Maddy from Netherton visits Mana, home of the Croustade iron
Foodies, aspiring chefs and critics have long flocked to London as the sacred ground of the food world in the UK. But if you have been paying attention it may not be this way for long; the North West has quietly been building up a restaurant empire to rival those down south.
Mowgli owner Nisha Katona puts the success of her 21 strong Indian street food chain partly down to its founding in Liverpool. ‘Without Liverpool there would be no Mowgli’ Nisha told the BBC in a recent interview. ‘Liverpool embraced Mowgli and that is how it took off’.
One of Shropshire’s own, Simon Martin, has joined this success story too, opening Mana restaurant in Manchester. Mana is home to Manchester’s only Michelin star for two years running.
Mana, Manchester.
They are also home to the first of our new croustade irons.
Mana may be new in the food world, but croustade irons certainly aren’t, they have been used for years in Scandinavian cooking to make traditional sweet and savoury batter shells that can be filled with whatever takes your fancy, though traditional Nordic recipes call for sea food.
Croustades aren’t an everyday dish for us home cooks, but they are seriously good fun to make and will certainly impress your dinner party or Instagram feed. The Iron gets dipped into batter, so it coats the croustade mould, then it's submerged into hot oil, once cooked the croustade case comes off the iron ready to be stuffed and scoffed. If you’re cooking for a crowd we have double and quadruple irons too.
Now they have been tried and tested by the experts our workshops are busy making up lots more!
See the Netherton Foundry Single Croustade iron here and the Double Croustade iron here or the Quadruple Croustade iron here.
Whilst they may not be in the beginner cook’s toolkit, we reckon they will be the ‘must have item’ for at home aspiring chefs very soon.
We went to see Head Chef Connor Slater last week to see how they had been getting on with it. The kitchen was busy in prep mode, everything needing to be perfect before showtime at 7pm. The kitchen looks out over the 26 covers so there is no room for mistakes. We did have a chance though to see what he’s been up to.
Mana’s style is lots of small courses served in rapid succession. The croustade course is currently filled with artichoke and topped generously with black truffle and was enough to want me to come running back to try it all.
Mana is certainly top of our list, but they have plenty of rivals coming for their top spot. You can vote for them in the upcoming Manchester Food and Drink Festival awards for best restaurant in Manchester here: https://foodanddrinkfestival.com/awards/. Even better get yourself a table so you can see the croustade iron in all its glory.
