Rhubarb

The Afghan and Syrian kitchen experiences are fantastic values and the perfect way to learn about new cultures and food whilst listening to people’s stories.

I had a fantastic brunch at the Hideaway in Boroughbridge where chef Ben Keightley is delighting the locals who would actually like to keep the place hidden in plain sight – but their secret is out, and we can all enjoy the brunch experience.

More future stars

Meeting cake designer, Kean Ong from Blossom Tree Cake Company was special. From the sublime flavours of cake, the intricate handmade flowers to their timeless and elegant designs, I can see why they are chosen by many couples.

At Harrogate Ladies College

Speaking of future stars, spending the day mentoring some students at Harrogate ladies College was a brilliant experience.

More to come…

There is more to come in this new year, so please get in touch if you want me to check out your restaurant, shop, coffee house, products, produces or events. Keep sending in your recommendations and thank you for your continued support.

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Yemi’s Food Stories: Rafi’s Spicebox Harrogate

Yemi Adelekan is a food writer and blogger who was a semi-finalist in the 2022 series of BBC TV’s Masterchef competition.

Every Saturday Yemi writes for the Stray Ferret about her love of the area’s food and shares cooking tips – please get in touch with her if you want her to review a restaurant, visit your farm, taste the produce you sell or even share a recipe.

Anyone who knows me well will already know that I love spices from all parts of the world. I am intrigued by the unfamiliar and some of my highlights from my trip to the Middle East revolved around the spice markets, and the waft of aromas that hit you creating a beautiful assault on your culinary senses.

Walking into Rafi’s Spicebox in Harrogate took me right back to those places evoking the same memories. There is something beautiful about the colours and smells from different spices, that each tell their stories.

From saffron, the king of all spices, to golden yellow turmeric, from the redness of kashmiri chilli powder to the lemony tang and orange hue of pul biber, there is no end to the response that each spice is able to elicit.

A selection of goods at Rafi’s Spicebox

The rich darkness of tamarind belies its sourness, but this might just be what you need to cut through a rich dessert if you want to avoid the saltiness from salted or miso caramel. Add some tamarind to your sticky toffee sauce to elevate it to something special.

I love hibiscus because of the stunning colour and tart flavours it adds to dishes. Hibiscus is hugely popular in Nigeria as it is used to make a local drink called Zobo. To make Zobo, simply steep hibiscus in boiling water to extract the colours and add a sugar syrup. You can add spices like cloves, nutmeg, ginger and citrus rind to introduce some complexity.

Premixed spices can work for you

At Rafi’s Spicebox, you don’t need to be an expert to cook a curry because they have done all the hard work for you with their premixed spice blends which are suitable for vegetables, seafood or other proteins.

Spices can be customised to your taste if you describe the flavours you like. From Thai to Indian, mild to hot, creamy to nutty, thick curries to broths, spices can be blended to help you deliver the perfect results.

I love the spice blends which are designed to get everyone eating more vegetables. From adding spices to stir fried broccoli, spiced aubergine and potatoes, as well as elevating grated carrots with toasted seeds, there is something for everyone.

Rafi’s Spicebox is a family-owned business with shops in Harrogate, Sudbury and York

Each curry blend comes with instructions on how to cook it and many of their recipes can be ready in under 30 minutes which makes it a viable way to get home cooked meals ready in the same time it would take to have a takeaway delivered.

Rafi’s also curates a seasonal curry range so you can get spice blends that match the season from comforting, cooling to heating to keep the cold away.

The beauty of many dishes from around the world is that they come with ‘buddies’ so at Rafi’s you can get pre-prepped pilau rices, flours, and a range of chutneys, sauces, and flat breads to complete your meals.

Lamb curry with a Rafi’s twist

I left Rafi’s with a pack of Previn’s Thepla – a spiced roti – and a packet of ‘Paretal Spice Blend’ that elevated the Nidderdale lamb I purchased from Addyman K butchers, that I cooked with coconut, asafoetida, tamarind, curry leaves, chillies and the usual staples of onion, garlic and tomatoes.

I added some pul biber for a bit more heat and served the delicious lamb curry with saffron and turmeric rice topped with ghati masala. To accompany this meal, I pan-heated the roti, which has fenugreek, coriander leaves mixed with flour, ginger, turmeric and coriander powder.

