the food.ie

On my way back

2012-01-09T22:15:00.001Z

2011 was a busy year - new job, lots of work trips away, weddings in far away places, a trip to Cambodia volunteering in an elephant sanctuary and some end of year mojitos in Cuba. I have loads to write about, back really soon

I left my heart (and stomach) in San Francisco

2011-05-05T21:54:00.000+01:00

I spent a fabulous although very broke summer in San Francisco in the late nineties and at the time the fanciest eating out I did was at local Mission district Mexican burrito places where the most English they could speak was to warn this gringo that the salsa I was pointing at was not for me. Everyone I knew lived in the Mission District or Tenderloin, the most run down parts of the city that had and still have some of the best food.

Although I have been back a few times for work, it took me a long time to get back for a proper holiday which I did recently for a long weekend. San Francisco is a good trek from Dublin, but has enough to see and do to keep you happily busy for a weekend. This is before you even start to look at the loads of fantastic eateries in the city.

San Francisco has a heap of high end restaurants, but for me, I always think of it as my favourite city in America for good Mexican, Chinese and Italian. The best bit is that all of this can be had at very reasonable prices. If you are planning a trip this list might help you with some ideas, but Ive tested out some of these and others here to give you a hand too.

My first stop once off the plane was to check in to the lovely, central and fairly reasonable Hotel Vertigo (of Hitchcock fame). Then we got on the road to the House of Nan King. The first time I visited this place was about 6 years ago when fresh off a long haul plane which had robbed me of my sense of smell, taste and ability to concentrate long enough to read a menu. One of the older waitresses took pity on our table and asked whether there was anything we didnt eat and then told us she would bring us plate after plate of food to share until we told her to stop.

This place almost permanently has a queue outside the door, but is worth the wait for their delicious and very much no frills food (3 of us with beers and 4 or 5 mains came to $60). The calamari were melt in the mouth tender with a beautiful spicy lime sauce, the sesame chicken with sweet potatoes was also to die for. Im sure there are other places in Chinatown that are good, if not better, but this is the place I go on my first night every time - its exactly the kind of mothering you need after flying long haul.

The following morning after a bit of a walk and a cable car ride (it had to be done), we went to the outdoor market at the Ferry Building (open Thursdays and Saturdays) for lunch. I had, without knowing what they were, promised my lovely American friend that I would go to the Primavera stand and eat some Chilaquiles. We need a place that does these in Dublin, they would bring those with near death hangovers back from the brink, they could certainly get the country moving again. I hope the picture does them justice - perfectly scrambled eggs, the softest refried beans, salsa, sour cream and softened tortillas.

There was also some chicken burger eating and some browsing through the lovely shops in the market building. There is a particularly good kitchen ware shop here along with a shop that specialises in Tasty Salted Pig Parts and a very fantastic coffee shop called Blue Bottle Coffee. An hour or two later and any shred of jetlag you had will be long gone. If you are visiting San Francisco, this is the only pier area you should visit - avoid Pier 39 at all costs!

Over the next few nights my dinners were all Italian, first pizza and cocktails at the lovely Beretta and then the following night the most amazing fresh Italian pasta at Delfina. The pork sugo with pappardelle pasta was so good that it was one of the first things that I endeavoured to copy for a dinner party when I got back home. If you cant make the trip to San Francisco, I would certainly recommend giving this recipe a try. Delfina, Beretta and the best ice-cream in San Francisco all sit within a few blocks of each other in the Mission district (which coincidentally is also the best place to get yourself a burrito should there be a queue at any of the above).

Bi-rite creamery, which is a name that sounds far too much like they do discount ice cream which consists more of ice than anything dairy, will have a queue right out the door. Sometimes this queue will curl back on itself a few times, but it is very much worth the wait for their handmade organic icecream. The flavours, as you will see above, will give you plenty to think about while you wait.

On our final day in San Francisco we had decided to cylce across the Golden Gate bridge and as such we needed a good hearty breakfast. Not all that far from the hotel we found what Yelp told us was one of the best places for breakfast in San Francisco. Dotties True Blue Cafe, is so popular that it has a sign outside the door to remind you to be polite and not ask the waiters to get customers that have finished eating to leave, that you will be awarded the same respect when you are finished. Even on a grey Monday morning in February this place had a good 30 minute a queue outside. This is no surprise when you finally get a peak of whats in store inside. They have a massive menu of breakfast foods, all prepared in front of you as you wait along with breads made onsite. I had an amazing French toast made with a type of pecan corn bread which was definitely the best French toast I have ever eaten. I wanted to grab something from every other plate nearby. On looking it up to see if they have a website I found the following video which will definitely have me going back there. Do not cycle across the Golden Gate Bridge, visit Alcatraz or climb any of those hills without first coming here!

Ill be heading back to California this weekend with the fabulous Peggy for some dining experiences on the other side of the scale. More to come shortly.

Cheeky Beef and Guinness pies

2011-03-30T08:57:00.000+01:00

Bord Bia are running a fabulous competition at the moment for food bloggers to win a trip to Germany to a European Bloggers workshop. In order to enter the competition I had to put together a recipe using Irish beef. Given the month that is in it, my contribution is a very Irish style pie. This pie would serve as a very hearty lunch or dinner and given the contents include meat, veg and drink it very much has "eating and drinking in it". The filling itself makes a good stew on its own (maybe dont thicken as much as I did) served with mashed potato (or even sweet potato mash).

I had far too much time on my hands so made the pastry from scratch (its not difficult, just a little time consuming) but you could just as easily buy frozen puff pastry. If you have remaining pastry then a great nibble is to scrunch up the leftover and grate some parmesan over it before sticking in the oven for 10 minutes.

Cheeky Beef and Guinness pies (makes 4)

Beef filling

a few tablespoons of sunflower/rapeseed oil
200g finely chopped onions
550g beef cheeks chopped into inch sized pieces
150g diced carrots
250ml Guinness
Salt and pepper to taste
2 teaspoons tomato puree
100g mushrooms

Roux

50g butter
50g flour

Flaky Pastry (or use store bought puff pastry)

300g flour
pinch of salt
200g butter at room temperature
cold water to bind
a whisked egg to wash pastry

the most beautiful Irish beef cheeks

Prepare the meat and vegetables
Heat a tablespoon of oil in a small casserole. Lightly cook the onions in the oil over a medium heat until softened. Remove the onions from the casserole and set aside.
Season the beef with salt and pepper.
Brown the beef in small batches in the casserole, removing to the side once browned.
Once the meat is browned return to the casserole with 175ml of the Guinness, the chopped onions and diced carrots. Add the tomato puree and enough water to cover the meat and vegetables, along with some salt and pepper to taste.

all ready for the Guinness

Bring the stew to a boil and then leave to simmer covered on a low heat or in the oven at 150C for 2 hours.
Finely chop the mushrooms and fry in small batches in some butter until browned. Leave to one side and add to the casserole for the last half an hour of cooking

Prepare a roux by melting the 50g of butter in a saucepan and then adding the flour. Stir over a medium heat for two minutes.

Remove the casserole from the oven and strain the liquid into a saucepan. Bring the liquid to the boil and add roux, whisking to thicken. Add the remaining 75 ml of Guinness at this point also, this addition is what gives the filling its rich Guinness taste. The sauce will need to be a fairly thick gravy so that it wont leak from the pies so dont be shy with the roux. Return the sauce to the casserole and leave to cool. This bit is really worth noting. I made the filling a little too late in the day and it melted through my pastry before it was fully sealed (they didnt turn out too pretty but were still very tasty!)

Pastry (will take about 2 hours)
Sieve the flour and a pinch of salt into a bowl. Divide the butter in 4 equal pieces and mix the first piece through the flour adding enough cold water to bring together and make a pastry. Wrap the pastry in clingfilm and place in the fridge for 15-20 minutes.

be careful not to dig your nails into the pastry!

Roll the pastry into a rectangular sheet with width of about 10 inches. **Spread 1 piece of the butter across two thirds of the length of the pastry. Fold the pastry in thirds over the butter. Wrap in clingfilm and return to the fridge again for 15-20 minutes. Remove from the fridge with the seam to the side (it should look like a book). Roll to a rectangle again and repeat as before from ** 2 more times to use the remaining butter. Leave the pastry in the fridge until the beef filling has cooled.

pie ready for egg washing

Roll out the pastry so that it is large enough for 4 pies, using a side plate as a template (store bought pastry is normally also around the 500g mark so should do the same number of pies). Place the filling (2 -3 tablespoons should be enough) slightly to the south of centre.

pie with pint

I have made pies a number of times and failed at sealing them until I came across this youtube video on how to crimp the pastry. Follow the video and they will seal perfectly. Brush with eggwash and place in an oven at 180C for 25 minutes until golden brown

Fresh from the oven

Gingerbread - the perfect winter cake

2011-02-21T19:43:00.007Z

I have a big admission to make, Im absolutely terrified of cup measurements. For years now I have had monthly subscriptions to US food magazines without ever making one recipe in any of them, all because of the cups! I was brought up to believe that baking was an exact science, one where everything was very carefully measured in ounces and then later grams. Cups, as a result dont make any sense to me and scare me senseless.

the prettiest cake you have ever seen?

