How I Lost My Job and Built a Social Media Empire: Poppy O'Toole on Becoming the Potato Queen

The Recipe

In this episode of The Recipe, host Theo Randall interviews Poppy O'Toole, a Michelin-trained chef who became a social media sensation known

Key takeaways

• Poppy O'Toole transitioned from professional kitchens to social media stardom after losing her job during the COVID-19 lockdown.
• Her husband, Tom, played a pivotal role in launching her digital presence by managing the social media side of her recipe videos.

Main topics

• Social media entrepreneurship
• Michelin-trained culinary techniques

Notable quotes

Anyone can cook. It just takes a bit of practice and also a bit of confidence.

Conclusion

A heartwarming and practical guide to finding opportunity in adversity

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Not to sound cliche, as in like the rap from Ratatouille, but like anyone can cook. Yeah. It just takes a bit of practice and also a bit of confidence. And you just need to go for it. And if you make a mistake, it probably will be a delicious mistake. If it burns, it burns. You know not to do it again. Speaker 2 (0:14) Always trust your instinct. Yeah. Speaker 1 (0:15) And Speaker 2 (0:15) I think that's so important in cooking. Hello and welcome to the recipe brought to you by Filippo Berio. I'm your host, Theo Randall. Today I'm joined by a Michelin trained chef who turned a sudden pandemic curveball into a multi-million follower empire. Speaker 1 (0:27) Chef? I've got a sous chef. This is great. I've got a commie. Is Speaker 2 (0:30) that okay? Is that enough? Speaker 1 (0:32) Yes, that's lovely. Thank you very much. Thank you, chef. Yes, chef. Speaker 2 (0:35) Known globally to her fans as the potato queen, she spent the last few years demystifying the fine dining techniques and teaching the internet how to make comfort food truly extraordinary. Okay, so what would your last meal on earth be? Speaker 1 (0:48) Controversially, no potatoes. Speaker 2 (0:49) Really? I Speaker 1 (0:50) feel like I've had enough in my lifetime to leave it off the last meal. But Speaker 2 (0:54) you can't, I mean, you don't give up potato. Speaker 1 (0:55) No, I can't give up potato. but I don't know what potato I'd have as my last meal. Speaker 2 (0:59) Please welcome Poppy O'Toole. Speaker 2 (1:07) Poppy, it's such a pleasure to have you here. Speaker 1 (1:09) I'm very excited to be here. It's a lovely kitchen you've got here. Not Speaker 2 (1:13) bad, is it? Lovely Speaker 1 (1:13) house. Speaker 2 (1:14) Thank you. So this show's all about recipes that tell a story. Recipes have meaning to you. What are you going to cook for us today? So Speaker 1 (1:22) I'm going to be cooking a delicious supreme of chicken with potato fondants with a smoky hot pan sauce and then maple glazed corn, which all doesn't... sound like it has anything to do with me but there's quite a few stories behind how I got to this dish so first of all is my nan yeah Speaker 2 (1:41) she Speaker 1 (1:41) got me into food basically because I love eating so she would then like give me little snacks while she cooked like I just used to eat like handfuls of like roasted mints yeah anything I was like I just need to eat um but she would she was quite experimental back in the day so she used to make this thing a chicken maryland and I just remember being like banana corn and chicken like What on earth is this? And she would allow me to try things. So I'd be like, I want to make a mini roast dinner. And she'd let me get a poutine and little Chantilly carrots and just everything small. And I made a mini roast dinner for everybody. Speaker 2 (2:14) How old were Speaker 1 (2:14) you Speaker 2 (2:14) then? I was Speaker 1 (2:15) probably about five. Speaker 2 (2:16) No. Speaker 1 (2:17) Always obsessed with food. And my treat from her, she'd be like, do you want to go to the fish market? So I could just go and see fish. And she'd bring me into Birmingham, into the rag market and the food market. Or Bilston Market was where, in Dudley, where her family were from. So she just really installed a love of food into it. And this is slightly inspired by that. I have taken the banana off. Yeah. But it's that kind of like smoky, spicy chicken, corn, potato. That's Speaker 2 (2:46) the Speaker 1 (2:46) classic Speaker 2 (2:47) American. Yeah, classic American Speaker 1 (2:48) dish. But I just remember being like, wow, how does my nan know what that is? It was just a weird one to have on a random Thursday dinner. Speaker 2 (2:55) Was she like, you know, she read lots of cookbooks. Lots of cookbooks. Speaker 1 (2:58) We used to sit after school with an array of cookbooks like Rick Stein or Keith Floyd or Delia on the telly and we just... read and and I was just obsessed with cooking and cooking shows and books and Speaker 2 (3:11) she so she just cooked all the time she baked she all the time yeah Speaker 1 (3:14) there was a lot of steamed puddings we'd go out picking hip kiss yeah Speaker 2 (3:18) so Speaker 1 (3:19) we and make jams out of hip kiss and she had crab apple trees and it was just a lot of so Speaker 2 (3:23) she was frugal a forager and a great cook yeah she sounds amazing she Speaker 1 (3:27) was incredible and she used to love playing golf oh even better she was so cool Speaker 2 (3:34) Well, she sounds like a real inspiration. I think it all comes from, you know, your mother or your grandparents. They would make such a difference. You know, you kind of grow up with these amazing stories and you remember them forever. It