Yemi’s lamb curry

My nervousness about pre-made curry spices has always been the salt levels. In my experience, many popular brands make their spice mixes overly salty, that can give dishes a raw and harsh taste.

However with the Rafi’s Spicebox packet, the salt level after following the instructions was perfect for me, and the spices cooked in the 20 minutes suggested time. I cooked my lamb curry for an extra ten minutes to get it more tender.

Find out more

Rafi’s Spicebox is a family-owned business with shops in Harrogate, Sudbury and York. You can pick up their spices from some local butchers, fishmongers and farm shops but for an immersive experience and a chat to their lovely experts, I would recommend popping into their main shop along Commercial Street.

Spices can be customised to your taste if you describe the flavours you like

I’m doing a chef demonstration at the Living North Food event at York Racecourse this Saturday, March 23, so I will share some highlights in next week’s post.

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Yemi’s Food Stories: Sustainable takeaways from the Great Yorkshire Show

Yemi Adelekan is a food writer and blogger who was a semi-finalist in last year’s BBC TV’s Masterchef  competition. Every Saturday Yemi will be writing on the Stray Ferret about her love of the district’s food  and sharing cooking tips– please get in touch with her if you want her to review a restaurant, visit your farm, taste the produce you sell or even share a recipe.  

 

The Great Yorkshire, in its 164th year, is the crème-de la crème of agricultural shows in the UK. Living in Harrogate means this show is close to my heart and for the past twelve years, I have looked out my window silently welcoming the vehicles travelling to the event.

You know my passion is food, so I wasn’t far from the food hall and cookery stages – the Great Yorkshire theatre and the Game theatre. I wished I could be in two places at the same time.

Tuesday kicked off with the cheese competition and there were many varieties of cheeses from hard to soft, savoury to sweet, butters and creams with award winners in all categories. The hives and honey pavilion was another fascinating place to be with hundreds of varieties of local honeys, shaped beeswax, bee products, honey displays, honey cakes and biscuits and alcoholic honey drinks made from fermenting honey and water with some flavours and spices resulting in really unique drinks.

My time at the Game Theatre introduced me to different game animals and birds as well as fly fishing and cooking trout in multiple ways. There was trout cured with Japanese flavours and finished with finger lime by chef Ben Wright (@that_chef_Ben), pan-cooked trout by Stephanie Moon and roasted loin of venison, served with a fondant potato, sublime parsnip purée, pickled blackberries, heritage carrots and venison jus by chef Mike Baldwin from Provenance Inns. There was also a wonderful venison summer tart by chef Mehdi Boukemach from Fodder. 

The highlights from the cookery theatres included seeing the passion Yorkshire chefs have for their produces, their food, sustainable cooking and zero waste with many sharing tips on how they would use what most of us throw in the bin.

Sustainable takeaways I hope you try at home:

Onion skins – I use a lot of onions in my cooking caramelising them, flash frying them, making pepper blend with tomatoes, peppers, ginger and garlic. I always add onion skins to my stock or to my meat when braising them because I realised the skin has a lot of the flavour. Recently I made some onion skin powder by baking the skin in an oven until dried before blending to a fine powder. I use this as additional flavour for my onion-based dishes.

Herb oils – parsley, basil and chilli oils are well known, but you can do more with other herbs like dill tops, chives and spring onions. Most of us will throw away fennel fronds but they can be used to make herb oil.

Beetroot leaves – Fresh beetroots can often come with the green leafy parts but sometimes we only care about the beetroots themselves, so we chuck the leaves in the bin. The leaves are delicious sautéed with peppers and onions with spices.

I tried the smoothest vibrant green purée made from sautéed courgettes cooked in stock and blended with spinach. This was a revelation as many people only steam, pan fry or roast courgettes. It was nice to see courgettes used in a different way.

‘Salt baked turbot, caviar, cabbage, dill and lemon verbena’  by Shaun Rankin  

It’s time to grow some our our own food. Farm to table, plot to table and nose to tail approaches to cooking shone through every demo with most restaurants having their own kitchen garden which is an encouragement for us to try and grow some of our own food.