On a recent trip to the US I bought the most fabulous Bundt cake tin and spent a week looking for the perfect cake to grace it on its maiden oven voyage. The American Bundt cake comes from the German Bundkuchen and Austrian Gugelhupf which looks fantastic but has always surprised me by its dryness. I decided that I was going to have to brave a US recipe for my new US cake tin and the first place I looked was the fabulous archives at SmittenKitchen.

This cake certainly hit the spot as a great winterly cake. Two days later its even better so as the cake has ripened and become even more sticky and chewy. Its the kind of cake that cries for a cup of strong coffee after a brisk walk in the cold, the kind of cake that will warm you all the way through with its fantastic spiciness. This is definitely not a cake for wimps, but saying that its definitely not difficult to make.

Grammercy Tavern's Gingerbread (from SmittenKitchen adapted to metric by me)
makes one bundt size tin or two loafs.

8 fl oz/220 ml Guinness
8 fl oz/220 ml Treacle (molasses on the original recipe but I couldnt find this)
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

250g plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
Pinch of ground cardamom (I couldnt find this - it worked perfectly without)

3 large eggs
190g dark brown sugar
220g granulated sugar
6fl oz/150ml vegetable oil
Icing sugar for dusting

Ive grouped the ingredients into the dishes you will need - which are as follows:
- One large saucepan
- Two big mixing bowls

treacle, fabulous sticky ingredient that my uncle feeds to cows when milking them

First measure your guinness and treacle and heat until boiling in your large saucepan. Remove from the heat and whisk in the bicarbonate of soda (the mixture will double in size and become quite fluffy). Leave this to cool to room temperature and then prepare everything else.

volume doubles in size when you add bicarb!

Butter the tin and dust with flour and set aside

Heat the oven to 180C/170 (fan)

Sift the flour, spices and baking powder in one large bowl

Weigh and mix the sugars in another bowl. Once your treacle mixture has cooled whisk the eggs into the sugar and then add the oil, whisking until smooth (I used a handmixer for this). Add the treacle mixture and whisk again.

Combine the flour mixture with the liquid mixture and mix until well combined.

Add caption

Pour the mixture into the Bundt pan (or small loaf tins) and give them a good knock on the counter to remove air bubbles.

the bottom does not need to look pretty!

Bake in the middle of the oven for 50 minutes, a tester should come out with just a few crumbs attached. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely. This should last a good few days covered (assuming you dont eat it all very quickly!)

Gung hei faat coi - Happy New Year of the rabbit

2011-02-16T18:21:00.001Z

Chinese New Year isn't a food filled occasion that I had celebrated until I was recently invited by friends to Victoria Asian Cuisine in Monkstown, Dublin for a New Years feast. I happily went off to wikipedia to research about all the New Years traditions to make sure that I wouldnt do anything disastrously wrong. There was only one tradition that stuck, which I now strangely cant find anywhere on Wikipedia. This was that under no circumstances should you wear black. Unfortunately when I turned up in an array of reds and golds I found out that Wikipedia was lying, much like the time it told me that mince pies came from Holland.

So there I was in my red, for my New Years feast. Victoria run a New Years feast every year, where you can book tables of 8 or more for a very reasonable (€32 a head) for ten courses of food destined to bring you prosperity in the Chinese New Year. During the night there were prize draws in aid of charity, where most tables seemed to win a few bottles of booze and right at the end of the night the Karaoke machine was opened up for those few Asian guests in the room with singing voices, and those many Irish with no singing voices but fantastic belief in themselves.

salad for luck in eating the rest of the feast

First out was a smoked salmon salad. A load of small bowls were brought to the table containing things like smoked salmon, sesame seeds, carrots, coriander, something that looked a bit like cornflakes and ginger. We were told to take a bowl and empty it into the big bowl. Then the waiter came around with 2 little envelopes, one which smelled a bit like Chinese 5 spice and the other that smelled oddly like nothing but was possibly MSG. We were then instructed to all dig our chopsticks in to mix the salad. I could have eaten this salad all day (which is what leads me to believe MSG might have been an ingredient), it was everything in one - sweet, sour, crunchy, soft and fantastically fresh.

Next to arrive out was an "Imperial Treasure Platter" of assorted deep fried goodies, tempura prawns, crab claws, chicken satay skewers all guarded by a little orange salt Confucius. Deep breath, only 8 more courses to go!

After this, some giant prawns and then the crispiest roast chicken I have ever eaten (for prosperity said the menu). A scary looking sea bass came next looking slightly like it had been shot and its entrails placed lovingly on the plate surrounded by decorations of orange slices. It was beautifully cooked, and lovely and light after the previous few courses.

Next out some lovely roast duck followed by another Confucius minding some lamb chops. These menu items listed the following as their benefits "inspires good team spirit and raises hope for a profitable year" followed by "to bring about wealth and riches". These guys should open a restaurant outside the gates of our government offices, I suspect they could change the country around.

After this came dishes of Chinese vegetables, rice and noodles. Rice and noodles apparently are always left to the end for the anyone that might still be hungry, it being important to stuff your guests with the good stuff first. All novice buffet diners should bear this in mind!

Finally to top it all off a big plate of fruit, including a number of which were meant to look like rabbits. Don't recognise them from the photo above, see below.

I had figured that it might be bad luck to eat rabbit on New Year in the year of the rabbit, but it appears that rabbit shaped orange was absolutely fine.

I cant recommend going for a Chinese New Year feast enough, its a great chance to have a massive feast of different foods that you might normally not eat all with the goal of bringing luck to the next 12 months. If you're willing, Victoria is also a great spot for Karaoke but I didn't hang around long enough to find out.

Since then Ive been reliably informed that red and gold are the customary colours for brides, something that none of those dressed in black at the table (for bad luck) knew about either. The year of the rabbit is, or so I'm told, one of the luckiest Chinese years and probably one where you should avoid trusting Wikipedia too much as a main source of information

Olive Festival - Liguria, November 2010

2011-02-01T21:23:00.000Z

In November last year I took a trip to Italy and the only excuse I can give for not posting about it before is the overwhelming desire to lick the computer every time I have tried. This was without a doubt the most fantastic food holiday Ive had and was all organised through a friend of mine, whose Dad has an apartment in a small medieval village in the hills of Liguria. My friend John now has a lifetime of soup and bread coming to him!

Through Johns Dad we managed to get an invite to the fantastic Olive Festival in Colletta di Castelbianco. This is the kind of festival that you only get invited to by locals and the people that have somehow managed to find out about this lovely little village in the hills of Liguria. Its certainly not every weekend that you can go to Italy to pick olives and then see them being pressed into olive oil. Then again as you will see below, the amount of olive picking I did was fairly dismal after a 13 course dinner the night before!

Liguria isn't terribly difficult to get to from Dublin, only a short hop to Nice by plane and then little more than an hour and a half by car to the lovely seaside town of Albenga and suddenly you find yourself in a land where food takes on a whole other meaning. Coletta di Castelbianco is a beautifully restored medieval village, renovated into a higgeldypiggeldy warren of beautiful apartments. The majority of the apartments are owned/rented as holiday homes by people living in other parts of Europe, most of whom have been coming to Italy for years and years and are treated as locals.

not enough for a bottle of oil

Over the course of 3 nights I must have eaten about 30 different courses, of which two of the dinners were in restaurants nearing their 100th birthdays with rich traditions and recipes passed down through generations. Homemade ravioli, gnocchi, tiramisu. I left feeling like a fatted goose.

gnocchi to die for

The first night we had a 13 course dinner, with no idea from one course to the next what might arrive. Arriving in Liguria during truffle season definitely has its benefits, then again I suspect that its very hard to get a bad meal in this part of Italy.

wild boar

I love the way they did the tasting menu on the first night. No pretentiousness of balanced bits and pieces of veg cut into precise circles and flowers, in this fabulous restaurant we were first brought a round of clean plates and then the waiter would return with a large serving dish and serve us each a large spoon of whatever was on the plate.

Everything we ate was locally sourced and in season, something so difficult in colder climates like ours. There is something really special about knowing that the wild boar you are having for dinner probably traveled a shorter distance to the restaurant than the mile you just walked to work up your appetite (I spent a good part of the weekend expecting to see one jump out at me!)

should need no introduction

The restaurant had an beautiful wine cellar, with some fabulous old Barolo's. Amazing food with a feed of amazing local wines. Ive already started saving for an apartment in Italy!

