Private Dining
Shetland's first chef's table in our home: we cater for groups of 4-10 guests with dishes inspired by Shetland's history and my memories of growing up in India.
Ingredients are collected from my kitchen garden, foraged from the local landscape, and combined with produce from local crofts and small boats.
Kitchen Garden
In 2024 I decided to grow my own produce. The only problem was that I had ZERO gardening experience...
I learned, studied, watched YouTube videos, and taught my self the basics. I decided to build the garden around Charles Dowding's 'No-dig' philosophy and sustainable polyculture so that the garden is benefiting nature at the same time as growing my fruit and veg.
As I've learned more about sustainable farming, I'm now moving towards growing more open pollinated heritage verities such as the ones from my friend's Scottish seed company 'Seeds of Scotland'.
So far I've grown Jerusalem artichokes, strawberries, peas, radishes, purple mangetout, bere, Icelandic chives, spring onions, cabbages, leeks, garlic, herbs and much more. My latest experiment is Shetland oats!
Preservation
The summer season in Shetland is short and so is the growing season.
In days gone by in Shetland preservation and zero waste cooking were a necessity to living on this island and people prolonged the life of food using techniques like smoking, salting, pickling, and dehydrating.
So, I taught myself to preserve local ingredients, especially the ones I foraged and grown in my kitchen garden.
I'm always experimenting with turning ingredients into salts, sugars, honeys, and vinegars, as well as pickling, smoking, and dehydrating to create new flavours and textures that can be added to dishes long after the growing season has ended.
