How To Learn Basic Knife Skills from Apartment Therapy: The Kitchn on Vimeo.

As a (belated) birthday treat we recently enjoyed a night in the five star Hayfield Manor Hotel and dinner in Orchids Restaurant which, in their own words, is “the premier choice for fine dining in Cork City”.

The hotel itself is lovely, nice setting and looks very well. The staff appeared warm and welcoming, the girl who checked us in asked if we had a nice journey and how we had heard about them. Off to a pleasant start but while I was in mid-response to her question the phone rang and she raised her hand as if to indicate “one moment, I have something more important to do” and answered the phone. How rude. She hung up and in case I wasn’t sure what to make of the incident she went and did it a second time. The phone rang, she stoped talking to us and answered it. What could me more important than welcoming new guests to your five star hotel? To her credit when the phone rang a third time she asked a nearby staff member to take the call but way too late to correct the terrible first impression.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing, the leisure center and the hot tub are are nice treat. We chose Orchids for dinner over the less formal Perrotts Bistro. Surroundings were nice and we were seen to our table and had ordered without fuss. The duck starter was shredded duck wrapped in a clumsy and heavy pasta tube served with some butternut squash flavours. OK but let down by the pasta. The lamb for main course wasn’t bad, maybe a bit underdone for my taste but nothing to complain about. The most entertaining part of the night came from the sommelier who appeared with our bottle of Muscadet-Sèvre et Maine sur lie and launched into a description of the wine and the area of origin. It started to sound a little generic and vague so to try inject some stimulation I asked him what “sue lie” on the label meant. He stalled, said he had asked his teacher that very same question recently and finally reported it had “something to do with sediment”. He topped up our glasses and sped off. That was the last we saw of him for the evening.

Overall the best I can say is that I wasn’t bad but the point is for a five star hotel who claims to be the premiere choice for fine dining in Cork I think they missed the target. We had a nice stay, the hotel and surroundings are a treat, the staff (for the most part) are attentive and friendly, their prices are very competitive at the moment but I think they were just that bit short on the fine dining and its hard to forgive that girl for answering the phone twice while I was talking to her during check-in.

I like to prattle on about buying local produce but how about going one better and start growing your own? The idea of allotments in Ireland is not really a brand new thing, you can visit http://www.irishallotments.net/ or http://www.allotments.ie/ for a list of instructions but it does seem to be on the up these days.

Peter Dowdall, already well established in the real world with his TV work and Dunsland Garden Center in Cork, is increasing his online presence with http://www.gardeningonline.ie/ and has recently been talking about a new allotment addition to Cork on his personal blog http://peterdowdall.com. Have a look Peter’s new websites about all things horticultural…and maybe some rugby related meanderings on http://www.twitter.com/PeterDowdall.

Enough linkage for now, have a good weekend. Ireland to beat Italy by fourteen.

We’re still plodding our way through January (will it ever end?) and coming to terms with 2010 so I guess the first effort at making something this year should not be too taxing.

Home made Pesto sauce is quick, easy, and far better than any of that stuff in a jar. Tastes better and probably better for you. Once you know the basics add your own details e.g. a dash of Lemon, some different herbs and so on…

Ingredients
One (25g) pack of fresh Basil.
Half a clove of garlic, finely chopped
100g of finely grated Parmesan
A Handful of Pine Nuts
1/2 Teaspoon dried Coriander
Seasoning
Olive oil

Method
Toast the pine nuts in a pan over a gentle heat, keep moving them around so they don’t burn. Add all the ingredients into your blender with a dash of olive oil. Blend down into a paste adding adding more oil as you go along if necessary, don’t add too much oil at the start, get a feel for how much you need as you go along.

When this is done cook some pasta, drain, add a knob of butter and stir in the pesto sauce. Buon appetito.

Having written about the Cliff House Hotel on a few occasions, we enjoyed a stunning dinner there last summer, I was delighted to hear (via twitter) that Executive Head Chef Martijn Kajuiter has been awarded a Michelin star.

Martijn and his team use all local produce to produce some stunning and absolutely unique food. Although I have yet to read his cookbook maybe you are brave enough to try some of the recipes yourself. Well done to Martijn and The Cliff House Hotel.

We are currently having a touch of a cold snap here in Ireland, as the Japanese say “Every crisis brings opportunity”.

Does anybody have a large glass?

Ivan

From time to time I write about wine but apart from knowing what is nice and what is not nice I don’t have the wine vocabulary to get my point across very well. I leave that to the experts you can see listed over on the right-hand column down towards the bottom of the page.  However this is a special wine with a story attached.

In the early nineties a group of us who were friends in college had just been let loose on the real world and were earning money for the first time, some in Cork, myself in Athlone and most in Dublin. During the course of his duties in Dublin one of the group was given an opportunity to own a then seven year old bottle of Lynch Bages. The year was 1992. The opportunity was taken.

The wine was cared for and and moved around Dublin from rented house to rented house all the time managing to stay unopened which was no mean feat living in the some of the places it did. Over the years it travelled around Ireland and and maybe even further afield but all the time it remained protected from the elements. The owner left to work abroad whereupon it was cared for by our buddy Dan. On the occasions when we would all get together the wine would often come up in conversation, usually “Do you still have it?”.