Scola, the restaurant we dined in the following night was also excellent, again with an emphasis on fresh truffles as they were in season. Having a love for mushrooms I happily gobbled them all up, mostly without snapping any decent photos at all unfortunately. I hear that once a year this same restaurant holds a ten course mushroom feast once a year which I'm hoping to get back to at some point. The highpoint of this meal was when the waiter accidentally left a bottle of 35 year old balsamic vinegar. I now have a similar bottle in my kitchen which is the most amazing ingredient Ive ever laid my hands on.

Had I not had so much wine the night before I would have seen how nets were laid out below each tree as the trees were then beaten to shake the olives out of the tree. On going to Italy I thought we were probably late in the season for olives, but as it turns out that November was early for olive picking. The reason they were picking so early this year was because the wind had blown them off the trees in previous years when they had been left until after Christmas.

After some strenuous olive picking by all the locals (see sum total of my olives above), off we went to the neighbouring press where a long lunch was awaiting us. This lovely grandmother was the head chef with half her family helping out, her husband the master of ceremonies for the olive crushing. This was the point that I wished I could speak Italian fluently enough to get a job as assistant in the kitchen. I can only imagine the lovely recipes that this granny has passed down to children and grandchildren, the kind of recipes that us non Italians have no chance of ever cooking.

This (above) was the first of it the oil to be pressed. The olives were taken, washed and then passed under massive mill stones. Once crushed to a paste it went through a very noisy process of centrifugation to remove the water from the oil before removing all of the bits of olive and stone that were left over. The leftovers are then used as fuel apparently. The whole process took about half an hour before the oil was bottled for us to bring home.

the first bottle

My few bottles that came home with me are very much prized possessions. It was also beautiful to see all the locals take part in the process to collect the olives and then join together to cook and eat at the olive press. I definitely will heading back there, Im just wondering how much bribery baking it will take.

Mastering the art of mince pies

2010-12-19T23:28:00.000Z

Pastry has made me cry before. I have tried to overcome my difficulties with pastry (warm hands and impatience) but there are still a lot of times that I would do anything to avoid it. That being said there are a few pastries that I make that come across as so impressive that Ive become known for my pastry. This pastry for mince pies is definitely one of those favourite pastries.

Its almost effortlessly easy and no matter how much you try (believe me, I have) you cant get it wrong. This pastry will make you look like a genius and people who hate mince pies will eat them just because of this pastry.

Unbelievably easy mince pies (from BBC Goodfood) - makes about 32 mini mince pies.

- 225g cold butter (diced)

- 350g flour

- 100g sugar

- a beaten egg

Either rub the butter and flour together or blitz in a food processor (the very very easy option), add the sugar. The dough will be very dry but you should be able to bring it together, even if only in small amounts to a shortbread like dough.

Preheat the oven to 200C or 180 if a fan oven.

Dont even try to roll this pastry (although my mom added some egg and said it wasnt too difficult). Take small pieces and press into each hole of the tin. I use a silicon mini muffin tin and a mojito muddler to squish the pastry to shape. Fill with some mincemeat. Shape a small ball of dough and flatten in the palms of your hands to make a lid large enough to cover the mincemeat. Press down to seal and brush them with some eggwash.

Bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Leave to cool in the tins for 5-10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Dust with some edible glitter or icing sugar and sit bask in your pastry geniusness.

Apple season - Pork and Bramley bake

2010-11-16T08:33:00.001Z

Growing up in Ireland, one of the strongest memories of baking at home was helping my mother peel and cut apples for apple tarts. In fact apple tart is such a favourite speciality among friends that you could almost feel convinced into never making one for Irish people, in the knowledge that almost every person in Ireland has a favourite apple tart recipe that you could never beat. For years now Ive received apples from people at this time of year and have made all host of apple dishes but had never actually visited an orchard or picked any.

This all changed a few weeks ago when the lovely people at Bord Bia organised a trip to Stagrennan farm near Drogheda to line up with Bramley apple week. Stagrennan farm is a family orchard run by the lovely McNeece family since 1962, although with a family history in the apple business since 1890. The McNeeces grow a number of dessert apples on their farm at Stagrennan along with the Bramleys to help with cross pollination. Many of their apples are sold around the country for juice, cider making and bakery produce along as for eating. They will also shortly be bringing out their own lovely cloudy Apple juice (far superior to imported orange juice) and range of jellies.

Bramleys Seedlings have been growing in Ireland for over 3000 years and have old Brehon laws have protected them from harm over this time which has helped Ireland produce over a third of the worlds supply. Bramleys are the main apple used in cooking and baking and have quite a sharp taste when eaten (although this never stopped me as a kid when my mother was baking apple tarts). They break down to a lovely fluffy texture when baking which is great when baked as a sweet treat or even for making a simple apple sauce. The other main benefits to the lazy cook are that they are typically quite big which comes in handy when peeling and can last quite a long time from when you buy them to when you eventually go to make something with them!

This time of year its great to have a good one pot meal to make when you get home from work and this one is as quick and tasty as they come. Its also seriously in terms of the amount non fussy and involved just one tray, a chopping board and one knife for preparation!

Pork and Bramley bake, with thanks to Bord Bia for the recipe which I have slightly modified here due to the amount of ingredients I had available to me at the time.

Serves 2 but can be easily multiplied

2 medium size potatoes (I used Kerr Pinks)
1 medium sized red onion
4 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons of olive oil
Salt and Pepper
1 bramley apple
400g of pork fillet chopped into inch thick slices
a sprig of rosemary or a handful of fresh sage leaves

Preheat the oven to 200C
Chop the potatoes and onion into wedges and place in a roasting dish along with the garlic. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Bake for 15 minutes
Meanwhile chop the apple into wedges and the pork fillet into inch thick slices. Sprinkle salt, pepper and olive oil over the meat.
Place the apple wedges on top of the potatoes and onions and then the meat on top of the apple. Add the sprig of rosemary but if you are using sage leave it until 5 minutes before the end of baking
Return to the oven for 20 further minutes and then serve

You can find a whole host of other apple recipes here on the Bord Bia website, including possibly the best sandwich I have ever tasted.

Thanks again to Bord Bia and Olan and Fiona McNeece for laying on such a fantastic spread of appley goodness and the tour along with Tara Walker for the great demonstration on cooking with Bramleys

Irish tapas - Potato cake with smoked salmon or goats cheese

2010-11-02T10:30:00.003Z

After months of not being able to get a date that suited everyone I finally met up with the 3 lovely ladies that I met a year ago through a night class I was doing at the time. We had been trying to meet up for so long and all had so many things on the cards that a final decision was made that we would meet and all bring tapas, anything else for a week night was probably going to be an awful lot of hassle.

Strangely you can feel just as hassled making small things as big things so I opted for the really simple option. Id brought some lovely Knockdrinna goats cheese back from my weekend in Kilkenny and had some very swish beechwood cold smoked salmon from Inishturkbeg sitting in my fridge. When you have fantastic ingredients it seems a shame to do anything but show them off so I went for very simple potato cakes with these very simple toppings.

Potato cakes are a crazily simple thing to make and were always made by my mom without any recipe at all. They are a great way of using up any mashed, boiled or baked potatoes you might have hanging around the house.

Potato cakes (makes 20 small canape size cakes)

300g boiled and peeled potatoes (I used lovely floury Kerr Pinks)
1 dessertspoon of cream
Salt and pepper to taste
4 dessertspoons of flour and some extra for dipping the cakes in before frying

If you dont have some left over mashed or boiled potatoes waiting to be used then boil your potatoes in salted boiling water.
Remove from the water and, while still hot, peel and mash/rice with some salt and pepper.
Add the cream or some milk to help mash.
Once finely mashed add the flour until the mix feels dry enough to shape, depending on your potatoes you may need more or less. What you are aiming for is for the dough to be dry enough so that it wont stick to the frying pan.
Heat a frying pan to a medium heat with a mix of oil and butter or just some oil on its own.
Roll out the dough and cut into quarters or shape small discs
Dip both sides in flour seasoned with a little salt and pepper
Fry for a few minutes on each side until golden brown, the frying pan should be relatively dry
Remove from the frying pan and eat while still warm (fantastic with any cheese) or leave to cool.

I made 3 different versions above:
- Smoked Salmon with Creme Fraiche
- Goats cheese with Blackberry and Apple jam
- Goats cheese with walnut

Inish Turk Beg organic beechwood cold smoked salmon is part of a new range of smoked fish from Inish Turk Beg, a small island in Clew Bay, Mayo. This along with their honey roast hot smoked salmon are really something quite special. They also have smoked mackerel and Albercore tuna as part of the range. Inish Turk Beg smoked fish is currently available in Donnybrook Fair in Dublin and will be available in selected other stores throughout Ireland in the near future. Admittedly it is on the more expensive side (€9.95 for 100g) but well worth the splurge for a special occasion. Only a week after hearing Dr. Susan Steele of BIM speak about the fact that we are exporting over 86% of our fish, it was great to hear of a new company doing something fantastic with some of that fish before selling it around Ireland and exporting to foreign shores.

