WINNER WINNER...

If you follow Carters on Instagram, you'll already know about their staff dinners. For the 23 of you that don't, before service each night, the chefs at the Michelin-starred Moseley spot take turns to make tea for the whole team. So popular have the daily "how to" posts become that exec chef Brad Carter has this week published a book of them. And because he chooses Birmingham, just like you, he's shared an exclusive recipe from Staff for you to recreate. You're having Chinatown Chicken Pie. Lucky!

"This dish is the mad love child of takeaway curry and the most British of staples — the pie. The inspiration comes from Brum's brilliant Chinatown, and a childhood of chip shop curry sauce. It's simple, comforting and a definite staff favourite, that I often make for the team before Saturday night service. It's a mash-up of everything I live to eat: barbecued meat and Japanese katsu flavours with the most traditional of finishes. Be sure to get a couple of Hockley lagers on ice to help with the cooking process and your tea".

Recipe: Chinatown Chicken Pie (serves four)

You will need:
4 Cotswold white chicken legs, boneless
2 leeks, chopped
1 onion, diced
50ml grapeseed oil
500ml chicken stock
100g golden curry paste [Chef says —You can get this from any Chinatown supermarket, though my favourite is actually Seoul Plaza in Selly Oak.]

And for the puff pastry:
250g strong plain flour
250g butter, diced at room temperature, not soft
1tsp salt
around 150ml cold water
egg yolk
black onion seeds
1kg purple sprouting broccoli, trimmed
100g duck fat, melted

Method: Sieve 250g strong plain flour and 1 tsp fine sea salt into a large bowl.

Roughly break 250g butter into small chunks, add them to the bowl and rub them in loosely. [Chef says: You don't need work the mixture hard — you should still be able to see little bits of butter].

Make a well in the bowl and pour in about 100ml of cold water, mixing until you have a firm, rough dough, adding extra water if needed. Cover with cling film and leave to rest for 20 minutes in the fridge.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board. Knead gently and form into a smooth rectangle. Roll the dough in one direction only, until three times its original width (about 20 x 50cm). Keep edges straight and even. [Chef says: Don’t overwork the butter streaks — you should have a marbled effect].

Fold the top third of the dough down to the centre, and the bottom third up and over it. Give the dough a quarter turn and roll out again to three times the length. Fold as before, cover with cling film and chill for at least 20 minutes before rolling out.

Roll out to a £ coin thickness to fit your chosen vessel for your pie.

Preheat oven to 200°C before you start making the pie's filling.

Light coals on a barbecue to a medium heat. Add the chicken and grill on each side for six to eight minutes, until cooked. [Chef says: You could use a griddle but, for Brad, barbecuing adds loads of flavour and as Carter's uses their outdoor bbq all year around, Brad's challenging you to dust yours down.] Either way, slice the chicken into thick chunks and set aside.

Heat the chicken stock in a pan until boiling, then whisk in the golden curry paste, whisking continuously until the sauce thickens, which should take around ten minutes.

In another pan, heat the oil then fry the onion and leek until translucent but soft (for around eight minutes), then add the chicken and pour over the curry sauce, stir and season with salt. Keep warm.

Spoon the pie mixture into a vessel then top with the puff pastry, sealing the edges and glaze all over with the egg yolk.

Bake the pie for around 20 to 25 minutes, until golden brown. Halfway through the cooking sprinkle the pastry with the black onion seeds.

Brush the broccoli with the melted duck fat then grill the broccoli over coals on a barbecue. Season with salt and serve alongside the pie.

For more recipes, Staff by Chef Brad Carter is available to buy right here. Or head to the book launch at the restaurant on June 9 from 4pm. OPM is catering.

