Eat me Drink me

Plenty

2011-07-12T21:49:00.003+01:00

The Gorgeous C gave me a copy of Ottolenghi's Plenty - a cornucopia of vegetarian fritters, salands, cymbal crashes of technicolour spices erupting luridly across the page and splashig happily onto this gastronomic troubaors palette.Loved Ottolenghi the cookbook, and spent the beginning of the year pumping winning dish after winni9ng dish out of his pages and onto the plate. Some gripes about

Coq au vin

2011-06-28T20:30:00.002+01:00

Unfotunatley no pics for this unexpected return to form post, but we'll plunge on regardless. Full speed ahead, and damn the torpedoes.The Gorgeous C and I cooked up a gnarly, mean, bitter and pugnacious old cockerel during the week, It's quite a thing to cook a thing you've killed. I'm not going to come over all Hugh Firmly Whippngboy about the whole affair, but it is a difficult thing to do.We

The Pantry and Corkscrew, Westport, Co Mayo

2010-09-11T12:02:00.002+01:00

Recently opened - circa two months ago - this narrow little gem sits just off the square in Westport, Co Mayo. We walked in off the street. Frankly, it just looked inviting, and the menu made all the right sounds. I ordered up a pork sausage casoulet, with apple and cider, topped with a thin strip of potato rosti, in place of that typical crucnhy bean topping so beloved by the French.Absent from

Smoky Polenta Chips

2010-04-04T23:10:00.003+01:00

Culled from the pages of last weekends Guardian, Ottolenghi's Polenta chips.It's an actual good thing to do with that box of fast cook polenta we all have lurking amongst the skeletons in our larder. If, like me, you bought a box of the stuff in the vain and misguided illusion that the infernal goop was anything other than just about tolerable, and are at a complete loss with how to hoodwink your

In search of cappucino perfection

2010-03-31T20:43:00.003+01:00

La Boulangerie, on Dublins Chatham Row, off Grafton street, in the heart of the city. The service is good - imprecise, but with such warmth and welcome that the occasional wrong table can be easily forgiven. This is a nice space to spend time in.Not because of the decor - marbletop tables, bentwood chairs, a little too close to one another, in a relatively charmless room, but with a full glass

One Pico, lunch, March 3rd

2010-03-05T19:35:00.004Z

One Pico have a lunch deal on at the mo - who doesn't.Two courses for 19.95, three for 25.Situated just off Molesworth street, the room, somewhat neutrally appointed with a too severe kind of.... greywash, curious, indifferent art pieces on the wall breaking up the decorative monotony. I don't get the paintjob, tipping the balance over to the oppressive side of banal.The seating is comfortable,

Wine tasting

2010-02-05T20:36:00.005Z

Something I've been meaning to do for a while.At the ex place of work, one of the many benefits (great resources, fantastic colleagues who became good friends, intelligent conversation, DIVINE baking, engaged and engaging students) included near monthly wine tastings. Always fun, educational, and surprising.Conducted with knowledge, aplomb, intelligence and dedication, by the much lauded Baron of

Gravad Lax

2010-01-30T10:31:00.004Z

Gravlax/Gravad Laks/Gravlaks/Graavilohi(for Finno-Ugraic eccentrics....)/Graflax, or, in Ashkenazi cuisine, lox (though this can sometimes be cold smoked as well as cured)Fine stuff. Easy to make, and keeps for ages. And, in the Boys Own bumper book of Adventure that is my imagination, it gives endless and massive culinary kudos to the maker.The basics are simple. I went with the cooking for

Kedgeree

2010-01-24T18:05:00.005Z

Pictured - kedgeree, or at least a form thereof, reheated in a break from gutting the new house. Freezing fog, zero insulation, single glazing, and wide open doors make this spicy Indian dish a perfect winter warmer.The new house will make posting....intermittent. Lots of work to do, but Autumn should see posts on recipes to cope with the expected fruit glut - we have three established orchards

Moroccan Braised Lamb Shanks

2010-01-09T22:51:00.005Z

It reaches right in and warms the soul. On a sub zero day, it's the kind of dish that locks the doors, lights the fire, and sets out a pair of pre-warmed slippers next to the paper and a glass of what cures you. The spiciness, the deep umami of long braised lamb, the thick flavourful sauce. It really is something a little bit special. And it is braising, which means, with planning, no more than

Vegan Methyl Cellulose Marshmallows.

