Mitch Tonks, Restaurateur, Fishmonger, Food writer and Chef http://www.mitchtonks.co.uk/news/ Last week saw the launch of my iPhone app on fish and seafood. It was great to see it up a the Apple store and I was chuffed it was selling at quite a rate and the feedback was good. I don't think you can ever replace a good cookbook there is just something lovely about thumbing the pages however I'm pleasantly surprised at a what a great tool the iphone is. I picked up an app called Eat Italy and its great lots of regional rustic dishes form trattorias all over Italy and I now use it all the time even for putting menus together in the restaurant.
 
  http://www.mitchtonks.co.uk/news/ Had a great day at the BBC good food show at the NEC yesterday. I was on the British Theatre which hosted some great chefs for the whole show. I was showing off our South Devon crab as it's so unique to the county, yes there are crabs caught all round our shores but I don't think they come up the standard of the crab caught in the Channel and Start Bay. I'm not sure why it is but because we have a big limestone belt running along our coast from Lyme Regis to Dartmouth and our warm waters bring plenty of food on the gulf stream add to a perfect environment. I cooked a great linguine, dressed a crab - out of the audience only a handful said they weren't scared of attacking of crab so I hope I de-mystfied it a bit for the audience. It was also good to catch up with friends like Gregg Wallace and Tom Parker Bowles, there is such camaraderie in the food world - it's great, a good place to be! http://www.mitchtonks.co.uk/news/ In less than 2 weeks we will be launching my seafood iphone app. We came up with the idea because I'm still aware that generally people are scared of cooking fish, something that comes up regularly at our all day Seafood Cookery Schools, and so I thought an app might help. Strangely even with the millions of apps there are, there doesn't seem to be one dedicated to fish and seafood - I wanted to include not just recipes but skills, techniques and tips to help demystify cooking with fish.  We have had great fun putting it together, making videos and my old pal Neil the fishmonger in Bristol is a star, we've worked together for several years now and he really knows his stuff so you'll see his knife skills in the videos and fishmonger tips. There's a lot of concern also about sustainability and seasonality so we covered that too allowing users to choose by what's in season in any particular month and then be able to look at the sustainability info on each fish - it should be pretty handy stuff and we will be adding updates every month or so so hopefully it will be of great use to my fellow seafood lovers, but I'd love to hear from you if you get a chance to have a look, let me know what you think.  We'll put a link up to the Apple store once we get it all loaded. http://www.mitchtonks.co.uk/news/ Had a great morning yesterday in RockFish Bristol with local food bloggers and foodies tasting smoked salmons.  We were keen to see what other people thought and had 5 different smoked salmons in.  We passed them round to taste and then revealed where they were from, the price per kg and a bit of info about the smoking process.  All very different and really interesting results.  The most favoured were the two most expensive ones and top came Frank Hederman's which is a beech smoked salmon instead of the ormal oak.  Second up was Bloydits from Shetland who supplies my mate Garry Rosser at the Scallop Shell.  The feeling was that the top ones had a more rounded taste and that you were able to taste both salmon and smoke without one thing dominating.  Big thanks to Sarah Lisle, Emily Knight, Sam Leach, Jon Finch, Laura Rowe from Clifton Life and regular fishmonger customer Guy.  http://www.mitchtonks.co.uk/news/ Check out the outtakes from the Mitch and Matt series. An interesting insight into what didn't make the final cut when we made the series. Watc the video here http://www.mitchtonks.co.uk/news/ Dartmouth Food Festival is over, it was so good to see everyone and I think the festival has reached new levels. It's a festival that is very real in the sense that it involves the whole community and they really support it both organisationally and as punters. These events are so good for meeting your fellow chefs in the town who are ususally like me in the kitchen all day, I realise more and more just how much cooking talent there is in Dartmouth. I must say I was glad to finish on Sunday, we had a fabulous lunch with Diana Henry at the restaurant and I was honoured that Joyce Molyneux dined with us, a charming lady who has left a legacy to Dartmouth for being famous for food. In the evening we feasted at home with my great friend and sommelier Tim McLaughlin-Green, on Boccadon farm veal, roasted garlic on toast with plenty of salt and beets from John Rosswell with a maple dressing and goats cheese, we drank lots of Amarone and Campoleone form the Lamborghini family, a good end http://www.mitchtonks.co.uk/news/






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Was cooking at The Seahorse over the weekend, loved it, as I always do. Favourite dishes were braised octopus in dolcetto wine and lobster spaghetti for two to share, very nice indeed they were. The octopus is so savoury when cooked slowly and so easy, you are eating the sea, here's how you do it. You will need a 2 kilo "double sucker" octopus, these are the varieties from the Atlantic, I buy them frozen. Defrost your octopus, cut off the suckers near the head as these are quite big, take off any loose skin and cut tentacles into 30mm lengths. Sweat off a finely chopped fennel bulb with a tablespoon of chopped garlic until softened, add 2 tablespoons good quality tomato puree and fry for 2-3 minutes, add 3 glasses of dolcetto & 2 bay leaves, and boil down, then add a few whole skinned tomatoes, squeezed just before you drop them in,add the octopus then simmer for 1-2 hours. the octopus will release lots of juice then it will reduce to a thick sauce as it reduces and the octopus tenderises. Don't add salt the octopus will be salty enough - enjoy.