What could be more normal than spending the morning of your birthday in a smoked salmon factory in Hackney?
For me, nothing.
I wouldn’t prefer to be drinking, partying, watching Netflix. You name it, nothing would beat it.
It was a pretty last minute plan when I realised I wouldn’t be working, and I’d received an invite from Foodtryb whose community I’ve recently become part of, and this fantastic opportunity had been organised by them.
I wasn’t sure what to expect of a tour of a salmon factory but I turned up, intrigued and ready to learn.
Forman & Field is a family-run business that started producing smoked salmon over 100 years ago. Their factory now runs alongside a kitchen that produces delicious food ready to be shipped to you and eaten at home, a restaurant, and a newly opened deli.
As well as their renowned smoked salmon, they offer a range of other high quality foods including meat dishes, other types of fish and seafood, and even cakes.
DISCLAIMER: As part of the Foodtryb community, this tour, the tasting session and goody bag were free, however, I have not been asked to post anything, and as I have said before, I would not post about an event, business or brand that I wasn’t impressed by (lol #blackfoodfest). My enthusiasm is always genuine, and likewise my disappointment or indifference wherever that may arise!
After dressing ourselves in highly attractive hairnets, jackets and shoe covers, we headed to the factory itself where a huge team were already hard at work, and some had been since the early hours. For those who are sensitive to the intense smell of fresh fish, this would not be the place for you, but to me it was fantastic, and seeing exactly where our food comes from and how it’s prepared was incredibly enlightening.
To begin with, we were shown the salmon being prepared, ready to be salted, so heads removed, and sliced down the middle. A few large patches of skin are also removed so that granulated salt can be added, seeping into the skin, drying the flesh out and travelling right down into the tail. Our wonderful host, Darren, explained that some supermarket-bought smoked salmon can be overly slimy as instead of being dried out with salt, they are left in brine meaning that the moisture is held in. This ultimately means that the quality is much poorer, particularly when frozen and then defrosted.
The visit also emphasised how the point of smoking salmon was never to give it an intentional smoky flavour. I’d never thought much about the fact that the point of smoking the salmon when people started doing it originally was purely to seal in the freshness and flavour back when fridges weren’t available. Therefore the smoky flavour is only something that people have come to demand more recently.
There are no flames used in Forman & Field’s production process. Instead, this wooden block is rubbed against the wheel below causing friction, which in turn produces smoke. They don’t believe that the flavour should be too smoky, and so the subtlety of the flavours in their salmon make it perfect for those who don’t typically enjoy smoked products.
Darren couldn’t give us a thorough tour and demo without telling us all about his world record for the fastest time slicing salmon – he even competed against Gordon Ramsey and you can find the video on their website! The bones have to be removed, and no matter what size the salmon is, there are always 30 to pick out.
There are then a couple of different ways of slicing it – a ‘D cut’, slicing vertically which is the more modern option, and a longer, horizontal cut which was more popular in the past.
We also visited the room where the salmon is hung up – all of them being Scottish salmon – some wild, and some farmed. The farmed was slightly brighter in colour as in the image below.
We welcomed the much needed warmth in our next stop – the kitchen. There was so much going on in here, ready for orders to be shipped out to both big supermarkets and businesses, and independent orders. Some of the dishes being made before us included lobster terrine with langoustine and smoked salmon, and a meat roulade – our first insight into the non-fish dishes produced here.
By this time, we were v excited to try some samples.
I say some samples… no one had anticipated just quite how much food would appear before us, and I have to say the spread was incredible.
First up were the raw basics – simple smoked salmon. We were introduced to both fatty and lean versions so that we could make a judgement on which one we preferred. I’m still not sure, and think I need a bit more practice (!) but for now I’d probably say the fatty one was slightly preferable. We also tried the bit from the belly (centre), and then two slices of the royal salmon.
