CIGARS... WITH EXTRA CHEESE
MI CHELIN-STARRED chef Roger Jones is setting the culinary world alight with his new Welsh-inspired cigars. The 56-year-old has created a Welsh rarebit treat shaped just like a stogie – using anchovies, cheddar, double cream, eggs, spices, tamarind, flour and charcoal salt.
The £15 cigars were invented after a wine company asked Roger to devise a dish to accompany one of their bottles of plonk.
“They are not a cheap cigar,” he said.
“When we did them at a London wine show we did about 400 of them,” Roger from Lampeter, Ceredigion, said.
“In an event in Capetown we did 200 in a night. They are pretty simple for one or two.
“More than that and they get very hard because they do not hold well for numbers.”
The dish was created to go with a South Australian Cabernet Sau- vignon by Yalumba.
The company wanted “something to highlight their wines”.
He pitched the idea of a cigar because people don’t smoke in the way they used to.
“They said, ‘Let’s do chocolates,’ and I said that would not go well with a big heavy Cabernet.
“And I came up with the idea of a Welsh rarebit shaped like a cigar.
“I can’t tell you how we did it because that would give things away.”
Once they had built it needed some ash for the tip.
“We used Halen Mon charcoal sea salt,” Roger said.
“We have got a sample from their new range but it is about to be released.
“We ground it up so that it looks like ash around the base.” they
Diners have so pressed.
“We have had a great response,” said Roger, who owns the The Harrow at Little Bedwyn, Wiltshire.
“People wonder what the hell it is: it’s served warm, it looks like a cigar and as you crunch into it the Welsh rarebit oozes out.”
He added: “The mix itself is made from two or three different strong cheeses.
“Which ones depends where I am when I am making it.”
Roger also uses Brains beer when he can get hold of it.
“But the main thing is to get the Welsh rarebit flavour and get that right,” he said.
The inventive chef is known for his original ideas.
He has also created an Arbroath Smokie milkshake – a smoked far been im- haddock dish served as a drink in a bottle with straws.
“You think you’re drinking milk and then you get a mouthful of smoked fish,” Roger said.
“You either smile or you spit it out.”