Silla Bjerrum

Sushi Chef | Expert in Japanese Cooking | Consultant Sushi Industry

The stunning food lab in the grounds of Vicente Todoli’s Citrus Foundation, designed by architect Carlos Salazer Arquitectos

The Citrus Todoli Foundation

Every autumn David and I cook a lunch in Valencia for good friend Vicente Todoli who we know from our glorious Borough Market days were he was a regular customer. Vicente has since returned to Spain to set up the Todoli Citrus Foundation, a private collection of rare citrus’ with both historical importance and significance for future preservation of many varieties of citrus trees. Vicnete also have a passion for Spanish ‘gold’ refering to the unique Olive Oil of Spain. Tot Oli is an remarkable extra virgin olive oil. The olives are picked early when just ripe by friends and the centre piece for the Saturday’s work(wo)mans lunch of local snacks, pickles and the best traditional paella one can possibly imagine. The oil and the support for Vicente’s projects is what brings us all together for this annual event and we follow with the post-harvest lunch on the Sunday as our humble gratitude for this inspirational friendship.

The citrus foundation is a place of magic with a grand new cooking lab; stimulating and calming simultaneously. A place where to get inspired, evolve and share – a place of community and generosity. We have arrived at a loose agreement where we plan a little, bring a few dry goods and ideas from London and Vicente shares what is local and in season. Most importantly all the cooking is underwritten by seasonal citrus and with a notch to Japanese cuisine. In the fall this includes a fantastic selection of Japanese citrus like yuzu, shikwasa, sudachi and other Asian citrus varieties of limes and the uniquely special caviar lime. In late winter and early spring is a lot of the eating citrus from varieties of pomelo, grapefruits and the varies easy peeler satsumas, mandarin, many species of actual orange and 30 plus different kinds of citron. When working with precious citrus like the handpicked jewels provided by the team at the Todoli Citrus Foundation a mantra of ‘waste not’ is being amplified to maximum frequency and we are really aiming for 90-95% yield of all the produce. Using the juice, the flesh, the peel and the pit by squeezing, pickling, dehydrating, curing, cooking, baking - any kitchen technique is at our disposal.

The lunch is set in the beautiful grounds of the Todoli Citrus Foundation, away from the mountains and near the sea, is a welcome reprise from a laborious Saturday of picking olives in the autumn sun. Here is the principal of what we cook.

Swimming with the tides; another stable and featured most years is ecologically (sustainable) sourced local bluefin tuna. Bluefin tuna is a complicated issue and normally we do not serve it, but the blue fin is local to the region, of culinary importance to the Spaniards and supporting a certified local scheme is supporting NGOs working to find the right long term solution. As we mostly work with Eastern Pacific yellow fin tuna, It is always slightly daunting taking a knife to a piece of freshly caught blue fin as it is precious. A 2-kilo piece become the centre piece for a lunch for 30 people and plenty with approximately 8 pieces of nigiri, maki, hand rolls and sashimi per person.

The highest commodity is the toro is the belly part and revered for its high fat content. The global explosion of sushi’s popularity and therefore demand for the blue fin and its toro has left the population in dire straight as overfishing has impacted on the blue fin tuna population. Hence we mostly steer away from blue fin tuna unless it is certified (there is a local Spanish scheme or MSC of which there at the time of writing is a small certified fishery in the Mediterranean)

Pink as a lobster; the area around Valencia is well known for its Denia prawn, a red shrimp from the fishing grounds along the sea channel between Cape San Antonio and Ibiza Island and famed for its bright red colour. The larger once are often reserved and served at local restaurants in their purest simplicity just cooked in sea water as a piece the resistance they deserve. The smaller once often makes it on to our lunch table, either served as a sushi topping similar to ama ebi or douched in a freshly made hon dashi.

We are in Valencia known for its sea bounty and the Spaniards love affair with fresh fish. Other glorious candidates for the lunch are local squid, cuttlefish, octopus and a selection of smaller local flat fish, small rounds variations of sardines, horse mackerel and smaller hiramasa – as long its can be matched with the citrus available on the day and caught locally we are game.

Meat, glorious meat; eat it sparingly and with delicious joy. Therefore, we recommend always to season well and rest your meat for maximum outcome, it’s a treat and it takes time. Currently we co-exist with 30 billion farmed animals on this planet; a ratio which is difficult to digest intellectually and in fact practically as this level of mass farmed protein is playing havoc with our health - and that is with 2/3 of the global population rarely, if at all, consuming any meat. The solution is less meat and opting for the free range no pesticide low intensity farmed version. I am not advocating, nor against, a non meat diet, I think it is a personal choise, therefore choose well and less for better health for people and planet.

We like to serve one meat dish amongst a bigger selection of sashimi, sushi and plant-based sides. Lamb work surprisingly well with a miso cure, very similar to the dish made famous globally by Nobu founding chef Nobu Matsuhisa: Miso Black Cod. The miso marinate is simple; standard miso paste (dark yellow in colour), sake, mirin and sugar gently melted over medium heat, then cooled down, before rubbing on to the flesh. The marinate does wonders to firm fish likes black cod, cod, salmon or mackerel when its best in the winter months, but also works well on meats like lamb and chicken. The protein and alcohol of the marinate penetrates the protein, adding umami and enhance tenderness. Same principle works well on atlantoc cod, salmon, autumn mackerel, aubergine, portobello mushroom, free range chicken and fatty cuts of pork.

For any ribs a rib-rub is the name of the game. David always loved Dean Deluca’s Rib Rub which work well on baby back pork. Over time, and with grinder in hand, David has developed his own rubs and advises a good match with citrus peel is woody herbs like rosemary and thyme, quality coarse sea salt and freshly ground pepper. What the rubs does is firstly season the meat and with resting time give it time to develop it and relaxing the protein structures of the flesh. As the rub soaks into and permeate the meat it will aid to draw out moisture; this process will slow build up the aromatic flavours of the citrus rub and the enhance the umami of the meat.

Finishing on a sweet note; the finale is always is delicate and simple, like fresh seasonal fruit. One year Japanese kaki, a persimmon grown on site and served with thin slices of its dried version eating like a delicate firm fig. However, in recent years dessert has become the masterpiece of our talented daughter Mia Ray who seems to be born with a cooking know how in her DNA and well-developed pallet for all thing’s umami and sweet. She is an artist at heart and very meticulous in her work, perfect for the pastry section on this occasion and the pure joy of sharing time together in the kitchen. In recent years we have perfected a gluten free bake of almond, polenta and citrus with a twist of either sake or plum wine. In 2019 this was based on yuzu, sudashi crisps, a shikawasha jam and served with a sake sabayon.