Savour Kilkenny - Foodcamp and the importance of eating local

2010-10-24T14:21:00.001+01:00

Bring your own lunch and some to share at foodcamp

Im just back from a trip to Kilkenny after spending a fantastic few days at Savour Kilkenny and on Friday at foodcamp. A first for Ireland, Foodcamp was organised to allow chefs, foodies, farmers, food prodcuers and all those involved in food boards to get together in the one place. 20 different sessions were held over the day, all in a spirit of not advertising but sharing best practices, ideas and inspiration. Unfortunately sessions were held across 4 different rooms which meant it was almost impossible to decide which to attend and as a result I missed some fascinating sessions. The ones I most missed were on Honey by Philip McCabe and Lucy from Foodforliving.ie's talk on health tips for foodies.

Those that I caught were fantastic and some of the many things I jotted down during the sessions and panel included some of these facts:

More than 15% of the worlds baby food is produced in Ireland
Tripadvisor.com now gets over 40million visitors per month, up more than 60% since the beginning of the year
78% of us trust peer recommendations most.
Marketing through Social media is the most efficient (and cheapest) way of marketing when done right
Most Irish artisan producers have had a 20-30% increase in business since last year (despite all the doom and gloom)
In 2007 41% of Irish people considered the term "local food" as food from Ireland, now that number is only 10% with almost half considering it as food from their own neighbourhoods
With over 15 million acres of land for fishing accesible to Irish fishers we export more than 80% of it out of Ireland.
Delia Smiths favourite blue cheese is Cashel blue (completely random fact from John McKenna)

There was such a positive message from all speakers and a real sense that people were trying to innovate, find new ways of marketing cooperatively and trying to make life better for all Irish food producers. Wendy spoke about bringing up her 6 kids on a farm and inspiring her youngest and his friends to look forward to their lives as farmers. She also spoke about the movement of women innovating on farms around Ireland, something I remember a lot from all the female farmers who started cheesmaking when things were tough talking about while at Ballymaloe.

prized mushrooms

Sally McKenna of Bridgestone guides and Donal Doherty of Harrys restaurant spoke about the importance of social media in building food businesses and some fascinating stories of small producers who have done just this. Donal showed a slightly obscene video on how to catch razor clams and I was lucky enough to win some amazing mushrooms including a massive cep that he had picked on his mushroom hunt. I cant wait to get these to a frying pan with butter!

One other talk I attended was by two lovely food bloggers Caroline and Kristen who were announcing the new Irishfoodbloggers association. Im looking forward to getting my teeth stuck into this website!

All in all the key message I took from the day was the importance of supporting local Irish food producers as spending money locally on food produced locally is one of the key ways of getting our economy growing again. Needless to say no further encouragement was needed and I came home with a nice piece of smoked trout from Goatsbridge along with some lovely Knockdrinna goats cheese.

Vietnam - Saigon cookery school

2010-10-19T10:01:00.000+01:00

I have tried to get a cookery class in on a few of my last holidays and every time this has ended up as one of the best bits of my holiday. Even if you arent crazy about food its a brilliant way of meeting people, getting to understand the ingredients and methods used in what you have been eating while away, staying in from the maddening humidity and in this case also getting to see ingredients that would be far too intimidating to buy and try out in a hotel room!

In Ho Chi Minh City we visited the Vietnam Cookery Center. As we were there during the rainy season the class we went to on a Saturday was fairly quiet and there was only four of us that met our teacher and translator early in the morning at the Ben Thanh market. The other half of the class were an American couple living in Manila, one half of which was the incredibly talented and lovely Abby Mott.

I really enjoyed the market trip because despite being in the same market a few times over the previous few days there were parts that I felt intimidated by visiting and although I really wanted to know what some of the fruit and veg were I knew that they wouldnt be able to explain them to me. Having a guide walk us around was great, even if the teacher wasnt buying that much within the market itself.

Millions of dried shrimp

As we walked through the market we were shown as many mountains of dried shrimp as mountains of rice, dried fish and fruit. In visiting the meat section of the market we saw how every single piece of each animal was used (no pictures here as it was far too close to my breakfast) including the tails and ears.

Rice

The back part of the market was probably the most interesting as there were little stalls that sold the ingredients just for the one thing that you were making much like all of the restaurants we had seen that only serve one meal, like everything you need for making Pho or the herbs used with Banh Xeo alone. There were stalls that sold nothing but a variety of eggs, including unlaid eggs which took me a while to figure out.

Unlaid eggs

There was also a large fish section to the market which was divided into further sections for freshwater and saltwater fish. This seemed to be the only part of the market where there was a distinction between the different areas and the reasoning we were given was due to Bird flu strangely enough.

Most of the work was being done by women in this part of the market, whether it was skinning frogs, shelling clams or knocking out and scaling fish. I couldnt help but feel that if we had such an impressive market in Dublin that I would have felt any less gob-smacked by how everyone went about their daily business.

I would love someone to prepare mis en place for me at home!

Once we got to the school we sat and had tea before going to our perfectly prepared workspaces with these perfect arrangement of mis en place in little bowls. Almost all of these little bowls were used in each of the 3 recipes we made. If I remember correctly there were shallots, spring onions, soy, lime juice, tamarind paste, fish sauce, chicken stock granules, chopped chillies, garlic, salt, pepper and sugar.

Our menu for the day consisted of

Spring rolls with mushroom, pork, crab meat and prawn and a fish dipping sauce
Sour Clam soup with dill
Caramelized pork served in a clay pot with rice steamed in coconut juice

The recipes all had such a delicate balance of flavours and textures and were enough to convince me that the simplicity of everything I tasted over the few weeks had a real complexity behind it that one day in cookery school was never going to teach.

This is the last of my posts on my holiday in Vietnam but if you would like to see some more pictures you can review some more here and you can enter my competition to win some coffee from Vietnam here

Ngon Lam Viet Nam

2010-10-13T21:33:00.002+01:00

Before I went to Vietnam a lot of people told me that I wouldnt want to see so much as a grain of rice for months afterwards. For those not so keen on rice this definitely wasnt the case. Theres plenty to eat that is not rice, as long as you are keen on noodles!

The food, like the coffee was fabulous and addictive in its freshness.

The minute we hit the hotel the first stop was Pho 2000 a speciality pho shop that was seriously and very rightly proud of serving Pho to Bill Clinton on his visit to Ho Chi Minh city. Even veggie daughter Chelsea had some pho at the time, although after a few weeks in Vietnam Im pretty sure that there was no such thing as a vegetarian pho and that all pho is made with a good stock using plenty of bones!

Pho is almost always served with plates of fresh herbs, chillies, lime wedges and bean sprouts. Its an incredibly tasty and complexly flavoured broth with rice noodles and meat. Saying this, after having almost a bowl of this a day the quality varies massively, its all down to that initial stock and the spices that are used in the making. When I asked at the cookery school we visited about pho recipes I was told that it would take 3 days of teaching to learn how to prepare the perfect stock No surprise then that a lot of places that serve pho (and many other places for that matter) serve only one or two dishes in total.

One of the places I was most excited to visit in Saigon was Com Nieu Sai Gon which came heavily recommended by Anthony Bourdain on his show . This place was the first and only place that I tasted Ban Xeo, which had been much recommended before going to Vietnam. When the plate arrived I didnt have a notion that what you are meant to do is wrap the pancake stuffed with bean sprouts, bits of pork, shrimp in the many different leaves to the right before dipping in fish sauce. What cant be seen in the picture is the very fat rat that crawled out from behind our table after our first few bites. I didnt get to finish the Ban Xeo but wasnt crazily keen on trying them again after seeing the rat.

The best thing we did foodwise was take a 4 day motorbike trip up through the central highlands in Vietnam. Once we got out on the road every bite we ate was very local and extremely fresh. We saw fruit and veg grow on either side of the road for 200 odd kilometres every day.

The picture on the left is of the food that was brought to our table at a truck stop miles away from anywhere. The bits that I remember from this were chicken cooked in a clay pot with lemongrass and chili, morning glory, an omelet, a veg soup with beetroot and some fried pork - all amazing.

This trip was where we also had one of our more interesting restaurant visits with our guides. We had absolutely no idea what we were going to as we walked down an alleyway between houses to a building that looked like it had been built in someones garden. The only thing we knew is that chances were we wouldnt be getting a menu.

