Burger Kings

Burger Kings

Our tasty toppings and scrumptious sides promise burger success on the barbecue 

 
As the mercury keeps rising we thought we’d take a moment in the shade to remind you of our extensive array of tasty toppings and scrumptious sides, all guaranteed to ensure burger success on the barbecue this summer.
 
The first decent English summer in years seems set for weeks to come, and if the St George’s Cross colour schemes of scorched flesh and strap-marks aren’t providing sufficient confirmation of the unprecedented warmth, there’s also a definite scent of wood-smoke in the air, as a host of pubs and restaurants take service al-fresco by firing up the barbecue.
Crisp & Even

Crisp & Even

How to give your roast potatoes that perfect golden crunch this Christmas.

Potatoes may be the most humble of ingredients, but getting them done right can make or break the most elaborate roast. Forget the turkey trimmings or the hours spent constructing the Beef Wellington, if the roasties alongside aren’t perfectly crisp and golden the platter’s a let down.

Sense & Sensuality

Sense & Sensuality Why we recommend Veliche™ Gourmet for professional confectioners and pâtissiers

Why we recommend Veliche™ Gourmet as the premium chocolate for professional confectioners and pâtissiers. 

With a catering supply inventory now encompassing several thousand items, from antipasti to antibacterial sanitiser, it’s sometimes easy to forget that Maws began life by supplying just one product; chocolate. 

However, the specialist, premium quality chocolate that we supply exclusively to some of the UK’s most talented confectioners and patisserie chefs provided the cornerstone for creating the Maws of today, and we firmly believe that both the range of specialist patisserie products and expertise we’ve accumulated in this field over the last 30 years, allows us to offer a unique service, unmatched by many other whole food sales companies. 

Cold Comfort

Cold Comfort

Vegan ‘ice cream’ just keeps getting better - now it even comes with added health benefits. 

Firstly excuse the forthcoming inverted commas, but if it looks like ice cream and tastes like ice cream but its vegan, then legally and technically it’s a frozen desert. The term ice cream remains jealously guarded by the dairy industry; just ask Unilever the multinational consumer goods giant, who earlier this year had to market the newly launched vegan version their best-selling Magnum ice cream as a ‘velvety plant-based product’ providing ‘a creamy experience without the need for dairy’. 

Get on the Gravy Train

Get on the Gravy Train

These professional quality gravies and stocks are perfect for warming up winter menus. 

As most professionals working within the catering industry will be glad to tell you, good gravy and stock is a cornerstone of the kitchen. From a thick, glossy gravy poured over a beautifully roasted joint to a clear reduced jus packed with condensed flavour, they’re the culinary staples that makes the simplest dishes sing. 

To be clear (and there’s no pun intended here), stock is the juice made by gently boiling down the left over carcass of meat, fish or shellfish, most often with the addition of some appropriate aromatics. A good stock should contain enough collagen from the slowly simmered bones have imbued it with some natural thickness and delicate gloss. A broth (commonly known as bullion in French cuisine) is similar to a stock but is cooked faster, and often uses vegetables rather than meat, or a combination of both. 

Cool Food for Hot Weather

Cool Food for Hot Weather

What you choose to serve can have a dramatic effect on warm summer days

In weather like this it certainly doesn’t hurt to take a few dietary tips from our neighbours in warmer countries bordering Mediterranean, not to mention the advice of some nutritionists who’ve recently compiled a ‘does and don’ts’ list of what to enjoy and what to avoid on your plate when things get hot. 

According to experts, tucking into watermelon, turmeric and reducing the carbohydrates and protein in your diet are all sure-fire ways to create dishes that help customers beat the heat. 

Summer Spice

Summer Spice

Introducing some of our favourite herb and spice mixes for perfectly seasoning the summer season. 

At Maws we stock a truly comprehensive array of over 150 different dried herbs and spices cultivated and collected from every corner of the globe, not to mention classic blends, from Herbs du Provence to Garam Masala. 

As we mentioned in our previous blog, pre-making your favourite spice mixes is great way to save precious time in a commercial kitchen, and we’d like to share some more unusual blends from around the culinary world, all of which we’re convinced will become ‘go-to’ summertime staples whether you’re grilling or stewing, marinating or barbecuing. 

Ras el Hanout 

The Cream of Teas

The Cream of Teas

A proper cream tea is one of summer’s indispensable indulgences, and Maws are pleased to provide every mouth-watering component; from crumbly scones, sticky fruit jam, and lashings of clotted cream to a perfectly brewed pot of tea. 

It’s hard to believe weren’t always a nation of tea-drinkers, but until Catherine of Braganza arrived from Portugal with a casket of tea to marry Charles II in 1662, and established a ‘tea court’ for her noble ladies, the ‘Chinese drink’ as Samuel Pepys described it two years earlier, had been virtually ignored in Britain since the first green variety had arrived from Japan via The Dutch East India Co. in 1610. 

Today we consume 60.2 billion cups annually (making us the third largest tea-drinking nation, just behind Turkey and The Irish Republic). Moreover, since being adopted by Lady Bedford in 1830 the English tradition of ‘Afternoon Tea’, to fill the peckish gap between lunch and supper, has become a cultural institution recognised around the world. And when it comes to proper, greedily indulgent afternoon tea, many of us would argue against the finger sandwiches and candy-coloured macaroons, preferring to cut straight to the main event of fruit scones, jam and cream. 

Enter Polenta

Enter Polenta

Too often ignored in northern Europe, polenta is the perfect ingredient for tasty, inexpensive and filling winter meals.

Of the countless Italian-origin products that have become staples on British supermarket shelves over the past decades, polenta is undoubtedly both the most underused and misunderstood, and many who enthusiastically embrace pasta, pesto and pizza still view polenta with a outright suspicion. 

But once you’ve got your head around the different kinds of polenta – and the fact that you don’t just have to serve it as a pile of gluey mush - you might just fall in love with its versatility and pastoral charm. Still not convinced? Then read on…. 

Flour Power

Flour Power

A major emerging trend for restaurants in 2019 is offering artisan breads made in-house. Our ranges of speciality flour provide the perfect head start

It might be as old as farming itself, but bread and bread making has just had a whole page devoted to it in Facebook’s 2019 Topics & Trends Report. Bread, it appears, is back, although for many of us the simple pleasure of this carbohydrate-rich confection, never left. 

Nevertheless, Facebook credits the latest bread trend to a surge in food start-ups embracing baking, a rise in restaurants once again making bread in-house and, as the report states; ‘alternative flours seeing a rise in interest, as people have become more interested in spelt, rice flour, popular earlier this year, and even ancient grains, such as einkorn wheat.’