Recipe for Bolt's success

Poppy Brady, Gleaner Writer

If Usain Bolt is currently feeling the pressure on the track following the national trials, then this dish could be just what he needs to put him back in the fastest lane once again.

Award-winning chef Robert Bailey has come up with a few dishes that he believes have the right ingredients to give the world's fastest man that extra oomph for the Olympics!

Bailey, who runs Bailey's Caribbean Restaurant in Newtown, Birmingham, has been busy concocting a dish he has named 'Red Bolt' since the red mullet fish is the centrepiece of the dish.

"Bolt is my hero, and he's on fire at the moment," said the chef and father of three who runs the busy restaurant just outside the city centre in Newtown Row with his wife, Alison.

"Yohan Blake beating him in the trials is nothing to worry about because there is much more in Bolt's tank. He could beat most people running backwards!"

Bailey's Red Bolt dish, which is bound to be a favourite with customers, includes escoveitch red mullet with okra and three different types of capsicums, sweet peppers, thyme, all spice and spring onions.

"This will give him some zip," added Bailey. "This is a natural dish, sourced from the sea with nothing artificial to slow him down and hinder his performance. I would be more than willing to cook it for him when he stays in Birmingham."

Carrot Bolt

And to wash it all down, Bailey recommends his 'Carrot Bolt' - carrot juice, malt, condensed milk and ordinary milk pepped up with a bit of ginseng, cinnamon and nutmeg.

"The Carrot Bolt will certainly help him clear the line those few vital seconds before everyone else," promises Bailey.

Bailey was runner-up at Levi Roots' Caribbean Cook-off held at Birmingham Sea Life Centre before the three-day Caribbean Food Festival in May.

His rainbow trout was praised by Roots, who commended all the winning chefs who, he said, had "pushed the culinary borders and used a lot of initiative and enterprise, taking Caribbean food from something homely to something exquisite".