Soon after we arrived a little gas burner was brought out with plates of seasoned goat meat with lettuce leaves, sliced green banana, starfruit slices, cucumber, tomatoes, loads of fresh herbs and rice paper pancakes.

Little bowls were brought out with fish sauce, birds eye chillies and satay sauce for dipping.

Our guides fried up the goat and instructed us on how to dampen the pancake, what to add and how to roll (one of my better specimens above). There is always something quite fun about making your own dinner and having plates of such fresh ingredients to chose from made this my tastiest as well as most fun meal washed down with quite a lot of banana rice wine.

As I quickly learned to say "Ngon lam" (pronounced mon lamb) - that was delicious.

The best however was yet to come. I was fairly squeamish about this so Im going to put these photos behind that little "read more" link down there. Whether or not you read on, dont forget to enter the competition to win some Vietnamese coffee!

So we couldnt quite figure out why our guides were being quite so generous with the pancakes until more food came out. Again plates of herbs, rice and egg noodles, tofu and veg were delivered along with a big pot of broth with some goat meat for the gas burner. Strangely a big bowl of duck eggs was also brought out. Now I had noticed men at a neighbouring table cracking eggs into their pot earlier on but hadnt been able to see what was going on up close so I was a little surprised to see that it wasnt just egg white and yolk that came out when cracked into the pot of broth.Instead it was an almost fully grown duck foetus within the shell.

This foodie with her dodgy tummy hid behind the camera from here on in. I wasnt able to do much more than taste the goat soup and there was no way I was having any of the duck foetus. Not even a wee nibble of fur and beak were going to pass my lips!

Heres my guide Anh delighted to model the eating of some duck foetus for me!

Vietnam competition - Coffee

2010-10-08T09:02:00.001+01:00

Drinking coffee is not recommendable as a cure for jetlag but not drinking coffee is almost impossible when in Vietnam, the second largest producer of coffee in the world, where it appears to be grown on almost every bit of spare land.

Coffee is almost always served in one of these little phin filters. It has a small chamber for coffee and water and sits on top of a second filter. It is almost always served in a glass so you can watch the coffee drip down which can take anything up to 5 or 6 minutes, or as the Trung Nguyen descriptions explain at a rate of approximately 65 drops per minute (I havent tried counting).

Coffee in Vietnam is thick and strong and almost chocolatey in taste and texture when served alone. When served with condensed milk it becomes something almost magical as the sweetness and slightly caramelized flavour add to the depth and richness.

Mostly I drank the coffee with ice (ca phe sua da - something I learned how to say before I could say hello in Vietnamese!) which tastes not far off the best coffee ice-cream that you could imagine. It is however equally good without the ice. Strangely it was normally served with a glass of iced tea for you to enjoy while you wait for the coffee to drip.

Competition:
To win some very fantastic Trung Nguyen coffee and one of their stainless steel phin filters (much nicer than those pictured) you just need to leave a comment telling me about your favourite foodie holiday destination. Ill be chosing a winner at random on the first of November across the answers left here and on facebook.

This competition is now closed. Congratulations to Mair who entered over on facebook. The prize will be on its way to her within the next few days

Vietnam - all that grows

2010-09-30T20:30:00.002+01:00

Im recently back from a few fantastic weeks in Vietnam and as half my photos are food related Im going to have quite a few posts to put up over the next week or two. I also have a special competition prize carried back from Vietnam which Ill post among the photos so keep an eye out.

The first thing that hit me as our bus left Ho Chi Minh City was how green the countryside was. We arrived towards the end of 5 months of rainy season in the south and every small patch seemed to have something growing on it. Farming is massive in Vietnam and rice not surprisingly is the main crop with more than half the population working to produce rice alone on over 94% of the arable land. I got the feeling that some of the other crops we saw were relatively new attempts at making more money than rice is bringing in.

Over the course of the few weeks I spent 4 days sitting on the back of a motorbike going through the highlands which is where most of the photos here are from. My guide was always amused by my enthusiasm for fruit and only understood when I explained that we cant grow any of what he showed me in Ireland. If you ever get a chance to go to Vietnam its well worth a few days off the beaten track to taste all this fruit straight from the trees!

This is what pepper looks like on a tree, its then taken and dried in the sun before ending up in our mills. There was only the slightest hint of a peppery smell from it.

Its always a bit surprising to me that bananas hang this way around

Possibly Papaya

I had no idea what this was and our guides werent much help at all but fortunately a reader gave the the answer in the comments. Its Bixa Orellana and the pigment from the seeds is used to colour foods (commonly seen as Annato or Achiote in ingredients)

Cocoa beans, I was dying to rob one for some further investigation but it was such a small plantation that I couldnt.

Coffee, still a while to go before roasting

Guess what these are? They look so different by the time they make it to our shores

Passion fruit just picked and as addictive as nicotine

Green tea, still very green

Dragonfruit, a cactus that is trained to grow around cement posts

which produces these beautiful flowers

and the most succulent and sweet fruit

Corn being dried out in the sun

Finally rice, loads of it:

Rice as far as the eye can see

which is picked by hand and fed through a machine to remove the husk from the plant

Which is then left to dry before de-husking and milling

Win a place on the 12 week Ballymaloe course

2010-09-22T21:11:00.001+01:00

Today I received an email with details about what has to be the best possible competition for foodies in at the moment. Cully and Sully, the geniuses behind the fantastic posh ready meals and desserts are running a competition called Chef Factor and the winning prize is a free place on the 12 week Ballymaloe course along with the accommodation, set of knives, uniform and two weeks work experience with Cully and Sully after the course.

After doing the course myself last year I would almost enter myself with the hopes that I might win so I could do the course again (which I gladly would do!). Ive had so many people report to be green with envy over the time I spent at Ballymaloe that Ill be letting everyone know about this!

So here's what you have to do:

Make something that youre famous for (even if only famous to yourself). Cully & Sully say they arent looking for experts as the course is meant to make you the expert!
Get someone to take a photo of you with your dish and somehow get the words Cully&Sully into the picture
Go and upload your photo and details to Cheffactor.ie

Here's one I made earlier, me modelling my dinner tonight:

living proof that Im the most useless in the world at photo editing

Do let me know if you enter and I will promise you a vote!

P.S. Coming very soon will be loads of photos from my recent trip to Vietnam and a competition of my own.

The Winding Stair review

2010-09-02T08:35:00.001+01:00

Its taken me a few weeks to write this review and every time Ive thought of it Ive been reminded that almost every other review I have ever read of the Winding Stair has been excellent.

On that specific day in an effort to show one of my Ballymaloe friends the very best of Dublin foodie haunts we had already been to the Cake Cafe and to Murphys for some sea salt and burnt caramel ice-cream along with a very long trip through the aisles of Fallon & Byrne. I was proud of my little city haunts and glad we could impress my big city foodie friend, one who spends her days as a personal chef making very fabulous food.

When one of the Ballymaloe girls mentioned booking the Winding Stair I was delighted (I had spent years never reserving early enough to get a table there) as was our visitor who had read about it in numerous emails from friends along with Angelika Houstons recommendation in the Aer Lingus magazine on the way over.

Now a table of Ballymaloe foodies are probably going to be hard to impress as we have been very much indoctrinated to scowl at such little things such as the full bottle of wine being poured before it gets around the table, the resting of the wine bottle on the glass as its poured and pouring of a fresh bottle on top of an already half full glass. We cant help it, the voice of Darina just floods back. The Winding Stair does however have an excellent selection of wines and an even better selection of dessert wines all much to my chagrin on that given night as I was driving. We had been convinced that we were in time for the early bird and indeed told so by one of the waiters on arrival but strangely when we ordered were told that to eat the early bird you have to be out (rather than in) by a certain hour. Later on leaving we found that the sandwich board outside mentioned no start or end times for the earlybird but instead that those interested should enquire within.

I had been warned that the portion sizes were massive but couldnt help but order the smoked fish plate as a starter which was very easily shared with one friend. The fish was amazing and there was lots of it including what I found out later was some of the very last smoked irish eel in the country. As Im so late in writing the review I cant quite remember what other starters graced the table although I know there was definitely some chowder somewhere.

There was a lot of fish between quite convoluted menu and specials that evening and strangely we all found it hard to find something that really appealed for main course. I had the Kilkeel hake fillet with sweet potato, tomato, cockle and mussel stew and Dublin Bay prawns and it was the first time that I ever left fish on the plate due to the very huge portion size. Im convinced its the guilt of an Irish Catholic upbringing that makes me feel bad about not being able to finish my plate of food so if youre planning on going you might want to bring someone with a massive appetite to hoover up the leftovers or abstain from a day of eating cake beforehand!

Then came a list of what could only be considered quite heavy male desserts on such a lovely Dublin summer evening. I had a bite out of the sticky pear and ginger cake and it was glorious but was much too winterly for the day that was in it. I had tiny sips of the very lovely dessert wines and waited with anticipation to order my coffee.

