Wild hop shoots thankfully can be found growing all over the place. Preferring moist, alluvial soils, and by that I mean 'fine grain fertile soils deposited by water flowing over flood plains'. Thanks free dictionary. Hops like fences and things to climb and grow around - I found these little shoots growing on some wire fencing by the railway in Chiswick. 

The Latin name is Humulus Lupulus, meaning that to my basic mind they sound rather more like a spell from Harry Potter.

Everyone loves hops, since they make beer. Indeed Adnams have just this year been calling on the general public to find and send in their wild hops for a wild hop beer; you'll get a bottle of the brewed wild beer in return. It's the hop flower though that brewers are interested in, leaving the very useful and tasty shoot for the rest of the foraging world to take on. 

I'm following a recipe for a silken fresh cheese. The other day when I made a fresh cheese, it was far crumblier and more ricotta-esq. I'm looking for a cheese that I can elegantly quenelle onto the plate and rely on hops as adornment and other finishing touches for texture.

 To make the cheese, heat the milk slowly to 30c, add the buttermilk, cream and rennet. Do not stir. Once at 30c, transfer straight to a silicone lined container and cook in the oven at 37C for an hour to an hour and a half until tofu like in texture. 

That's all, on hops, and cheese. Such an incredibly straightforward and rewarding process. 

[Apparently, Charles Darwin entertained himself while sick in bed in 1882 by studying a hop plant growing on his window-sill. He noted that the tip of the stem completed a revolution in 2 hours.]

I'm thrilled with this information as right now, I'm not feeling very well, and hops are my focal point too. 

In January 2013, I decided to see if I could embark on a small culinary adventure. I started emailing restaurant Noma in Copenhagen to see if they would consider taking me onboard for a stage out there. I received an application form sent for me to fill out in June 2013 and proceeded to badger them over email during the course of the summer. In late August I received the exciting news that they were going to offer me a 3 month stage in 2014.

 So, in late March this year, I packed my bags and ventured out to the Danish capital. I had a rough itinerary to help form my expectations but really didn’t know what to expect. I started with 10 fellow stagiers and was promptly informed to expect this number to dwindle as the weeks went by. I was also informed that rarely did English people complete the full stage… interesting. So the bar was raised.

I joined an international bunch in this English speaking kitchen and learned to get to know people from all walks of life. People came to this kitchen to learn from the best restaurant in the world so we were all united by our interest and common passion. Noma won the title as the worlds best restaurant from San Pellegrino’s fifty best back in 2010 and maintained it’s position throughout 2011 and 2012. In 2013 they dropped to no2 but incredibly regained the pole position again this year. This recovery is the first of it’s kind in this list so a remarkable feat all round and very exciting to be out there when the news was delivered. Standing in a bar with the whole brigade of staff, watching the awards as they were streamed to the high screen tv in Ved Stranden, a riverside wine bar, was quite something. I didn’t however choose Noma based on reputation alone, I picked it because of their approach to food and the world around them. They forage for food and create a Danish larder of flavours that come from the surrounding land using ingredients previously overlooked and undiscovered or underused in the culinary world. 

Having spent the first few weeks picking herbs and helping to plate for the private dining room, dishes such as Soft boiled egg with Spring Herbs, and their signature Beef Tartar with Ants, I was thrilled to then spend two solid weeks out foraging in the Danish countryside with their resident full time forager Michael, or Mikkel as they all call him, rather incorrectly, as his name he informed us was and always had been the very Anglic version and thus pronunciation of Michael. 

We went to forests where we picked wood sorrel, beech leaves and collected ants. We went to woodland clearings where we found hidden fields of ramsons, cowslip flowers, morels and moss. We went to beaches for portulac, scurvy grass, sea beets, beach cabbage, beach peas. We collected rose petals to make rose oil for the winter, salad burnette, goosefoot and many other wild flowers and herbs to decorate and flavor the dishes back at the restaurant. A learning experience like no other. All helped by the snoozes that could be taken in the foraging van between destinations helping to catch up on the sleep lost from working those long restaurant hours. 

