Upon visiting a selection of Hull’s local independent cafe’s which serve home made soup, we also asked them a few questions about their lovely businesses, how they ended up running their own cafe’s, and what kind of produce they tend to opt for in their menus.
The Brain Jar
Q: Do you have a favourite dish you like to cook?
A: I really like the capanata, which is like a Sicilian inspired stew – it’s one of the more popular vegan options that we do. We can do it as a salad or a sandwich, or also a side by itself, it’s very popular with vegans and one of my personal favourites.
Q: Is this dish also popular with the general public too?
A: Yes, I would say so. We make it very regularly.
Q: So do you use meat, fish and eggs?
A: Yes, we do a lot of vegetarian inspired options and some meat options. We do chicken, pork belly, and we are experimenting at the moment with a steak sandwich which the staff really like.
Q: Do you use free range eggs and red tractor meat?
A: We definitely use free range eggs, and all I know is our meat is very high quality. We get all our meat and veg from the market and butchers next door. We get all of our produce from the market.
Q: Do you tend to use seasonal produce?
A: Yes, we do use seasonal stuff. We are changing up the menu at the moment to look at things that are more in season. We are looking at doing some things with pumpkin.
Q: Do you have an interest in sustainability?
A: I’m not really sure we do anything drastic in that area; it’s mostly just standard crockery that we use.
Q: Do you find that food waste is an issue?
A: We find that a lot of our food gets used anyway, but anything that doesn’t we record in the kitchen – we are very mindful of what we use. If we have one ingredient that only goes in one dish, we start avoiding this and instead look at dishes with ingredients you can use in multiple dishes to avoid wastage.
Q: Do you use your own recipes?
A: Yes, we do. The recipes come from all of us, not just one single chef. Our winter menu is coming out very soon.
Visit The Brain Jar at 4-6 Trinity House Ln, Hull HU1 2JA.