We dissect what London’s much-loved dishes are made from.
Panadera co-founder Mae Maglanoc is not afraid of taking risks. Not only did she open her Kentish Town bakery mid-lockdown in February 2021, she put a corned beef sando on the menu. She wanted to honour her Filipino roots, where corned beef is popular for breakfast. ‘It was risky,’ she says. ‘I thought: would people want this? Will they think it’s from a tin?’ The gamble paid off: it’s now the café’s bestseller (the corned beef is made from scratch, fyi). She talks us through it.
The corned beef
‘We make our own corned beef. We brine beef brisket for a few days, then we shred it, keeping some bits of meat chunkier, so it has different textures. It’s a labour of love.’
The croquette
‘To stop the beef going soggy, we make it into a croquette with potatoes and bechamel sauce, cover it in breadcrumbs and fry it. It’s crisp, gooey and comforting.’
The bread
‘It’s a traditional Filipino milk bread called pandesal, which we make in-house. It uses lots of milk and sugar. The sweetness complements the salty corned beef.’
The trimmings
‘We use butterhead lettuce, which has a good bite, and fried shallots, because in the Philippines, we eat corned beef with onions. They add a layer of texture.’
The sauces
‘We use garlic aioli – I think it belongs in everything – and our own ketchup infused with calamansi, which is like a Filipino lime. It cuts through all the richness.’
Panadera, 83 Kentish Town Rd. £7.50.