Sustainable approaches to sourcing ingredients came through every chef demo session with most produces coming from local suppliers and only very rarely from outside of Yorkshire.

The variety of Yorkshire produces from cream, milk, cheeses, butter to Game, sea food from the coastlines to locally bred cows, lamb, Pork and chicken show us there are few to no reasons to not eat local. Entire meals can be created using only ingredients from Yorkshire so why not challenge yourself to do just that.

Future Stars 

A final highlight for me is seeing young chefs who will be the future of Yorkshire food scene being mentored by chefs including chef Ahmed Abdalla from the Grand Hotel York whose chef, Harry Blades (@harry_blades_) won the Delifresh young chef of the year 2022 and chef Shaun Rankin mentoring young Sarah Szmit who in my opinion has a really promising future in food.

RHS Harlow Carr was well represented by their head gardener, Joe Lofthouse who provided Gilly Robinson (The Cook’s Place, Malton) with produce from the RHS garden and St Aidan’s school was well represented by a group of young ladies who made sweet and savoury dishes.

There is so much to write about so follow my food feature as I have lined up appointments with many chefs, restaurants and food companies and I will be bringing their stories to you. Watch this space.

I am doing chef demos at the Yorkshire Dale Food festivals next Saturday and will share some of my highlights from the event.

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Masterchef semi-finalist to write for the Stray Ferret celebrating district’s food

The Stray Ferret is delighted to introduce Yemi Adelekan who many will recognise from her success on BBC TV’s Masterchef last year. Every Saturday Yemi will be writing about her love of the district’s food  – please get in touch with her if you want her to review a restaurant, visit your farm, taste the produce you sell or even share a recipe.  

My name is Yemi Adelekan, welcome to my food stories.

From food and restaurant reviews, highlights from county food events, recipe creation to dining experiences, farm to table and nose to tail cooking, allotment to combatting food waste, foraging, visits to market stalls and independent shops to showcasing diversity of flavours and ingredients, nothing is off the menu.

We live in a beautiful district with amazing food scenes; I want to showcase, celebrate and champion our community, people, food and what we have to offer through my food stories.

So here’s a little about me.

I am married and a proud mother of two wonderful young men. I grew up in Nigeria, moved to Nevis Island, West Indies for a few years before relocating to the UK where I forged a career in Banking and now Telecommunications.

I moved from West to South Cumbria, made a pit stop in Manchester, spent ten years in Lancashire and finally settled in Harrogate for the past decade.

All of these places and holiday destinations have influenced my food from Cumberland ring sausages, Lancashire hotpot to Yorkshire pudding. I came to Harrogate with the red rose of Lancashire and was gifted the white rose of Yorkshire; both plants have their pride of places on my front yard.

I have had a long-standing love affair with food, a passion for cooking and baking that led me to the Masterchef UK kitchen in 2022. From not daring to dream about being on the show, I ended up as a semi-finalist making it to the top 6 showcasing a fusion of my Nigerian flavours with other global food influences.

I was gutted to narrowly miss out on finals week but really grateful for the opportunity.  I didn’t know I could wee every five minutes until I went on the show and found nerves that were previously undiscovered.

My first food memories include me using tin cans and sticks for my ‘pretend’ kitchen, tasting my mum’s food as she put a little taster on my palm to being trusted to go buy an ingredient. I was never far from the kitchen and learnt by watching others like a hawk.

My mum didn’t allow me to be hands-on in her kitchen because she took pride in doing her own cooking but thankfully my dad believed that mistakes help to make us better people. He lived away to avoid a long commute and allowed me to cook whenever I visited him giving me feedback and what I definitely now know to be undeserved compliments.

Here’s what you can expect from me; personal, witty, open and honest food writing without any pretentiousness.

My goal is to make it just what you need to kickstart your weekend with a smile, bring your community to you, get you out with a little luck and encourage you to attempt new recipes.

I am a local who doesn’t get around enough so I need you to tell me what and where you want me to check out, what’s going on in your part of the county, also comment and share recipes you want me to try out.

If you have a wow experience that you would like to shout about from the roof top, then drop me a line so I can go sample and write about the experience.

Welcome to my food stories. I will see you next Saturday.

To read more about Yemi visit her website here.

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