In the ten years between 1992 and 2002 there was engagement, marraige, birth, divorce and a death within the group. Seven years on and everybody fondly remembers our friend Alan who passed away in August 2002 from an asthma attack. A common or garden asthma attack. This year it happened again. Just before Christmas 2009, a week before his 38th birthday, Dan passed away. Another member of the group gone at a stage where we should be celebrating fortieth birthday parties not going to funerals.

This New Years Eve those friends who were in Cork came for dinner where the wine made a surprise appearence. After owning it, and caring for it, for seventeen years it was shared with the small group of friends at the table. We raised a glass and drank to Dan and we drank to Alan. Two friends who left much sooner than they should. The itself wine was superb but sometimes the occassion can be worth a whole lot more. Life is short. Stop and smell the roses (or an ‘85 Lynch Bages if you have a friend good enough to share with you). Don’t let things pass you by. Thanks EB.

Happy 2010.

We’re currently enjoying Jamie’s Family Christmas on Channel 4. It has some nice recipes and tips on all things Christmas, and some not so Christmas. All of which I thought would be available on the official web site but it seems that only a selection from the show are posted at the moment, HOWEVER what is great is that the shows are on YouTube until mid-Janurary.

During each episode Jamie cooks with different members of his family which gives a nice informal feel. I enjoyed the segment of Jamie cooking with Gennaro in Episode 3.

While the recipes are not overly complicated they are made to look quick and easy due to the amount of pre-preparation done e.g. all the veg is washed, chopped and par-boiled when he does the roasted veg mix. Obviously nobody wants to see him wash and chop veg but but don’t be fooled that these things are as quick as they look.

Enjoyable show.

Web Site

YouTube

The countdown is upon us and daytime TV is full of TV programmes telling us how to have the best Christmas dinner ever and how to make your dinner table look like something Harry Potter would be proud to sit at during a Hogwarts feast. Nothing wrong with that if you have all day to do it but the preference at Messy Towers is on getting the job done and doing it well with the minimum of fuss. You may find this approach leaves time to actually enjoy yourself rather than spending your day sweeping up the tiny little stars you have scattered over the table and getting butter out of your pine garland…or the pine needles from your butter, whichever. Here are ten tips for a stress free day.

• Don’t go overboard on expensive Champagne to greet guests with, try a Cava or Prosecco. Add a Cherry and/or a tiny dash of Creme de Cassis to give it the special look.

• Instead of buying luxury Christmas crackers stick with the “fortune teller fish” variety and place a lottery scratch card on each setting. Pre-dinner card scratching is a great ice-breaker.

• May be obvious but serve a cold starter, this can be prepared hours before kick off and put aside. Prawn cocktail or smoked salmon are the classics. Don’t buy farmed smoked salmon, use the money you saved on Champagne to buy wild salmon.

• Don’t worry about matching the wine to the course or having to buy the traditional Christmas wines. Everybody is flogging Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Chablis at the moment but there is no rule to say what you have to serve or there is no rule to say that expense is a measure of quality. Some of the lesser Chateauneufs, for which you will pay €15-20, can be overly aggressive.

• Do your roast potatoes in duck fat. Par boil the spuds for a few minutes, let them cool slightly, score the outside and roast. This is one fancification that is worth doing but make sure you put aside some regular roasters for your vegetarian sister.

• If you are not a Turkey fan, or do not care about having a giant carcass on the table for show, then get a scaled down version from your butcher. You can get a breast, crown or a rolled and boned version. These will actually fit in the oven and prevent you from having to get up and 5am to turn the oven on.

• Prepare the veg beforehand. Even better prep and cook the veg beforehand. Red cabbage or ratatoullie are great candidates to cook the night, or even a few days, before. Both will actually benefit from a few days in the fridge to give the flavours time to infuse. Do the stuffing the day before. Do the ham the day before.

• If people don’t like brussel sprouts then dispense with them. No amount of 7-Up or Cider or bacon or wood shavings will disguise the fact they are still sprouts.

• Same goes for Turkey. Turkey is turkey and no amount of brining, marinading, basting or whatever will disguise the fact. Do your best to keep it moist but dispense with overly complicated techniques. If you have enough stuffing and nice veg to go with it nobody will bother about three or four slices of turkey being a little dry. Effort versus return. This one is a bit subjective and really depends on how much value you put on the turkey.

• Don’t invite Tiger Woods if your porn star auntie is attending.

To sum up in three words, “keep it simple”.

Happy Christmas.

During the winter when our thoughts turn to roast dinners we rarely entertain the idea of including roast vegetables preferring instead to boil the arse out of our veg in a pot and consume them through a straw. Roasting veggies seems to be somewhat of a Mediterranean concept and one that seems yet to catch on elsewhere so lets get the ball rolling with some roasted onion. In its most basic form add a few whole onions to the tray next time you are doing a roast but you can also do them on their own with the recipe below. Steak and onions go together like … ehh whatever … but usually fried steak with fried onions. Roast beef with roast onion (and all the other trimmings) is a real treat.

Ingredients for one
One onion
One clove of garlic
One knob of butter
Two rashers of streaky bacon
1/2 Teaspoon dried Thyme
Seasoning.

Method
Slice the top and bottom off the onion and peel away the outer layer. Slice a deep “X” on the top and message in the butter, cover with the herbs and a loosely crushed (or quartered) clove of garlic. Wrap the bacon around the onion. If cooking the onions on their own then add another knob of butter to the roasting tray and roast at 180F for 90minutes. Alternatively add the onions in with whatever you’re roasting. Provided the temperature is not too high the longer the better, the onion and garlic should nice and mushy and sweet.