Modesty better understood in the kitchen. Limitless creativity with the product -and not the technique- as the protagonist. Pedrito Sánchez ensures us that he has never read a recipe in his life. However, he cooks with his senses and on how the soul of the product talks to him only using an induction cooker, an oven and a Thermomix.

The cuisine of thought, of spending more time using your mind than your hands, a simpler and more complicated cuisine was claimed on Tuesday at San Sebastián Gastronomika. It was proclaimed by its current leading representative, Pedro Sánchez (Baga*, Jaén) who cooks without referring to recipes, “knowing the products and cooking beforehand in your mind to convey the soul of the product through new dishes”. “These are the true offspring of Ferran Adrià”, ensured journalist Xavier Agulló after the presentation.

Pedrito Sánchez cooked for the world in a presentation sponsored by the Jaén Provincial Council – Jaén Selección Olive Oils from the kitchen at Mugaritz. He did this to advocate simplicity understood through four recipes with a “punch of flavour”, remarked the chef, alongside José Carlos Capel, who accompanyied him. The first dish commenced with the potentiality of farmed mushrooms. “I place them on the dish accompanied by their own water extracted free of salt in an Ocoo pressure cooker, a utensil, incidentally, made popular in haute cuisine, by the Spanish trio of chefs at Disfrutar in Barcelona. “A dish with one single product and a plenty of earthy flavour on this occasion”. The punch he was talking about. “And it’s just a humble fungus, not a luxury mushroom”. It was not trivial: “I like my customers to have no references of what they’re eating although they know the product”. That’s where its added value lies.

Sánchez advocates simplicity, ideas above technique, “I still believe that I am pretty poor technically”. Even if it were created well this cannot be developed: three skilled people fit into Bagá’s kitchen, working with only one oven, a Thermomix and an induction cooker.

Another seemingly easy recipe, “a dessert which is not a dessert, where I cook a whole beetroot in plum juice. It turns out firm al dente, he ensures. The beetroot is presented in sheets and completed with the juice it has been cooked in adding a little rose vinegar. “I can’t present fish as well made as in other places, so I cook them my way”. This was the preamble of a monkfish he cooks for one hour in coarse salt and for another in brine before sautéing it with a torch – “I don’t have a grill”- “and perhaps by putting for a short time in the oven”. The result is a smooth tasking monkfish, with a texture like a scallop, accompanied by a purée of fermented celery root and cooked without adding any water.

The last dish. Another demonstration of less is more and concentrating flavours: roast garlic praline. The final punch of the presentation. Finished by a tomato cooked with rosemary, almost dehydrated. A play with the sweetness of the roast garlic that due to its finished look is called “nigiri a la Pedrito”.

Modesty and a sense of humour; an experienced chef -with his hands and mind- above all.