A menu with a BAM... chef cooks up storm in new tome
The debut release by Lee Tiernan, of the renowned St JOHN restaurant, is something else. Ella Walker gives her verdict
Black Axe Mangal is arguably part-restaurant, part-tattooed lifestyle choice — and it’s eponymous cookbook might just be the gateway to all your wildest culinary dreams.
Run by Lee Tiernan — former head chef at the prestigious St JOHN restaurant, which is the work of Fergus Henderson (who has written the book’s foreword) and Trevor Gulliver — and his wife Kate, BAM, as it’s known, combines a certain rowdiness with some quite formidable cooking.
You can now join the bone marrow-eating mob...
Anyone who likes food with punch, who isn’t afraid of eating the weirder bits of animals (offal, squid ink, blood, etc), who adores big platefuls and raucous flavour combinations, as well as those who frequent the restaurant and rather fancy taking a bit home with them, and those who are unlikely to ever get to the restaurant but could do with a slice of the BAM life anyway.
Hugely fun dishes to wrap your tongue around. Tiernan’s food is audacious, gutsy and pretty meaty.
He’s big on throwing stuff into the flames and adding layer upon layer of flavour — the concept of ‘that’s enough’ does not seem to apply.
There are moments of nostalgia (like takes on a Findus crispy pancake and a Big Mac 2.0) and sophistication (beef tartare with prawn toast, pigeon with blackened onions), as well as a serious respect for grilling (there are pages and pages on what to fold into flatbread — from lamb offal to aubergine and ricotta). It’s certainly not delicate, but it is wanton in all the best ways — and super sweary.
Admittedly, some of the recipes are very involved and require a hefty list of ingredients. However, the instructions are clear (four pages are dedicated to how you butcher a hare), to the point and tell you what corners you can cut.
There are some suggestions that are barely recipes at all (eg caviar and sour cream and chive crisps — aka caviar from a tin and a tube of Pringles). It’s a question of how far you want to push yourself.
The oxtail, bone marrow and anchovy — this is an ode to the nose-to-tail ways of St JOHN.
The recipe we’re most likely to post pictures of on Instagram is...
Shrimp-encrusted pig’s tails with pickled chicory — they’re just so curly.
Gull’s egg, caviar and sea urchin because who would have even one of these in their fridge? Or the peanut and foie gras bar — foie gras ice cream just sounds like far too much effort, however decadent the result may be.
It’s loud, bold, brazen cooking — and the photography is spectacular. Buy, buy, buy and feel like part of the BAM club — it’s basically a food cult.