Unfortunately however the coffee was not to be. As soon as the desserts were finished our waiter asked did we want anything else and then promptly told us that we didnt have time for coffee and needed to be off the table in 5 minutes. At no stage during the dinner had we been warned about a time limit so this was very disappointing, even more so as they could have easily asked us to order our coffees along with dessert which they hadnt.

There are so many good things to like about the Winding Stair between the location, the lovely dining room and the fact that the food is all very local and enough to keep you going for half a week. However, as I walked down the stairs that evening without a drop of caffeine in my blood I couldnt imagine myself eating there again due to the poor service. Poor service shouldnt have to be something to put up with just to eat good food.

Slow cooking - Moroccan chicken

2010-07-27T11:10:00.000+01:00

Last week I picked up a slow cooker in Aldi (€17.99, they may still have some). After a considerable amount of wondering where on earth Id put it, I decided that smack bang in the middle of my countertop would do for now and Ill just have to use it often to argue for its place there. I figured the benefit of having dinner ready when I get home from work might outweigh the fact that in future I may have to balance it precariously on top of my books on my bookshelf.

Shiny new slow cooker at 8am before heading to work

Unfortunately once I got it I couldn't find any recipes that I was dying to try out that weren't on US sites and I was definitely far too lazy for proper conversion and measuring. As a result here is a very made up attempt at Moroccan chicken, which was very very tasty.

The four things I read about the slow cooker were completely ignored so Ill give them to you before I get to the recipe.

You don't need very much liquid in slow cooking as it really wont evaporate (you will see later that I used far too much liquid so my recipe has about 1/4 the water that I used)
3 hours in an oven = 8-9 hours at low heat in slow cooker (perfect working hours)
Its almost impossible to burn your dinner in a slow cooker if its on low - this is good to remember half way through the day when you get a little worried about those lovely lamb shanks you bought
Root veg takes as long to cook as meat, in my case below the courgette were definitely a bit overcooked.

(possibly) Moroccan chicken - for two
Possibly only because its way tastier than anything I had to eat when I visited Morocco

I was told it never burns - this is caramelising

2 Chicken legs and thighs chopped into strips
1 onion chopped into 8 chunks (halve, then quarter the halves)
Half a courgette chopped into inch sized chunks
1 sweet red pepper chopped into inch sized chunks
4 chopped tomatoes
1 grated clove of garlic
1 dessert spoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of ground coriander
1 teaspoon of ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon of turmeric
1 teaspoon of salt
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
a handful of raisins and some dried apricots if you have them
50 ml of chicken stock (homemade if possible)

Ok, I know this seems like a million ingredients but if you chop them all up and put them into a bowl the night before then you only have to bung them in the slow cooker (on low heat) in the morning and when you come home from work you have a tasty dinner.I served this with some couscous but it would be equally good with rice, Bulgar or quinoa.

very hot Moroccan chicken

It made a lovely dinner but I still don't know where I'm going to put it. If anyone has any good slow cooker recipes Id very grateful, it might help get to convince the workman to build me a new shelf!

Broad bean and bacon risotto

2010-07-22T08:57:00.000+01:00

I was always shocked at the price of broad beans until I tried growing them. They are actually quite easy to grow but you really need a whole lot of space to grow enough for even one dinner. Its a pity really as they are so fantastic and even more so when you can pick them and eat them straight away.

Id definitely recommend trying to grow broad beans if you have some space in your garden. I planted them a little too early but they still seemed to survive the frost and pop through, weeks after I was expecting them to come up.

If I had been able to give up enough of my garden I would have made a big bowl of Habas con Jamon (beans with bacon) as I used to get in tapas bars when in Granada last year but its surprising how much space is needed to grow broad beans. Broad bean and bacon risotto was the next best option.

If you haven't made risotto before its really not as scary as people say, just make sure you have enough stock simmering and that you don't let the rice go dry while cooking.

Broad bean and bacon risotto (serves 2, one of whom has a giant appetite)

- about 200g of single podded broad beans (double pod if you are less lazy)

- 2 rashers

- 750mls of veg stock

- one glass of white wine

- a finely chopped onion

- 1 finely chopped clove of garlic

- 25g of butter

- 200g risotto (arborio) rice

- 30g parmesan

Bring the stock to the boil and then add the broad beans and boil for a few minutes until tender. Remove the beans and leave the stock to simmer. Its way easier to remove the second little pod at this stage if you want to leave you with fantastically Kermit the frog coloured beans

Heat the butter on a medium heat and add the onions and chopped bacon and fry until soft but not yet coloured, something like the picture below.

Add the rice and stir for about a minute until the rice is starting to go slightly clear at the edges.

Throw in the glass of wine and let it bubble away until the wine is almost soaked up.

Then add your first ladle of stock. Again, stir a little and let it bubble until almost evaporated. Continue to do this until the rice has softened enough and stopped drinking up the stock as quickly. This should take about 20 minutes and the rice should still have a bit of a bite to it. Add the beans before you add the last of the stock to heat them through.

Take the rice off the heat and add the parmesan and pepper, it shouldn't really need any salt but add if you think it does. Serve as quickly as you can!

Free booze - Elderflower Champagne

2010-06-28T22:56:00.001+01:00

Well ok not completely free but it is freeish, as long as you dont mind a bit of a wait. Given that you probably still have elderflowers somewhere near you I recommend you get out and pick them now and youll have your freeish booze in 2 weeks!

I saw the first elderflowers in bloom two weeks ago and was so excited that I immediately grabbed some and brought them home. Then they sat in my kitchen for 2 days and promptly went quite smelly. The secret to elderflower cordial or champagne is fresh, just off the tree, in bloom elderflower. I have read that they freeze well so if you see some and dont think that you can do this today then that might be an idea. If you dont live in the country you're still ok, you can find these almost everywhere on the sides of roads, in parks and loads of other places but youre probably better off looking for slightly less polluted ones than half way along the m50. Also dont blame me if you get into trouble for picking them, much as the booze was my idea the idea to steal them from your next door neighbours back garden was not*.

Ive seen a lot of different recipes for Elderflower champagne but went for the first I found on google by the fantastic Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall which is available here.

What you will need (for 6 litres - I doubled this)

a big clean bucket/storage bin/saucepan (to hold at least 7 litres)
Water 4 litres hot, 2 litres cold
700g sugar
4 lemons (zest and juice)
15 heads of elderflower
2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar
a pinch of dried yeast (although you wont need this for a few days)
Muslin for covering and sieving through
Good strong bottles, I used these Slom bottles from ikea

Get your big container and clean it.
Run out and get those elderflowers. You really only need the bloom itself and a little bit of the stalk its attached to (dont bother with leaves)
Pour the hot water into your container and then mix in the sugar until dissolved.
Add the cold water, wine vinegar, lemon zest, lemon juice and elderflower. Stir a little bit
Cover with muslin and leave to ferment somewhere cool
After 3-4 days check to see if there are any bubbles/froth or any sign of fermentation. If not add your pinch of yeast. Mine didnt froth until adding the yeast but after that it sounded a little like rice krispies in milk.
Leave again for 4 days until the bubbling subsides, apparently there are ways of telling when its ready using all sorts of gadgets but I did this on the cheap and just waited the 4 days and was happy that the bubbling had stopped a bit. It also tasted far less sweet than it did a few days before which was a good sign - less sweetness = more alcohol. It looked just like this (which looks like it would smell awful but really was quite lovely smelling)

Grab a colander and line with muslin and put it over a large pot. Pour the mixture through the muslin.
Pour into your glass bottles and seal.
Leave bottles somewhere cool for a week before opening and drinking. Apparently its not uncommon for bottles to pop under the pressure so I would recommend leaving them in the bucket you used for fermenting just in case!

I havent tasted the finished product just yet but wanted to put this up to inspire some people to get out and pick elderflower while they still can. I'll post a quick update on Sunday! Remember kids, always drink responsibly.

* mine were stolen by putting my hand through the fence of my local primary school, the caretaker who passed by as my co-conspirator and I were there with scissors didnt say a word.

Salon des Saveurs review

2010-06-14T11:33:00.000+01:00

As I didnt want to get rained on at Taste of Dublin this year, I left it until the very last minute to get tickets. So late that the session I wanted to go to was sold out. After trawling the interwebs for tickets I gave up in favour of trying to book dinner somewhere fancy instead. The first place I tried was Conrad Gallagher's newish place Salon des Saveurs and was more than a little surprised when there was a table available.

This is not your random last minute Saturday night out place for dinner. Its probably more like something you plan a month ahead and I suspect if half of Dublin hadnt been in Iveagh gardens there wouldnt have been a hope of getting a table.

