Nitin’s passion for cookery came up early in his life, and his first experience in the industry was an unpaid work experience in a friend of his father’s restaurant back in India. His talent and engagement became quickly evident and he managed to work for Taj Hotel in Nashik and the Renaissance Marriot in Mumbai. All these years of hard work and commitment finally gave him the tools to become Head Chef at Petrichor at The Cavendish London. He took charge in February 2010 and since then, he has made considerable achievements.
Nitin championed the idea of a sustainable restaurant, and has made substantial improvements in that area. He has brainstorming sessions with his team where they come up with the bimonthly menus, which are carefully planned around the seasonal ingredients available in the local markets. Nitin selected a network of high quality local food suppliers and, together with his team, has even visited many of their farms! This helped him establish a great working relationship, which in turn allowed him to request a reduction in the packaging for each delivery. This reduced cardboard and plastic wastage, as well as costs for both parties. In his own words the whole thing “started to make sense, in environmental, economic and practical terms.”
Other sustainable measures taken are using the orange peel left from our orange juice to make marmalade and buying our cheese from Paxton and Whitfield, just around the corner from the hotel!
Gressingham Duck Breast , confit duck legs wrapped in spun potatoes, parsley mash, buttered greens & grilled baby turnips with poached cherries
You will need
- Duck breast
- Baby turnips
- Fresh cherries on stalk
- Milk
- Double cream
- Duck legs
- Salt
- Duck fat
- Pepper
- Butter
- Flat leaf parsley
- Greens
- Maris piper potatoes
- Thyme
- Rosemary
- Garlic
- Sugar
- Kirsch
Method
For Duck breast
Score the duck breast on the skin, remove any excess sinue and fat.
For confit duck leg
Confit duck legs with duck fat, thyme,rosemary & garlic at 120 degrees celius for 4 hours till cooked and meat falls apart, once cooked cool and down and shape them into even size croquettes,( for presentation purpose ,insert a cooked chicken wings bone inside to look like duck leg) with japanese mandolin make poato spaghetti , wrap the spaghetti around the croquette and steam for 5 mins so prevent the potatoes turning black.
For parsley mash
Boil the maris piper potatoes, pass thorugh the sieve, mix in milk, butter & double cream. Blanch & belnd the parsley leaves to get a fine puree and mix in with the potato mix.
For greens & Turnips
Blanch the greens in boiling water and salt for 2 minutes and then cool quickly with ice cold water, boil the baby turnips till they are soft and then peel them.
Poached cherries
Stone the fresh cherries, boil water sugar & kirsch liquer together and put the stoned cherries in last minute,take off the heat and cool in refrigerator.
For presentaion
Heat the pan add little oil ,cook the duck breast skin side down till nice and crispy
Grill the baby turnips on chargrill, deep fry the duck leg croquette till nice and golden color, Spread the parsley mash on the bottom of the plate, cut duck breast in half and toss the greens in butter last minute, arrrange all the ingredients in symmetry and serve.
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