The programme will see Mr Krausz demonstrate how he smokes the meat in the garden of his Hendon home, after which he will deliver a platter for Dame Mary to enjoy in her daughter’s Oxfordshire garden.
His television appearance and growing global success has been all the more remarkable because Mr Krausz, head of the aviation legal team at law firm Weightmans, is not a natural self-publicist. After the self-taught cook built a smokehouse in 2017, he smoked gourmet meat and fish every Thursday night, selling it weekly via a Facebook group, Blue Smoke, for Shabbat meals.
Speaking about appearing on television, he said: “I would normally shy away from these things, but their overall aim was consistent with what I’m trying to do, which is to show that kosher can be amazing — just as good as anything else.”
Dame Mary’s involvement indicated to him that the show itself was “kosher”, he said, and he was pleased to be involved. “The real compliment came because they approached me not because my food is kosher but because it’s good.”
In the early days, he said, he’d been excited to send meat in taxis to St John’s Wood. But now he regularly dispatches orders internationally. “I package my products into cool styrofoam containers to go on business jets to various parts of the world,” he said.
Destinations for his so-called “decadence boards” have included super-yachts moored off Sardinia, as well as Russia and, most recently, Vienna.
Dame Mary said: “Across the country there are so many people whose love of cooking has taken them in extraordinary directions and Andrew Krausz is one of them. Each Thursday night and into the early hours, Andrew smokes up to 200kg of meat cuts, all for his devoted clientele who want it for the weekend. When we met during filming, Andrew brought along his lovely smoked meat platter, which was delicious.”
Mr Krausz says that to preserve authenticity, the first time he actually met Dame Mary was on camera. He is seen walking towards her with one of his decadence boards, before sitting down at her table for her to taste an assortment of his menu.
He said: “I took smoked brisket; smoked chicken and duck; rib eye which has been cured, sous vide-cooked, and reverse seared; lacon (a smoked lamb ‘bacon’) and cherry chilli sauce — which is my most popular — together with some roasted garlic and garnishing. I also gave her some short ribs on the side. There was no branding on it as I would usually have had and no foie gras as it’s for the BBC.”
When asked if he has personally ever got tired of eating his smoked meats, Mr Krausz replied that he doesn’t always get the opportunity to sample them himself.
“Our deadline [for orders] is Tuesday, but often demand outstrips availability,” he said. “I’m too soft when people still ask, so the challenge is to have anything left for normal Friday night dinner. I’ve been known to give away our food, but there’s always a chicken that can be roasted and I’m very happy with that.”
Episode Three of “Love to Cook” is on BBC2 at 8pm on Thursday 25 November