I had read the reviews but had only spoken to one person who had been there so wasnt really sure what to expect. So along we went. There are two sittings on a Saturday night - 7 until 9 and then from 9 on, so everyone was arriving pretty much the same time as us. Everyone gets their menus and then choses which of the 5 menus to go for and then whether they want to pair the wine or just buy a glass/bottle to go along with it. Menu 1 (€26 - amazingly good value) also has a €26 wine selection to go with it. Each person at the table must eat the same menu which I could imagine being difficult if you are there as a group of 6 (like the bunch of ladies at a table near us) or if you're like me and want to make sure the person with you can share some of their food!

So, on to the food.

Pea Emulsion Soup

Prawn, Sweet Pimentos, Garden Tarragon

The pea emulsion soup was so fantastic that it was slightly infuriating that there was only a teaspoon to eat it with. The prawn sat on a wee leaf of spinach with a lovely buttery sauce (an almost bearnaise maybe?) with some sweet peppers. Thinking back I really shouldnt have held back, I should have licked that little plate

Wasabi Cured Salmon “Pastrami”

Pickled Pear, Ginger, Soy, Dill Oil

This was probably my least favourite of the 5 dishes as I felt that there were far too many tastes on the plate and maybe a little too little salmon to mix them with. The salmon came with 4 little piles of pear, radish, ginger and wasabi. The soy that I read from the menu now was poured on by the waiter which I felt was a bit of a pity as I would much have preferred the salmon without the soy.

Risotto of Soya Beans

Calamari, Chorizo, Chilli, Rocket

This next course was fab, perfectly cooked buttery risotto with a nice spicy chorizo, tender calamari and crunch soya beans.

Daube of Beef

Celeriac Mousseline, Salsfy Chips, Pearl Onions

Butternut, Parsley Hollandaise

Looking around at this point we received the biggest of main courses and definitely had a few people looking jealously on as we devoured the beef. The beef, such tender melt in your mouth beef that I could almost compose a song for it (really, although I doubt you would want me to sing it for you). I barely tasted the rest of this course such was the amazingness of the beef.

Tasting of Apple

Apple Crumble, Apple Soufflé, Apple Brûlée

“Apple Tart”, Apple Ice-Cream

On this one there was some plate licking and its the only course I got a photo of (however grainy). From right to left (or in my case least favourite to favourite) - Apple Brulee (just not a fan), Apple ice-cream (for some reason I thought the menu said cinnamon so wasnt what I was expecting), Apple tart (more like a rich tea with apple sauce), Apple crumble (getting there), Apple Souffle (hallelujah!)

This was definitely the best value meal Ive had this year in Dublin as the two of us were fed, watered and had a glass of wine each for €74 before tip (although including a service charge they throw on). Annoyingly they dont take cards (of any kind) just cash and cheque (who has a chequebook any more?) so bring plenty of cash if you go as its a good walk to the nearest bank machine. The sommelier was charming, but our waiter a little forgetful and wasnt too good with wines (he told us that Macon Village was a type of grape) but still very good all the same.

Will I be back? Without a doubt although with small groups only as I can only imagine the arguments that might brew over chosing the menu otherwise.

Levi Roots interview

2010-06-03T08:53:00.007+01:00

A few weeks ago I was contacted by a PR agency asking would I be interested in interviewing Levi Roots. My first thought was that they obviously think Im someone other than the writer of this food blog, maybe someone who makes their living out of this rather than just typing away to myself here. My second thought was that they were going to use me to spread the cultish word of Levi Roots, which I suspect is a lot easier to do by asking bloggers than to get a national newspaper to do the job. My third thought was that it didnt matter a hoot why they were asking and I didnt even have to publish anything if I didnt want to but that it was a good chance to talk to an entrepreneur in the food business who might be able to give me some of the secrets to his success and that if I was lucky I might just get him to sing to me or ask what shampoo he uses on those dreadlocks of his.

a very giddy me and a very bling Mr. Levi Roots

What can I tell you about Mr. Roots that you dont already know if you've seen him on the television (I hadnt). He's charming, interesting, inspiring, a real dad (7 kids, all of which he seems to have brought up) and someone that you immediately want to bring for a pint or home for dinner

I suspect that ready meals arent really his thing given his love for cooking but he seems to have this desire to spread the word on Caribbean food and to be fair the ingredients on his packets are not as crazily processed as some packaged foods would be. His Reggae Reggae sauce is now second in the UK only to Heinz Ketchup with companies like Wetherspoons and Subway using it. One of his favourite things in the world is still to cook food at home after wandering around to buy the ingredients and eat home cooked food, the other being his music which he realises he has had to tone down for his new sauce enjoying followers. He did admit that he had never eaten home cooked food in Ireland yet but declined the offer for some leftover rhubarb tart I had at home.

He has had a fairly colourful life so far but is determined to make things right for his kids, two of whom run a restaurant that he set up and provide school meals from there every day. Knowing where he comes from and the fact that he has had to work hard is evident when speaking to him and he speaks to kids in schools regularly about how he started his business, many of whom will no doubt look to him as a mentor in future. He explains to me that giving up the recipe for the sauce was tough, tough to hand over the baby he created with his family in his kitchen to a company but Im pretty sure that selling 50,000 bottles a week has soothed some of that pain.

When asked about the struggle to get investment he explained that he's glad he didnt give up on his passion and focus. He could have renamed his sauce, taken the "Reggae Reggae" out of it (my suggestion was Mr. Roots' brown sauce) and not told Bank Managers that he would sell more than Heinz and got some decent funding far earlier. That was never the an option for him though and he has no regrets after working on it for years honing his sauce and his business plan. He sees this as key to starting a business, having passion and focus. He reckons that now is the ideal time to be focusing on starting a business, having plenty of time to get ideas and business plans together before banks start lending again.

The review bit:
There are a lot of reasons I might be the wrong person to be reviewing microwave ready meal dinners given that I dont have a microwave, I try to avoid ingredients I cant find in my kitchen (none/few in most of the dishes) and if I do find something I like Im more likely to try and reproduce it than go out and buy them up from a supermarket fridge. I really didnt have much interest in the bag of foods I was given as I walked out of the room and expected not to write about them at all but given that they were actually not all that bad they deserve a quick review.

Reggae Reggae Chicken with butternut squash rice (medium)- tasty although the butternut kind of dried and hardened in the oven.
Puerto Rican stylee chicken rice with roast peppers (medium)- Ive never been to Puerto Rico so wouldnt really know Puerto Rican style food if it hit me in the head so I was surprised, apparently olives are a key ingredient. This was the only one of the 3 dishes that didnt have oven instructions on the back so not all that surprisingly the plastic container melted in the oven.
Levi's Caribbean Hot chilli Beef with seasoned rice (hot) - this was by far my favourite, really tasty and nicely warm, the kind of dish that would be fantastic to have when youre starving and dying for something really tasty.

If anything I was a little disappointed by the heat in the dishes. I have no frame of reference, not having ever eaten any Caribbean food before and living in a country with few people from the Caribbean. If nothing else I applaud Levi Roots for spreading the good news and inspiration. As I said though given the lack of microwave Im more likely to be trying to figure out how to make these myself than buying in bulk

P.S. He didnt sing for me or tell me what shampoo he used unfortunately

More about the hens.

2010-05-21T13:43:00.003+01:00

As soon as I posted some pictures on facebook of the hens I got an email from one of the other girls who was in Ballymaloe with me asking about how I was getting on. And no, they still have no names other than the dark one which we call mad hen because she is quite clearly insane.

Here are some of the questions that came up.

How big is your garden?
Smallish, its a rectangle of 12ft by 32ft ish
It is surrounded by fairly high walls (6ft ish) on all sides - note this is not high enough to stop a hen scaling them with their wings unclipped

Keep them in the coop or let them out?
For the first few weeks we had them in a coop and run and didnt let them out of there. Because my garden is small we decided to put wood chippings under the run and then change them every month or so rather than moving the hens around the garden. We also dont have any grass in the garden so this seemed like the best option. Before getting hens I had read a bunch of articles, a few books and some websites and this practice seemed fairly common.

Most books recommend keeping them in their coop for the first 24 hours and within their run for at least the first week (but I did see recommendations of up to a month). We only let them out for the first time after about 2 weeks because we wanted to make sure they knew where they were going back to at night, to lay eggs etc and we also didnt want to let them out without clipping their wings (after both of them escaping the first day and we were a bit chicken about clipping the wings so it took us some nerves to get arond to it).

Now that we have them over 2 months we keep them in the run during the day sometimes and let them out in the evenings, other days we let them out all day. Mostly we close up the coop at night but we find they are happier when they can get out themselves in the morning to get at food. I was a little nervous at first about letting them out during the day when I wasnt there but there have been no issues (other than a lot of poop and them getting into my veg once).

