FIONA MCGARRY speaks to Kimberley Duke, co-founder of Life Kitchen: a cookery school providing free classes showing people how to tackle taste loss after illness

Amongst other things that come up during my conversation with Kimberley Duke is what she’s been up to since recently moving to the Hastings area. She tells me she has started to create beach/street food – think taste-laden loaded fries and pastries – and plans to sell it on the St Leonards promenade in collaboration with Jeremy and Justine of ‘Barista and the Shack’. She also runs a micro-bakery and is head chef at The New Inn in Sidley (seasonal European food).

Kim is clearly someone who likes to have her fingers in several pies (or pastries). But after hearing about her amazing project, Life Kitchen, I was particularly keen to learn about this not-for-profit cookery school she co-founded together with author and cook, Ryan Riley.

The ethos of Life Kitchen is to help people whose taste has been affected by cancer or who have an altered sense of taste due to Covid. Their focus is on enjoyment more than health: creating tastes and flavours that help people to really enjoy food again. 

Audacity and spontaneity seem to have been key elements in Kim and Ryan’s lives. They were good childhood friends, and after Ryan won £28,000 at a casino, they moved to London and both worked in publishing until they managed, on a whim, to get a food stall in Camden Market. A few years later, Kim, who was particularly interested in taste and flavour, trained as a head chef.

Both had lost parents to cancer, and with them in mind, they wanted to help people suffering from illness rekindle their pleasure in food. Professor Barry Smith, founder/head of the Centre for the Study of the Senses at the University of London, advised them on choosing ingredients for people living with an altered sense of taste. The result was their cookery school, which runs free cookery classes.

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Although Kim and Ryan’s work originally had cancer sufferers in mind, the Covid pandemic broadened their focus. They adapted their strategy for an emerging class of smell-challenged eaters and devised “a range of recipes and products helpful for people living with a lessened sense of taste for whatever reason.” They worked with the ‘Altered Eating’ group and attracted support from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Sue Perkins among others – and wrote a recipe book: Taste and Flavour. 

Life Kitchen has also designed a range of products for Holland & Barrett. These are grouped according to the five tastes – sweet, sour, salt, bitter and umami. They include seed, kale and wasabi seasoning, miso and raspberry white chocolate (dangerously more-ish) and miso honey (the umami of the miso adds a boost to the sweetness of the honey). 

According to Kim, they use five elements: aroma, umami, texture, layering and food sensations to create their recipes. “There are certain ingredients and methods that just work: umami is ‘one of the big ones’, as well as ingredients that stimulate the trigeminal nerve.” That’s the nerve that connects your nose, eyes, and mouth and is important in chewing and swallowing. “Even if you’re experiencing a loss of taste, you can still get a sensation from some ingredients like mint, wasabi and horseradish,” she explains. 

Umami can be used for a base layer with some trigeminal stimulation, and a mix of hot and cold ingredients are also helpful. For example, umami tomatoes with garlic and cream cheese (cold) on a flatbread (hot) has got all of those layers.

The recipe here (soon to be available at Barista and the Shack) is another taste explosion and a favourite of Kim’s. It creates nostalgia for her childhood when “getting a peshwari naan bread from the local Indian restaurant was the absolute highlight of culinary joy”.

Peshwari Swirls

You will need:

For the mapled cream kale:

  • 2 tbsp flavourless oil
  • 2 onions finely chopped
  • 3cm piece of fresh ginger peeled and chopped
  • 6 garlic cloves finely chopped
  • 300g kale tough stems removed and sliced into 1cm strips
  • 1½  tsp + 1 tsp garam masala
  • 1½ tsp + 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 4 tbsp maple syrup or honey
  • 200ml double cream
  • 150g paneer cut into 1cm cubes
  • 50g ground almonds
  • 50g desiccated coconut

For the pastry:

  • 7 sheets spring roll pastry
  • 1 egg lightly beaten
  • 1-2 tsp nigella seeds (optional)

Method:

  1. Heat the oil in a large frying pan over low heat. Add the onions, ginger, garlic and season with salt. Fry for 7-8 mins until the onions have softened and then tip the mixture into a bowl.
  2. Immediately tip the kale into the frying pan, season and fry over a high heat, stirring occasionally, for 8-10 mins. Add a splash of water and cook for 4-5 more mins until tender. Add the onion mixture back into the pan.
  3. Once most of the liquid has evaporated, add the garam masala and coriander and cook for 1-2 mins to toast the spices. Then add the maple syrup or honey and paneer and stir in the cream. Cook for 4-5 mins to warm through, then season with salt and pepper to taste. Use 200g of the mixture for the pastries.
    Note: The leftover mapled cream kale can be used to make a delicious toasted sandwich with mature cheddar cheese and mango chutney or eaten on its own (It will keep for up to three days in an airtight container in the fridge.)Heat the oven to 180°C fan / Gas 6 and then bake the almonds and coconut on a baking tray for 4-6 mins, until golden brown.
  4. Place the mapled cream kale in a bowl with the extra tsp of garam masala and coriander and mix in the toasted almonds and coconut until combined to make the peshwari filling.
  5. Place 1 pastry sheet on a clean work surface and brush the left edge with beaten egg.
  6. Divide the peshwari filling into 7 equal portions. Spoon the first portion in a sausage shape along the edge of the pastry closest to you, leaving a 2cm border. Then carefully fold the pastry edge nearest you over the filling and roll up the pastry so the filling is fully enclosed. Curve the pastry roll to form a spiral ‘swirl’. 
  7. Repeat with the 6 remaining sheets of pastry and portions of filling.
  8. Place the swirls on a baking sheet lined with greaseproof paper and brush them with more beaten egg. Finish with a sprinkling of nigella seeds if using. Bake the swirls for 30-35 mins until golden.

This recipe is from Weekly Provisions: How to Eat Seasonally and Love What’s Left Over by Kim Duke (Penguin Random House)

Find out more
about Life Kitchen on lifekitchen.co.uk
or facebook.com/LifeKitchenCookeryor on instagram:
@lifekitchencookery


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