Chef of the Month
Joey Abid has been in the UK for 3 years and
worked in several restaurants when he decided last December to start his own. He
wanted to give the British public good quality home made food, where you still
get value for your money. He has done so with a latin twist, in his Argentine
Restaurant Grillados in Urmston and it has been a
great success. Joey is also working hard with the community to make Urmston the
place to be and organised Urmston's Summer Fiesta in June which will now be an
annual event. And there is more to come..
Q: What inspired you to become a chef?
Food and my mum! She loves cooking French and Mediterranean dishes and I grew up
with lots of different food influences and inspirations from both my mother and
my father who is Argentinian.
Q: What did you find the hardest skill to learn?
By far the hardest for me was cooking the perfect risotto - getting it to the
exactly the right point where it is not under or overcooked and the right
consistency is a real art.
Q: What ingredient couldn’t you live without?
Garlic! I love garlic - it brings balance, enhances flavour and gives an extra
dimension to every dish.
Q: Who cooks at home?
Me. I enjoy cooking for us as well as friends and it also means Jill doesn’t
have to.
Q: Is there any food you won’t eat and why?
Being curious and interested in food, I will try everything ….if properly
cooked.
Q: What is the best dish you have ever cooked?
For me, the best dish would be moqueqa. It offers all the flavours and balance
of the perfect Argentinian dish and is one of our most popular menu choices. It
is a very popular South American dish that blends its roots in Africa with
Portuguese influences, making the most of Brazil's fresh local ingredients. It
was originally made with three basic ingredients - fish, chicken and coconut -
to create a meal. Now there are a variety of different types of moqueqa but they
have evolved from these three basic ingredients. |
Q: What piece of kitchen equipment did you really want
then never use once you’d bought?
My storage area is full of items that I thought I would use and never really
have. Perhaps the most obvious one is a food processor.
Q: What was your favourite School Dinner?
Macaroni cheese or spaghetti Bolognese – perhaps I was going through a pasta
period!
Q Who would you most like to cook a meal for?
I would love to cook for a well established chef to get their views and some
constructive criticism so that I can learn more and move forward. My basic
principles for the perfect meal are that food has to be fresh, cooked with
complementary flavours that bring the best out of great ingredients.
Q: If you hadn’t been a chef what would you have been?
A builder. I sorted out nearly everything in the current restaurant and like the
practical side of the business, working with my hands and the creativity that
comes with that. Although I did study for an international trade degree and
worked part time at a restaurant then which started me off on a path that became
a passion for me.For more information about Grillados, visit their website:
www.grillados.co.uk.
Follow the link to a recipe from Grillados for you to try at home.
Chicken and shrimp Moqueqa |