2010-01-02T21:09:00.007Z

I took posession, late in the last year of a box of alchemical culinary tricks from France. Pipettes, calcium chloride, and the bould sodium alginate, for ravioli and caviar, a syringe, for roasting fowls, filling chocolates and eggs and, inevitably, the diabetes my sweet and sugar addiction is nicely nursing. (I wonder what insulin actually tastes like).I also ordered some methyl cellulose,

Shallot Tarte Tatin

2010-01-02T13:39:00.005Z

The official, and jealously guarded recipe for a Tarte Tatin is here (I particularly admire their admonishment, in bright red capital letters that any Tarte Tatin ordered with cream or flambeed is "AN IMPROPER USAGE OF THE NAME").I shall plunge recklessly on, and, risking a gallic cold shoulder to this humble blog, submit this worthwhile and delicious adaptation for your delight. I hope that

Polpette, with tomato sauce

2009-11-29T20:00:00.002Z

Polpette - meatballs. Such a staple of American Italian food, and one which, for a variety of reasons, I am almost entirely unaccustomed to cooking.At it's best, a succulent dish, with a deep and subtle umami tinted tomato sauce, sweetly boisterous, sloppy, back slapping....It's the kind of food that welcomes you into the heart of things. A big, motherly, tomatoey hug of a thing. It's what memory

Pieds de Porc

2009-11-21T21:21:00.006Z

Picked up two trotters at the local butchers for the princely sum of €1.50. Being on the dole certainly fosters fiscal creativity. More to the point, having been utterly inspired by Fergus Henderson's (video link) Nose to Tail Eating cookbook, and fantastically charmed by the man himself, I've found myself with enough time to actually do something constructive with this porcine culinary

Pork porn

2009-11-20T22:20:00.004Z

My journey deeper into the gelatinous underworld of pork love continues. Picked up some trotters to experiment with pieds de porc/pieds de cochon from Grigson's Charcuterie (great book.....to be reviewed).For today, a braised pork belly, Asian style, with a braised Chinese cabbage to balance the meltingly fatty and deep lusciousness of a carefully braised belly.Braising has been an absolute

Lunch for two at L'Ecrivain, set lunch menu, €25pp

2009-11-05T15:10:00.003Z

L’Ecrivain3 course lunch for two1 glass of Prova Regia white wine (fresh, fruity, good length, good balance of acidity)1 glass of house Prosecco1 coffee12% optional service charge included.€75Pro’s: Everything. Service, price, atmosphere, food.Cons: Slight oversalting, to my palate (on the veloute, pithivier, and chicken).Is cucumber jelly a one taste pony?Uninspiring risotto option on the

Idleness has thrust it's happy self upon me....and a cry for help

2009-11-02T21:41:00.005Z

OK....so, now that idleness has thrust it's happy self upon me, thank you credit crunch, financial wizards, Wolfean Masters of the Universe, and lax city regulation....I've some time on my hands. Several months worth of the stuff. And damned tricky stuff to handle it is too, I don't mind telling you. Daytime drinking only gets you so far.However, I don't miss the chest tightening terror that

Chocolate Chantilly

2009-10-31T09:53:00.001Z

Video for Herve This style Chocolate Chantilly - dairy free chocolate mousse.

Chocolate Mousse....

2009-10-27T20:16:00.004Z

Herve This style., or so, of entirely unexpected cooking. A kind of year of cooking dangerously, or so I had imagined it before the Julie and Julia film came out.....I've ordered the chemicals, picked out the recipes, made a list, and the next months are to be spent cracking open pigs skulls, pressing pates, whipping up oddly flavoured spheres, caviars, and counter instinctual constructions. And

Rosehip Syrup

2009-10-26T15:10:00.001Z

Rosehip syrup, recipe below.....

Rosehip Syrup

2009-10-26T10:44:00.009Z

As October has shortened it's days, in these past few weeks, the hedgerows have become fat with berries. Sloes, purple dusted, clustered like unsung grapes......blackberries, bursting with sweet and apple flavours picked glistening with rain from the bushes, fat hips blushing in crowded communion on their thorny bushes....It's been a good autumn, the late sun has brought out the best in them. We

PastaFresca 0001

2009-10-15T12:21:00.001+01:00

Fresh Pasta from Scratch

Fresh Pasta

2009-10-15T11:21:00.007+01:00

After making cream cheese on the stove top, and cooking up some onion jam, we put together some fresh pasta from scratch, and put the whole lot together into cannelloni, with chard from the garden...Autumn already, and still such ample and delicious bounty blowsily lounging in their beds......I've found 8 large leaves, harvested from the outside of the plant (twist the stalk at the base, near the

Onion Jam

2009-10-14T21:26:00.004+01:00

To go with the cream cheese, served fresh on plain bread. Delicious. Also had it with last nights bangers and mash, a classic combination wth all things porcine. Cold with cheese it coils up in candied stickysweet mounds of caramelised onion, with the deep taste of port, and a little Rosemary humming just underneath everything else.Ingredients3 medium sized Red onions, very thinly sliced. As much

HomemadeCreamCheese

2009-10-14T13:21:00.001+01:00

Homemade cream cheese video