WE ARE NOW ARRIVING AT BEER CENTRAL

We Are Beer have gone all-in on "beer" when it comes to their name. Ballsy, but also justified having hosted big deal festivals dedicated to the stuff in That There London, Bristol and Edinburgh over the last five years. And though it’s taken them a while to get to fair Brum (little bit cross), we’ll forgive founders Greg and Daniel — who came up with the idea for their company in a pub, of course they did — because the line up for the inaugural Beer Central is looking absolutely smoking. Literally. Brad Carter (yes, the same one from above — no, we're not sleeping with him) will be smoking and grilling meats, fish and seasonal veggies, picked to match up with beers from his fave breweries, The Kernel and Braybrooke. Talking of the good stuff, there’ll be more than 100 beers to try. Close to 119 Digbeth, where the two-dayer is taking place, Dig Brew Co are making the metres-long journey to attend. Coming a little further, you’ll also find pours from Cloudwater, Neon Raptor, Mahrs Bräu (representing Bavaria) and Collective Arts getting furthest travelled, arriving as they are from Ontario. On decks expect DJ Yoda, as well as some disc jockeying from a couple of Kaiser Chiefs. While completing the food line-up, OPM, Baked in Brick and Purecraft are doing dishes in addition to Brad. Yeah, we know. On July 5 and 6, tickets are £45 but ICB subscribers get 15% off by entering IChooseBeerCentral in the coupon code box before payment. Includes all your beer and a festival glass. All your beer! What could possibly go wrong?

BARE FOOD IN BEARWOOD

If Stirchley is the new Moseley, Bearwood is in line to become the new Stirchley, so probably get involved before everyone's on it. Bearwood Street Festival is your introit and by gum, it's going to look after your belly. Meat Shack? Tick. Fat Snags? Tick. Dick’s Smokehouse? Tick. Brad Carter? Actually, no, not this time. While you and B-wood get acquainted, 6Music regulars Lady Sanity will be making music, and art will be occurring, including via a graffiti wall you're cordially invited to pretty. On June 9

THE CHEF SHOW

When you eat out, are you a people watcher, or are you the person being watched? Part comedy, part cookery demo, part tasting, The Chef Show is a new production playing out in a local curry house, based on real stories from people in the trade. Each performance includes a different guest chef cooking live on stage. At Brum's MAC rendition, Sudha Saha of Entouraj in Droitwich Spa will be on cooking, giving out tips, tales and those tasters we mentioned. On June 16, tickets are £15.

Venue: Pint Shop, 38 Bennetts Hill, Birmingham, B2 5SN; website
Choice: Coriander Chicken Kebab (£12.50) Chooser: Waitress

Scaffolding — gone. Old menu — gone. Pints — gone. One of those statements is not true, and fortunately for you, the good people of Pint Shop will still hit you up with 568ml from their most glorious of beer boards to knock back with their brand-spanking-new menu. And if you’re anything like us, when you think ‘pints’ there’s a good chance you'll soon after be thinking ‘kebab’ — because you're a right lad — so we were right proper chuffed when the waitress recommended we go for the chicken coriander kebab. Charry chicken thigh comes on a coal-baked flatbread with garlic yoghurt and green sriracha: fresh, zingy and with the right amount of spice to have us reaching for our Chorlton Mango Special Sour (5.8%), picked out by Pint Shop's head brewer. Ah, pints. Ah, kebabs. And with temperatures seriously threatening to creep over 15°C it only seemed appropriate to take our top off and nail a sundae with gin-soaked strawberries (£6) for pud, while gazing out of those unobstructed windows. The clotted cream ice-cream, meringue and gin made us feel more British than David Attenborough watching Only Fools and Horses with — oh we don't know — the Queen? Menu

Over the last six years, photographer Sam Frank Wood's been snapping Bham's music scene. The talented fella's condensed his work into 30 portraits that you can see at Artefact until Saturday, when there's an exhibition closing party you just got invited to.
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Get tutored in contemporary jewellery making at a rather apt location — the Museum of the JQ. On June 15, you'll make and take a silver spinning ring home with you. The all-dayer is £60 with a max group of ten. Book
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It's your last chance to see Hew Locke's exhibition at Ikon, and linked to the history of Windrush it speaks to, it's also The Migrant Festival this weekend. From today through to Sunday, get to talks, musical happenings or even a fashion parade.

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Spontaneity is still a thing you can do. Design, make and print your own zine from 6pm this very night. It's £15 and all happening at Minerva Works in Digbo. Tickets

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It's the very first Sunday Soul, from midday this weekend. The new weekly shebang involves your Digbeth Dining Club faves putting on their own takes on the British institution that is the great Sunday roast.

"Winner winner, chicken dinner. The term comes from back-alley gamblers during the Great Depression. These desperate gamblers would bet whatever they had in hopes of winning a chicken meal."
—
David Guzman,
'A Guide to Craps Lingo from Snake Eyes to Muleteeth'
(1971)

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WORDS: Katy Drohan, Rob Newsome, Robb Sheppard
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