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The chocolate and hazelnut babka in all its glory
What can you tell us about Shuk?
Started by Mark Jankel, previously known for Street Kitchen, Shuk launched as part of Borough Market Kitchen. It was originally a permanent stall and then expanded last summer with their Erev supper club. The menu is inspired by Israeli food, with a particular eye on the street food scene there for some of their dishes like the Sabich Pita.
And they're part of Restaurant Box?
Yes, they've brought several of their boxes to Restaurant Box. There are babka kits, sabich kits and a weekend box that takes in both of those and more. That weekend box is what we tried out.
The full spread of the weekend box. There's a lot there - but it all combines to great effect.
How much is required to bring it all together?
We'd say this is somewhere in the middle complexity-wise. In the dinner, for instance, there are a number of elements that need to be brought together. However, the pacing isn't too frenetic and the results more than reward the effort involved. So it's absolutely time well spent. There's an extensive video that covers everything in the box. It's really worth watching this if you can, we found it extremely helpful.
So what's on offer?
A fair amount - that's for sure. In addition to individual dish kits, there are two weekend-specific boxes, focusing on either seafood or meat. The meat version comes with 12-hour marinated lamb (which does sound good) but on this occasion, we opted for the weekend fish box where a marinated sea bass is the central dish.
As part of that, there are three meals - brunch (shakshuka), lunch (pita) and dinner (the sea bass) as well as a babka that you can have as dessert across them all (assuming you don't devour that in double-quick time like we did). Here's what we had:
The Sabich Pita Kit - perfect for brunch, this dish of hard boiled egg, roasted aubergine and the most amazing amba tahini was very easy to assemble.
The Chocolate, Hazelnut & Cookie Crumb DIY Babka - extensive video instructions made this a cinch to put together and that cookie crumb elevated it to next level babka. This can be ordered separately too.
This was one of three salads, designed to be served with the dinner as a starter course. It's charred aubergine, smokey tomato, labane, mint, coriander & toasted sumac pumpkin seeds. The salads combine several ingredients to great effect (the aubergine was amazing) and it actually helps that you can get these prepared at leisure and leave until you're ready to eat.
The second salad is sweet potato, chilli yoghurt, radish, chives & coriander - again this all worked well, but perhaps the sweet potato would have benefited from being a little warm.
And the third salad - Grilled broccoli (just grilled in a pan for a few minutes), tahini labane, mushroom vinaigrette & dried tomatoes. That mushroom vinaigrette worked wonders here.
The main event - whole marinated sea bass, off the bone in lemon, tamarind & ginger marinade, fresh basil & San Felice olive oil. Very, very easy to prepare, just marinate and then put it in the oven for 15 minutes. We were very pleased at how this came out - and that ginger marinade matched the seabass exceptionally well.
Alongside the seabass (as well as more pita bread) there's very, very smooth House Hummus, served up with warm fish tagine in the middle, amba tahini & dill. And, as they say in the videos, serve with a "little" olive oil, because why not?
Finally, here's the shakshuka with Challah loaf. We've never actually made shakshuka before - this just entailed simmering the sauce until it was nice and thick and then a small bit of extra cooking to get the Cackleberry Farm eggs just right.
Anything else?
As well as the babka kit we made, there's also a pistachio and date babka which is surely worth a try.
Overall thoughts
There's a lot to the weekend box from Shuk, but it delivered really well with every element exceeding expectations. The dishes bring together multiple ingredients that it'd be hard to gather up by yourself, but which here leads to a varied box with some really standout dishes. This is our first time trying Shuk and based on this, we'll be seeking out their Erev supperclub when everything opens up again.
Shuk with Restaurant Box
How much: The Shuk weekend kit is £180, includes everything above and feeds four people. The babka and pita kits are also available to buy separately.
How to order: Order here
Find out more: Visit the Restaurant Box website or follow Shuk on Instagram @shuklondon and Restaurant Box on Instagram @restaurant_box
Hot Dinners were sent this box as a gift by Shuk and this is a sponsored feature for Restaurant Box. Prices correct at time of publication.
More about Restaurant Box
Restaurant Box brings together the very best boxes from the UK's top chefs all in one place. From meal-kits to simple finish-at-home boxes, they've teamed up with an impressive roster of chefs and restaurants.
They'll make it easy for you to find the box that's right for you, and will hold your hand through every step of the process, from cookalongs to video wine pairings.
Find out more about Restaurant Box
Follow them on Instagram @restaurant_box
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