The spice is right

Product Trial: Sharwood's

Venue: The Maypole Inn, Hayling Island, Hampshire​

Indian and Asian is one of the UK's most popular food styles, particularly when dining out, and the pub is offcially the nation's favourite place to eat. It should be a match made in heaven, but many pubs still struggle with offering authentic Asian dishes. Our latest Pub Food Product Trial saw a Hampshire pub get to grips with the issue.

The month-long trial of Sharwood's products gave Diane McEwan, partner and licensee of the Maypole Inn and Restaurant on Hayling Island, Hampshire, the opportunity to experiment with a new and exotic range of dishes.

Located in a rural area surrounded by fields, the tenanted pub mainly attracts mature families and couples. Food is prepared and cooked to order using ingredients from local suppliers, and is served in both the main bar and the quieter restaurant area.

The Maypole is open for lunch and dinner. The number of covers can vary greatly according to the time of year, due to the pub's location in a popular holiday destination. During the winter months covers vary between 300 and 500 a week, rising in summer to as much as 800 to 1,000.

Diane and her husband Doug have significantly developed the food side of the business since taking over the Maypole in January 2003, with between 65 and 70 per cent of total turnover coming from food.

The pub already used Sharwood's ready-to-use Indian sauces. For the trial, Diane added Sharwood's noodles, puppodums, Indian pastes, and Indian and Oriental sauces.

Diane says: "We used the Indian sauces to create a number of simple curry dishes such as beef balti, chicken tikka and chicken korma. Our head chef, Adrian Leslie, was also more creative with the products using Sharwood's lemon and coriander sauce with sea bass, serving black bream in the chilli and ginger sauce and pork steaks coated with the korma variety. The sauces went particularly well with fish, which was great for us as we have a fresh fish night every Friday.

"Our vegetarian customers were particularly impressed with a stir-fry made with bean sprouts, noodles, mange tout and fine beans all mixed together with black bean sauce. Customers liked this dish as it was exotic yet simple and varied greatly from the traditional vegetable lasagne usually offered on vegetarian menus.

"The products were also suitable for our lunchtime menu, and we used them in sandwich fillings such as coronation chicken. This was simple to make by mixing Sharwood's tikka masala sauce with mayonnaise, then adding sultanas and dried apricot pieces. We used this as a filling for baguettes and added a layer of mango chutney and lettuce for extra flavour."

Puppodums were used to hold salad alongside main dishes, as chef Adrian discovered that they curl up by microwaving them for 25 seconds. To help make the right shape, he placed a puppodum on top of a bowl with a smaller bowl on top. As the puppodum heats, the smaller bowl begins to fall into the larger one below, shaping the puppodum.

Diane says: "Our puppodum dishes went down a storm with customers and were the greatest success of the trial. They not only look really good but customers can also eat the puppodums at the end of it. We filled them with salad and served alongside a range of dishes including steaks and scampi."

The new recipes were offered directly to customers on the specials board. Prices ranged from £6.95 for the vegetables and noodles in a black bean sauce, to £12.95 for the sea bass in lemon and coriander sauce.

Diane says: "We felt the quality of the products was really good and the descriptions on the packaging were spot on. For example, Sharwood's ready-to-use sauces are described as a "convenient, consistent means of creating an array of great tasting dishes" and Sharwood's pastes are described as "a pre-fried blend of spices, best used to create an array of great tasting dishes". Our customers were really impressed by the quality and creaminess of the sauces, and from the feedback that they gave us they seemed to have thoroughly enjoyed the dishes.

"Doing the trial was a great way to get reactions from customers and as a result we will be adding some of the dishes to our regular menu. Adrian is now happy to use Sharwood's sauces instead of making them from scratch thanks to the trial, as he found them to be really convenient and a great time saver as well as tasting authentic.

"He was particularly impressed with the black bean, lemon and coriander, and the chilli and ginger Oriental sauces which we will continue to use in our dishes in the future."

For further information on the Sharwood's range call the RHM Caterer AdviceLine on 0800 328 4246 or visit www.rhmfoodservice.co.uk.

If you would like your pub to feature in a Pub Food Product Trial, please email your contact details to pubfood@thepublican.com.