Case study – Pacojet is a big hit at the Hole in the Wall

Shortly after reaching the finals of BBC's MasterChef in 2010, Alex Rushmer and his business partner Ben Maude started to plan a new culinary venture together - the http://www.holeinthewallcambridge.co.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Hole in the Wall, a beautiful old English beamed pub at Little Wilbraham about seven miles from Cambridge.

Before they started out, they sought advice from established chefs in the locality. The main tip they picked up was to buy a Pacojet - so that's exactly what the pair have done and they now use it to prepare at least one of the elements in most of the dishes they serve.

Maude says: "We were impressed by the advice we received and we found out for ourselves what a difference the Pacojet makes to the natural colour of the ingredients and the texture it imparts can only be described as divine. Our preconception was that it was an ice-cream maker, but it does so much more than that, as we continue to discover."

He points to their signature dish, scallops with cauliflower and curry, as a good example of how versatile the Pacojet can be. For the cauliflower purée, Maude cooks the cauliflower with milk, puts it in the Pacotising beaker, freezes it for 24 hours and it is ready to use. The Pacojet's rapidly rotating blade turns the mixture into a snow-like powder that he then reconstitutes.

"The end result," says Maude, "is a much brighter but totally natural white colour and the mouthfeel is way smoother than I can achieve manually with a sieve."

Maude's recipe is available on the ChefTools website - www.cheftools.co.uk

For more information e-mail sales@cheftools.co.uk