MY FAVOURITE DISH

The acclaimed chef talks about swapping a career in music for one in food and also shares a recipe from his native Lithuania

Chef Tomas Lidakevicius’s cepelinai – Lithuanian potato dumplings

At Turnips, chef Tomas Lidakevicius is challenging food’s established hierarchy. ‘All my life, everyone’s gone crazy about meat and fish being the stars,’ says the 34 year-old. ‘To be honest, they’re not.’

Reflecting this, his Borough Market restaurant – which is a collaboration with the specialist grocer and wholesaler whose premises and name it shares – celebrates incredible seasonal vegetables using: ‘Meat or fish as the garnish’. For example, even in a dish of caviar-topped celeriac: ‘Celeriac is the star. Same with the Jerusalem artichoke and buckwheat dish with lamb on the side. The menu is 80% vegetables. I’ve learned that I and other chefs were wrong.’

Given the meat-heavy diet Tomas grew up on in Lithuania and his 15 years in top London kitchens, this veg-forward conversion is radical. But Tomas has never been afraid to strike out in bold new directions.

Aged 18, the then-named MC Thomukas was both enrolled in chef’s school, to placate his worried parents, and a rising star on Lithuania’s music scene with the band 8’as Maršrutas (whose members included Lithuania’s 2022 Eurovision competitor, Monika Liu). Yet just as the band’s debut album, 13, was released, Tomas took the ‘spontaneous’ decision to ditch music and head to London to cook.

Hip-hop’s loss was the restaurant world’s gain as Tomas: ‘Fell in love with fine dining.’ In food terms, it pitched him into a very dišerent environment to the one he was raised in:

‘The 90s saw huge change in Lithuania. Not long after [independence from the Soviet Union in 1990] big supermarkets and other companies came in. But the Soviet-era feel carried on a while after it

Cepelinai (meat & potato dumplings)

SERVES 4 (makes 8) PREP 40 mins COOK 1 hr MORE EFFORT ❄

3 small white onions, chopped

2 garlic cloves, inely chopped

1½ tsp olive oil

500g beef or pork mince or 250g of each

1 medium egg

150g smoked pancetta, sliced into strips

2.5kg Agria, Maris Piper or similarly

starchy potatoes, peeled

½ tsp citric acid or lemon juice

2 tbsp potato starch or corn lour

¼ small bunch of dill, chopped soured cream, to serve (optional)

1 Cook the onion and garlic with 1 tsp oil in a frying pan over a medium heat, stirring occasionally, until softened. Remove half the mixture from the pan and put in a large bowl to cool. When cool, add the mince and egg, season well and mix together. Remove the rest of the onions and garlic from the pan and put in another bowl.

2 Heat the remaining 1/2 tsp oil in a frying pan over a medium-low heat and fry the pancetta for a couple of minutes until the fat starts to melt. Tip in the reserved onions and garlic and cook for 8-10 mins until golden. Set aside.

3 Take a third of the potatoes, chop each into four and put in a large pan of cold salted water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 15 mins until cooked. Drain in a colander, then leave to steam-dry for 5 mins. Crush the potatoes as smooth as you can with a masher or use a potato ricer.

4 Finely grate the remaining raw potatoes using a food processor. Squeeze the grated potatoes through a muslin or tea towel over a bowl to squeeze out as much liquid as possible. Set the bowl of liquid aside and after 5-10 mins, it will separate with the potato starch at the bottom of the bowl. Carefully drain o† the water, then scrape the starch back into the bowl of raw potatoes. Stir in the citric acid or lemon juice – this will prevent the cepelinai becoming very dark. Add the cooked mashed potato to the raw, add the 2 tbsp potato starch or cornflour, season well and mix to combine.

5 Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. Season the potato mixture and shape into palm-sized 2cm thin cakes. Add the mince mixture and roll between your palms into large egg shapes, packing the potato around the mince tightly – it helps to wet your hands for this.

Add them to the simmering water one at a time and cook for 20-25 mins – when they float to the surface they are done.

6 To serve, warm up the pancetta mix. Put two cepelinai on each plate, add a dollop of soured cream and top with the pancetta mix and dill.

GOOD TO KNOW folate • ibre • vit c • iron • omega-3 • gluten free

PER SERVING 851 kcals • fat 27g • saturates 10g • carbs 102g • sugars 7g • ibre 11g • protein 44g • salt 1.5g

o cially ended. For a time, families would get a set amount of tickets each month for things like milk, bread or sausages.

‘Until I was seven, I’d never seen pineapples or mangos. Food was super-local. Biscuits and sweets were Russian or Baltic. At the most, you might get a little packet of Pringles on your birthday.

‘I grew up in Klaipėda, a port city with an iconic food market. Hunting, foraging and growing-your-own was big, too. Lithuania has a culture of fermenting and pickling because we had the space, and needed to see ourselves through winter. Outside towns people grew everything in their gardens. That’s how you survived. You couldn’t go out and buy it. ‘My grandad would forage for ceps and girolles and, in season, mum and grandma would smash through pears, strawberries or anything they could get to make preserves.

‘At home, mealtimes were free and easy. We lived in these five-storey blocks where, in summer, there’d be 30 kids outside playing football or basketball. By 8pm, you’d hear mum calling me and my younger brother: ‘Tom! Lukas! Come eat!’

‘Me and my brother were big boys and like dad, who was a fireman, we ate a lot. Mum cooked a lot of meat for us, often pork. We’d buy a whole pig, split it with the neighbours, and mum would make a terrine from the ears, nose and trotters. We’d eat it with horseradish and boiled potatoes.

‘Cepelinai (see p105) is Lithuania’s national dish. They’re super-heavy (two with a beer and you can’t walk!), but amazing. And even better the next day, halved, pan-fried and all crunchy.

‘Making cepelinai is a lot of work. We’d make them for big celebrations. You start by finely grating potatoes; my parents live in London now but still have our Soviet-era grinder. Mum would be mixing everything while big pans boiled on the stove, as myself and dad pressed the potatoes and Lukas portioned out meat.

‘My interest in food started early. I was always in the kitchen. Mum worked from home as a seamstress and, around eight, I would make cakes or sandwiches for clients who came around for measurements. That’s why, when my parents realised

I wasn’t going to be a doctor or solicitor, they tried to put me in chefs’ school. They said “look, you know how to do it.” They saw something in me.’ turnipsboroughmarket.com @tomas_lidakevicius

Above: Tomas with his grandmother