Speaker 1 (3:45) was something so normal, like every day, like it was just a normal thing for her. But for me, it was just so like, oh, this is amazing. So it just shows you how much you can edit your children or your grandchildren and how they see you as they get older. Speaker 2 (3:58) So fondant potatoes, that is a difficult dish to create, the recipe that you cooked on a regular basis. Speaker 1 (4:04) So it was when I actually moved to London. And it was inside a bank. It was a fine dining restaurant inside a bank in London. But you got to work Monday to Friday and nights off. And I was like, get me, get me there, please. This sounds incredible. So we moved to London and then I basically became the potato maker. in a lot of ways so we used to do fondants for dining events we used to go you know cadogan gardens like the real posh bit of london and i'd go in a taxi and then take like six fondants and six chicken and and then do a private dining for these bankers and i'm like literally 23 like what the hell is going on um so that was where i honed in on potato but i didn't even realize that that was what was happening. You know, I was just doing my job, but I became the potato person in there. So just constantly making potato dishes. Speaker 2 (4:53) So, I mean, that experience must have been, I mean, it's set you up, hasn't it? Speaker 1 (4:56) Yeah, absolutely. All of them working in kitchens from the ages of 16 in pubs to mixing places to working in a care home at one point and then going into, like, London. Speaker 2 (5:09) Yeah. Speaker 1 (5:10) It was just seeing every single aspect of hospitality. So the last place I worked at was this clubhouse and it was five stories and we were doing afternoon teas, events, a la carte, buffets. We had a downstairs that was doing like yakitori stuff and it was just like absolute chaos. But seeing how then that worked and how do we do bowl foods and how do we do this? It's all been amazing just to kind of, they're liking food especially. You have to go to loads of different places to learn so much more about it. So Speaker 2 (5:43) this dish, we've got chicken Supremes. You've got the skins on them, which I love. I think the skin on the chicken is the best bit. I Speaker 1 (5:50) think we miss out if the skin's not there. It's just Speaker 2 (5:52) wrong cooking chicken without skin. And then, so you're doing the fondant potatoes. You've got some corn there. So what are you going to do with the corn? So Speaker 1 (5:59) the corn, we're literally going to pan fry, simply. A little bit of stock in there and a little bit of maple. So you get this sweet, glazed corn. And then we're going to add... Absolutely destroy it with parmesan. So like an unhealthy amount of parmesan. So it's really salty. So then you do all this lovely stuff to it and then you just completely cover it in parmesan. Speaker 2 (6:16) And you've got a very neat trick with the chicken, haven't you? The skin. Speaker 1 (6:19) Yes. A little bit like how you'd cook a duck. Yeah. So you're rendering out the fat. So you're starting off in a cold pan. Yeah. And in the one place that I worked, I had this amazing Sardinian sous chef called Steph. He was great. Mad, but great. And he used to put in probably like a good, you know, first bit of your finger of oil first. And then you almost like confining it from cold to hot. And he used to get the most incredible, delicious crispy skin on a chicken. And I was like, I love it. That's how I'm going to do my crispy skin on chicken from now on. Speaker 2 (6:51) You make me very hungry. I think we should start cooking. Speaker 1 (6:54) Yes, let's go. Okay. Speaker 2 (6:57) So chicken, so we're going to put that into a pan, bit of oil in the pan. Yes, please. Speaker 1 (7:01) And also, controversially, I'm going to use fine salt. Speaker 2 (7:06) None of this posh salt? Speaker 1 (7:07) None of that. That's for finishing that for me. I love fine salt. I just find it has an even seasoning. It also helps with a bit of the Maillard reaction. Speaker 2 (7:16) Okay. To Speaker 1 (7:17) make it nice and golden and delicious because it's all evenly spread because the salt draws out. This is Speaker 2 (7:22) when all your Michelin experience comes in, isn't it? Speaker 1 (7:24) It's either that or I've watched too many TikToks that have told me not to do that. No, it is. Combination. It definitely is all of the Mitch Lemon experience. Yes, so they go into the pan cold. Any oil? Oil in a second. Okay, interesting. Speaker 2 (7:38) Wow, so just straight in the pan? Straight Speaker 1 (7:40) in the pan. Speaker 2 (7:40) And I guess that's so it just literally sticks to the pan? Speaker 1 (7:43) Yes, basically. And that renders the fat? That connection and then renders the fat. So if you wouldn't mind, as I've got chicken fingers, should we do the nice olive oil? Yeah. Speaker 2 (7:51) Yeah, go on then. Speaker 1 (7:52) Bit of like a nice, like a level evening spread across the bottom of the pan, please. And then get that onto a medium heat, chef. I've got a sous chef. I've got a commie. Speaker 2 (8:01) Is that okay? Is that enough? Speaker 1 (8:04) Yes, that's lovely. Thank you very much. Thank you, chef. Yes, chef. Speaker 2 (8:07) Should I turn it on, chef? Speaker 1 (8:09) Yes, please, chef. Speaker 2 (8:10) Full heat? Speaker 1 (8:11) Yeah, that'd be lovely. Then we basically leave that to do its thing. If you want to be extra good, you could put a press on it or something to weigh it down. Speaker 2 (8:20) Okay. Speaker 1 (8:21) Most people at home don't