As a Chef I take inspiration for food from all over such as other brilliant Chefs or food blogs.

But more often than not the inspiration comes from one thing, a place such as the Canary islands was one this week as I made Canary Island mojo sauce. But it could be anything nearly, a person or a ingredient maybe.

Because we are not working at the moment due to the lovely Covid 19 it has enabled me to cook at home and my Facebook page is full of lock down cooking.

People who know me, know I am passionate about Human Rights and I follow the legendary Human Rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith on Twitter, founder of @reprieve. See my other blog post why and this will explain why we give to the charity Appeal, we also include Appeal in our logo design on our clothing. 

Anyway I saw Clive had made some wild garlic pesto and served it on toast with cheese. Fancy cheese on toast, which then sparked a memory of Austin my friend and Chef collecting wild garlic which we used to make wild garlic sausage last spring.

But I wanted to make pesto, something I have not done in more years that I care to remember and I didn’t have any wild garlic. I knocked up some basil pesto and loved it, quickly followed by some mixed herb and I finally made Canary Island mojo sauce which was 5 years late in the making.

As we are in lock down I went on my daily walk and went where I thought I might find wild garlic and bingo it was there.

On my return home I had a quick twitter conversation  with the legend that is Clive Stafford Smith I came up with this recipe. I can honestly say it rocked and was well worth the effort.

The creation was wild garlic pesto, halloumi cheese, grilled veg tacos with Tzatziki dressing.

The dish consisted of

Wholemeal tacos/flatbread

Grilled onions, peppers and courgette

Pit cooked roasted sweet potato

Grilled halloumi

Wild garlic pesto

Tzatziki dressing

I part cooked for speed the sweet potato in the oven then finished it off in the coals of the grill, this takes it to a different level and adds a smokiness you would not get. I made the tacos and these were grilled on the BBQ.

The veggie kebabs were slowly cooked to start and when softening finished on the high heat side. The dressing and pesto was made so it was just a case of grilling the halloumi and we were done.

Simply add the different veg to the taco, dress in Pesto and Tzatziki and eat.

This dish was full of flavour and tasted great, it had smokiness, sweetness and a earthiness taste you just cannot buy from a shop.

It’s that good it might get added to a menu 🙂

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