What about the rest of the garden?I fenced off the area where Im growing veg but let them roam around the rest of the garden (which isnt too tidy anyway). They dont seem too interested in flowers or plants and mostly wander around behind where I have flowers planted. If I was planting anything new I would definitely fence it off though in case they trample on it. They do fairly dig the place up so if you were letting them out it would be a good idea to fence off areas you dont want them going near.

My garden isnt very big but they seem happy both in the fenced in area and wandering about.

As pets?
They are good fun to watch, one of them keeps pecking the window when she sees us inside hoping to get at the plants growing inside and both of them jump to catch insects and spend half their days picking slugs out of the ivy near our back door. They both then argue for whatever snails they do find.

They go in automatically at night once it starts to get dark, eat only what they need - we leave out layers pellets every morning and dont make noise (only really when laying eggs which they do between about 10 and 11 every day).

We clean them out about once a week (the coop has a tray which we just remove and empty into the bin), take their eggs every day (1 each per day), and remove their food every night and put it back in the morning (Im a bit afraid of vermin).

They do poo quite a bit around the garden - apparently this is great compost so Im currently keeping a garden brush at the back door to sweep it into the borders as I see it.

What if you want to go away?
On the few times we have been away one of our friends popped in for the eggs (if you leave the eggs in the nest too long apparently they get broody and try to hatch the egg). We had left enough food and water for the 2 days that we were gone so we didnt need to worry about that. The reward of the eggs was all the payment our hen-sitter wanted. When we were away their run door was closed but the coop door was open so they just went in and out when it was bed/morning time.

Pork chops with caper and mustard sauce

2010-05-18T18:59:00.000+01:00

Im sure if youre not a lazy blogger this job comes with some perks, but being a lazy one its always a bit of a nice surprise if someone even comments. When I got an email a few weeks back from the lovely Donal saying that the lovely BordBia people wanted to invite me to an event I was fairly shocked, when they then told me that they wanted to send me some pork I was delighted. Free food to a foodie, what more could you ask for? The least I could do was to post my findings (and hope they might send more food my way!)

To be honest though, I dont really buy much pork other than in rasher or chorizo form. There is almost always rashers and chorizo in my fridge, so handy and tasty and fantastic for a quick dinner after work (which reminds me of about 6 recipes I should post).

So when I got a big lump of loin of pork I had to have a good think about what to make. I hadnt made this recipe in a good while so it was the first to come to mind. Its a version of something a friend gave me from a course she was on somewhere once and it doesnt sound like it would be as fantastic as it is, its also quick and tasty and doesnt require any very silly ingredients that you wouldnt find in most shops. In fact this is the perfect thing to eat in the middle of the week when you want something fantastically tasty but dont have the time to think and dont want to call for a takeaway.

Pork chops with caper and mustard sauce
serves 2

3-4 thick loin pork chops. My butcher will cut me ones almost an inch thick.
250ml stock, chicken is probably the best but works equally well with veg stock
1 tablespoon capers, drained from a jar
1 good sprig of rosemary, finely chopped (optional but good if you have it)
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
2 tablespoons butter

In a large frying pan, heat some olive oil. Season the chops with some salt and pepper and cook in the frying pan for 4-5 minutes on each side until well browned. Remove from the pan to a plate and keep covered to let them rest.

Drain your frying pan a bit. Add stock, capers and rosemary to the pan and reduce to about half. Return the chops to the pan and simmer for a few minutes until youre happy that they should be cooked through. Remove the chops again.

Whisk the mustard and butter into the sauce. Check to see if you need to add some extra salt and pepper. Pour the sauce over the chops and eat. This is really good with some boiled potatoes and broccoli.

The hens - wing clipping

2010-04-06T12:38:00.001+01:00

Lesson number 2 - wing clipping.

Given that the first lesson was that hens can fly, its hardly surprising that the second lesson is around wing clipping. As both hens had escaped the first day we had them we almost immediately read up on wing clipping. Some people were completely anti wing clipping and then I read a few articles that said it was only right to clip wings if you want to give the hens any quality of life. Quality of life in the case of my hens would mean not having to live in a cage all the time yet with no danger of being run over by a car or getting into the hands of a local take-away owner.

I can understand how people with loads of land in the country might not clip wings but as posted by Michael Kelly wing clipping wont stop them from getting eaten by foxes and nor would a jetpack but it will keep them safe from what might be outside the garden.

All this makes it sound like I did the clipping, which I didnt. There are three chickens in this house and I am possibly the biggest. I was left to hold the torch while my two male assistants did the job. A torch? Well lesson 3 would be that hens dont like the dark. As a result to cause the least possible stress to ourselves mostly and the hens we did the job undercover of darkness (with a torch). I held the torch and the roof of the house while assistant 1 removed one hen at a time and assistant 2 chopped the primary feathers on one wing. The hens didnt mind whatsoever and Im pretty sure it didnt hurt as there was no complaining whatsoever.

When clipping their wings you only need to clip their primary feathers (as described by michael and in the image above). As I read somewhere else you should check to make sure you arent cutting through any blood vessels while doing this. A scissors does the job fairly well. You also need to remember that if the hens moult then you will need to do this again when the feathers grow back. If you are thinking of clipping wings you may want to read a little bit more about it elsewhere so that you know all the in's and out's (i.e. Im not a vet so please dont sue me for the small amount of info here)

A few days later we let them out for the first time to roam the garden. They were a bit tentative at first and then the big mad one came out and did a poo to show the way for young hen. After that the two of them were hunky dory. In the last 2 days they have scared cats away, pecked at the window to try and get in, fought over snails and generally caused much amusement to all. They are slowly getting used to us wandering around the garden to the point that they were even wandering down to have a look at the upgrades to the coop yesterday.

It might be that they are a bit more relaxed about us and their new surroundings (they knew where to go to bed last night without any prompting) but its so nice to have them roaming free.

More hen updates to come along with answers to some questions I got by email about keeping hens.

Name my hens - competition!

2010-03-24T22:08:00.002Z

So its been a while, Im a complete waster. Mostly Ive been waiting until I can get a good picture of the new ladies in my house. Unfortunately they are not great models. They move, run away, peck at the ground and as I havent let them out of their coop yet they are kind of difficult to capture.

So here's some preliminary photos of the new ladies in my house and Im hoping in a few days when they are a bit more settled I can take some real photos without bars.

First Alcooptraz, this was hand built using all sorts of bits and pieces after reading a lot of articles about making chicken coops.

Lesson 1 - hens fly. Who would have thought this (with its metre high fence) would not be enough to keep hens in? Us, obviously. Even more so as we saw mad hen confronting the fat cat 2 doors down - 2 doors down after flying over 2 walls!

Alcooptraz has since had the perimeter secured and no cats have been harmed in the making of this report (or at least not seriously hurt, maybe slightly mentally scarred). Once the hens have settled in we will probably clip their wings before letting them free range around the garden.Clipping wings is the safe option, its that or putting leads on them.

So let me introduce the ladies:

They are kind of hard to see in there but Im hoping you can get a good enough view to help name them.

The one closest, thats good young hen lady. She's pretty much obedient, not a bit afraid of the dark (in fact tries to sleep with her head out most nights until we close the door), the first to go for new foods we leave out. She has quite a lovely sounding egg laying song, which is mostly drowned out by crazy hens distracting clucking. Im pretty sure she is the younger of our two ladies.

The one further away, thats mad hen. We mostly call her "he" so far as she is the one that flew away, that went for the neighbours fat cat and then landed 3 doors down on a balcony. I like to think that her goal was to reach the shops so she could chastise them about the quality of the eggs they sell. She is so hardcore that I was pretty sure she was going to start making cockerel sounds at some stage. She's a country lass who is very very excited about living near the city. She is also bonkers, totally crazy in the head. She wont eat food until young hen lady has tasted it, bosses young hen around and generally makes a bit of a nuisance of herself.

Im not sure what breed either are, they came from the grandad of a guy at work. I think mad hen might be so crossbred that shes crazy, maybe she is even an ex-competition hen. They are good ladies though, only a few days in and we had eggs and have pretty much had 2 a day since (still not enough to re-pay the neighbours for helping to catch them)

So what I need are names, good crazy hen names.
To help you think here are some of the names Ive got already:

Houdini (as both of them escaped before we secured the perimeter its too difficult to decide which one gets this name)
Mildred
Sage & Onion
Henny and Penny (my favourites - so much so that Ive resorted to calling them NotHenny and NotPenny since they arrived last week)
K&FC
Plucky
Nugget and Drumstick
Humpty and Dumpty

As a prize - you get to have named a crazy hen. I may give you eggs (if you live close by) or I may even bake you a cake, like the one that I baked for the guy who got me the hens. Mostly your best prize will be knowing that there is a hen named by you happily digging for worms in my back garden.