Showing posts with label Cobble Lane Cured. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cobble Lane Cured. Show all posts

Thursday, 17 April 2014

The fire’s lit

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It’s quite likely a dog’s peed here


Residential North London isn’t the easiest area to cure an oven. I’m sat writing this while tending to the fire. And what a fire. The Dragon Oven team have done us proud. Setting that first match to the inside of my first car was still pretty surreal but with a month or so of regular fires required to drive out the water there was no hanging about.

So what have we been up to?


Well needless to say the last couple of months have flown by. I’ve now quit my job and the transition from banker to baker is underway. We spent sometime with the Honest Crust guys helping them out on their stall and can’t have been completely hopeless as they floated the idea of nipping off to the pub and leaving us to it a couple of times.

We officially live in a pizzeria


We’ve spent a lot of time ordering equipment and boy do you need a lot of equipment. There’s no hiding the fact we’re launching a pizza business now, but unexpected perks include giant domino rally.

Meeting suppliers


The real joy comes from meeting suppliers though and we’ve already teamed up with some amazing talent. The Cobble Lane lads really are meat meastros and it was during one particularly gluttonous tasting session where a smile was etched onto my face on realising that this actually counted as work.

We’re hoping to source our tomatoes from the Isle of Wight, not only are these closer to home but they taste incredible. It’s a learning curve for all of us, their largest passata container was previously 500ml so we’ll be upscaling somewhat, but we’ve no doubt all the work now will pay off and the plan’s to host a pizza party on their farm to celebrate the collaboration.

Bristol Bound


We’re now officially members of BEATS, the coolest sounding organisation which has ever let me amongst its ranks. Bristol Eats or BEATS is Bristol’s street food collective, an affable bunch focussed on bringing the best food, music and art to Bristol’s streets.

Whilst last in town I also got to meet up with the team behind Bristol’s St Mungo’s homeless centre. Our first event in Bristol is looking to be linked to their centre and we’re particularly excited about a partnership whereby unused dough balls from the markets would go to make bread for the homeless.

Where to find us


Our soft launch at the Arch last Friday was awesome and we sold out within a couple of hours. The main event will be a couple of weeks later on 25th April linking in with their last Friday of the month competition so why not come along for a climb and a pizza. If any more incentive’s required both nights tie into their charity push and we’ll be donating £1 from every pizza sold to the charity of the month.

After that it’s to the hills, to a wedding half way up the Old Man of Coniston. I will be engaging diff lock and low range gearbox purely because I can as we trundle up the track to the venue. Keep an eye out for pictures, we can’t wait to see the Landy churning out pizza with views of the Lake District stretching below.

The fire’s building, watch it glow...

Wednesday, 19 March 2014

Meat Maestros

One of the best things about starting a pizza business has to be meeting new suppliers. And as suppliers go Cobble Lane Cured are pretty special. They’re Mat, Matt and Adam and have been going under the name of Cobble Lane for almost a year now - it’s their birthday tomorrow in fact. Their ‘paper anniversary’ doesn’t do their experience justice. Strike up a conversation and it’s soon apparent these guys know what they’re talking about - I spent a happy hour chatting away about the various cuts, brines, cures, ferments and subtleties of their porky process.

Currently they process around 3 pigs a week all hand butchered and you’ll see the bubbling cauldron of the brine they’re using, the herbs harking back to what was found on the mountain pastures where charcuterie was born.

I was drawn to the fattier cuts, nduja, pepperoni and guinciale. Cuts full of flavour which will release their oils and start to crisp and char in the heat of our oven. They were incredible. The spicier varieties particularly standing out, where you can still pick out the notes of seasoning before the punch of the chilli comes though - meat maestros.

Cobble Lane Cured can be found at 25a Cobble Lane or on top of our pizzas