The royal salmon was beautiful. The slice on the left is plain, and on the right is flavoured with truffle. The pieces were light and buttery with a beautiful texture. I would never have thought that truffle could work so well with salmon in this way but it was delicious – for me it the perfect example of how to use truffle in a dish. Less of the raved-about truffle pasta at Gloria, which is a sickly overload of slimy, wasted truffle. Here there was enough truffle to taste, but it was subtle enough not to feel thrown in for the sake of it.
Next we tried the Swedish gravlax, which contrary to what many people think, is not smoked salmon, as it’s not actually been smoked! This one was flavoured with dill, and it was ok but nothing special.
Surprisingly, I much preferred the ginger and wasabi salmon, despite not really liking wasabi. I found this one creamy and delicate.
On to another course, and this one sounds odd. Salmon jerky. I actually quite like jerky anyway so was looking forward to trying this. It’s pretty salty and so moorish. I noticed some people taking a bite and leaving the rest on their plates but I was straight in there, bite after bite. Really unusual concept, and that’s always something that has me curious!
The first non-salmon-related dish was an onion tart, which I actually brought some of home. Not too eggy, with soft, crumbly pastry and a tasty filling. The scotch eggs also came out at this point. The first one was a smoked salmon scotch egg, and the second, a traditional pork one. Interestingly I did prefer the salmon one, and the egg yolk in the centre was that perfect combination of being cooked yet still gooey.
Writing this is just making me realise how much food there was. It really was a madness. But we’re now onto the fried goodies – croquettes and arancini. First up was the salmon and lobster croquette, then we had thai salmon (my favourite – beautiful flavours) and then smoked haddock. I can’t remember what the first arancino was to be honest, but the second interestingly was a greek salad one with feta. This one was good, and I heard lots of people saying it was their favourite.
YES WE ARE STILL GOING. AND HERE COME THE HIGHLIGHTS. I couldn’t believe it when I heard the words ‘mac ‘n’ cheese’ floating through the air. This was not what I had anticipated, especially combined with the word TRUFFLE. I realised I had to start being more sensible at this point, as who knew when it would stop, so I managed to limit myself to just half a mini portion. Mac ‘n’ cheese was fab, perfectly creamy and again, light on the truffle flavours but still enough to notice.
Alongside the Mac was a salmon lasagne, which I wanted to try but didn’t have massively high expectations of. Just goes to show how open-minded you should be when trying things because this was my favourite dish of them all. I’m not sure what made it so beautiful, but it just had a kind of butteriness to it and I’m very tempted to order more of these from the catalogue because it was fantastic, and tasted such high quality.
Last fishy dish was the smoked mackerel paté. Mackerel is the ultimate fishy kind of fish, and so I reckon is only good for genuine foodies or fish lovers. I appreciated the paté but I wasn’t hugely fussed by it.
Who would’ve thought we’d also end up being served a load of desserts at a fish factory of all places, but we were. The lemon and pistachio cake came first and was lovely and light with a sweet hint of lemon. Then came the brownie which was excellent – for me a brownie MUST be gooey, not at all hard, and more dense in a chocolately way than spongey. This one was exactly that without being tooo heavy. Finally was the banana bread which was decent but I have had better (Fox Café in Nottingham is still my number one of all time!).
And. That. Is. Everything.
And so it should be. Luckily all the portions were small tasters, but still it was a crazy amount of food. I also received some of their packaged smoked salmon to take home, which I’m going to freeze whilst I research some fantastic recipes to put it to use.
I’ve had such a wonderful morning, and after having a look at the menu for their restaurant online (they do both dinners and weekend brunch), hopefully I’ll get chance to head over there at some point.
Thank you to both Forman & Field for their fantastic hospitality and genuine passion and knowledge surrounding their products, and Foodtryb for the organisation and invite.
If you want to find out more, browse their catalogue or restaurant menus then head to www.formanandfield.com.
Let’s get fishhhhy, and…
¡Comemos!
xo
¡Comemos! 