Back at the restaurant, myself and the other English girl Rosie then spent the next week cooking staff meal for the 60 strong members of staff who needed two meals a day. The idea behind this family meal stems from Rene’s strong philosophy that staff should be fed two delicious and healthy meals every day. The joy also of having such an international crew is that you cook food from your home so everyone eats varied and multicultural food that could be from absolutely anywhere. Watch Rene HERE describe this amazing offering. We responded to requests from the other staff who wanted a Roast Dinner and with the help of Chef Sam Miller, managed to rustle up Roast Beef with all the trimmings for our Saturday night finale. We also put forward Bangers and Mash one day much to the excitement of Rene who proclaimed in the way that he always did, imitating accents wherever he could, ‘Oh! How Wonderful Girls – Bangers and Mash!’ We were certainly scared from the outset though that staff meal would be a flop – Rene casts his critical eye over all the food and indeed eats it. Cooking for the worlds best chef – who knew? The first experience I had of seeing two young lads cooking the staff meal was pretty petrifying. They had rustled up some white fish – baked, plain. Some vegetables and Salad. It was fairly basic and uninspiring, which I hate to write because when someone cooks you a meal, you are grateful. But it has to be written to explain just what unfolded. Rene cast his eye across the spread, took a mouthful, looked over and asked what it was. He proceeded to cut through to the AM kitchen, where the food had been prepared to demand an explanation from the two young cooks, asking, ‘What is this? What the f*** is this?’ and upon hearing the stuttered realization of a response that the food was not up to par, proceeded to explain why the food they had on offer was just not acceptable to the 60 members of staff who had been on their feet all day. I cut a lot from that story, it scared me too much. Thank God our week went well. Some of our food even got instagrammed – the ultimate praise!

After that little experience, we moved on to being placed on different sections in the restaurant. I spent time, a week minimum, on all sections in the restaurant – snacks, sec 1 (starters), sec 2 (mains) and pastry. In these sections I was doing work that ranged from making the aeble batter for the aeble skivers every morning for the day, making the Nordic ‘coconuts’ and straws, powders, prepping and making the shrimp & ramson ravioli, where the ravioli is not pasta, but rather an oiled and blanched ramson leaf folded over and carefully cut to form a pristine ‘ravioli’. One week I was spearing pike’s heads and the next I was finely slicing rhubarb and making roses… 

Every Saturday night was the Saturday Night Project, a platform for continual creativity. Where Chefs present what they have been working on, or ideas that they are going to move forward. This always took place after service on a Saturday, before the two days off everyone took every Sunday and Monday. Every week there were two to five dishes presented. I never did one but look back and regret this very much. 

Here are some of the highlights:

Jun’s Garfish Roe, Turbot, White Asparagus and Egg Yolk cured in Beef Garum, one of the most spectacular dishes that was put forward. 

Garima's Crispy Chicken Skin, Celeriac Puree, Wood Sorrel & Nasturtium Granita Canapes

An Origami Crane made from a dehydrated sheet of celeriac filled with some goodness I can't even recall... 

To top off 3 months of hard work, three of us were treated to a full VIP sit down meal at the restaurant, with extra champagne and wine pairing. We donned our best (packed) dresses, as we certainly didn’t plan for such a fancy meal. Sure we thought we’d be preparing it, but eating it in a fancy dress, oh no.  We had a full 26 course bonanza of courses, making all the hard work we had put in suddenly become clear as to how it could come together, and why this restaurant is the number one in the world. Nothing comes close to the noma experience. I’ve eaten incredible food in incredible restaurants, and loved each and every experience, but eating at noma is just different. It’s a talking point, it’s exciting and the flavours are insane. That’s the only way I can describe it. This is what we ate:

Red currant and green strawberry
Nordic coconut
Moss and cep
Flower tarts
Peas and radishes
Pickled and smoked quails egg
Flatbread with wild roses .... (my standout snack by far - simple but incredibly good)
Grilled cucumber and fudge
White cabbage and samphire
Caramelised milk and cod liver
AEble skiber, lovage and parsley
Pike head
Burnt leek and cod roe

Shrimp and goosefoot, radish and yeast

White asparagus, black currant leaves and barley

Turbot roe and sour cherries

Beef tartar and ants

Lobster and nasturtium

Beetroot, sloe berries and aromatic herbs

Cured egg yolk, potato and elderflower

Turbot and nasturtium cream and wood sorrel

Rhubard and sorrel, creme fraiche and spanish chervil

Raspberries and rye

The whole experience was life changing. It was eye opening, exhausting, incredible and fundamentally altered the way I look at things. I’ll never forget how much I learnt out there.