Xmas Food and Wine, Enfield Next Door

Below are the wines and some recipes. All recipes are now below in the order we ate them - including the Indian ones.

Segura Viudas Reserva Heredad - €20.00
Matched with Wild Boar and Apple Sausage and a slice of Apple. Wild Boar sausages bought in O'Tooles Butcher, Terenure. Downeys Terenure also do Boar Sausages.


Pinot Gris / Pinot Grigio, Turckheim, €15.99

Smoked Salmon Pate
Add 200g of Smoked Salmon to a food processor plus a tub of Mascarpone and 4-6 tablespoons of natural yoghurt and the juice of half a lemon. Blend briefly. You should be able to see small chunks of smoked salmon. Taste and adjust with more lemon juice or yoghurt.

Alternatively use Philadelphia or other cream cheese and omit the yoghurt.


Knappstein 3 Gewurz, Riesling and Pinot Gris, €15.99
Torres Santa Digna Rose- €11.99

Cod in Spicy sauce with Fennel and Mustard Seeds
2 Thick Cod Steaks, skinned. (or any firm white fish)
1tsp Salt,. 1/2 tsp Cayenne Pepper, 1/4 tsp Turmeric
3tbs Sunflower Oil, 1 tsp Fennel Seeds, 1 tsp mustard seeds, 2 sliced Onions, 2 chopped Cloves Garlic, 2 tsp Ground Cumin, 1 400g Tin Tomatoes, 1/2 tsp Whole Cumin Sees, 1/2 tsp Garam Masala

Pre-heat the oven to 180 Celsius / Gas 4. Mix half the salt, with the cayenne and turmeric and rub into both sides of the fish and set aside for 30 minutes.

Heat the oil and once hot add the mustard and fennel seeds. After a few seconds the mustard seeds will pop, add the onions and garlic. Stir and fry until the onions turn slightly brown. Add the ground cumin and the tin of tomatoes.

On a separate pan dry fry the whole cumin seeds without oil until toasted. Grind the roasted cumin seeds and add to the spicy tomatoes. NOTE: this step can be omitted without too much damage to the final flavours in the dish.

Simmer for the tomatoes 15 minutes and taste to adjust the seasoning (you may need a little more salt or cayenne).

Heat 1tbs of oil in a separate pan and fry the fish briefly so it is browned on each side but not cooked through. Add the fish to a baking dish and pour over the spicy tomato sauce. Cook at 180 Celsius (Gas 4) for 15 minutes


Tandoori Style Chicken
500g-1kg of Chicken Pieces. Use chicken breasts or whole pieces such as drumsticks or legs.
Mix 1 tsp of salt with the juice of 1 lemon and rub into the chicken (cut slashes if you are using whole pieces. Marinate for at least 30 minutes.

Add the following to a blender - 1 medium quartered onion, a green chilli pepper, 1sp Garam Masala, 3 peeled cloves of garlic, a peeled chopped 1 inch cube of fresh ginger and 400ml Natural Yoghurt. Blend until you have a smooth paste and pour over the chicken. Marinate for a further 30 minutes (or overnight). If you want the chicken to be the typical Tandoori chicken colour you need to mix 1tsp of yellow and 1tsp of red food colouring and brush over the chicken (or just add it to the yoghurt mix for a lighter effect).

Pre-heat the oven to its maximum temperature. Remove the chicken pieces from the marinade and add to a baking dish in one layer. Bake for 25 minutes until cooked (check the juices run clear). Serve with slices of lemon or lime.


Dom. de Bisconte, Cotes de Rousillion 2007 - €11.79
Goose Breast with Mango Bread Stuffing
Stuffing was simply made by blending fresh herbs, breadcrumbs, salt and pepper. Fry an onion in butter until soft. Add the breadcrumbs and herbs to the pan plus a peeled and diced ripe mango. Scrape all the butter and onions and mango into an ovenproof dish. Bake in the oven for an hour.


Saint Clair Vicars Choice Pinot Noir, New Zealand €14.49
Roast Turkey


Taylors Late Bottled Vintage €22.50

Leslie's Granny's Christmas Pudding!
This recipe makes 2 puddings. The recipe is flexible so feel free to vary the ingredients to your taste.

1lb Raisins
1lb Sultanas (and/or Currants if you like them)
1/2 - 1lb Suet (I use closer to a half lb but feel free to use more)
1lb Brown Sugar
Pinch of Salt
Pinch of Nutmeg
2-3 tsp Mixed spice
4oz mixed peel
1-2oz Glacé Cherries
5-6 Eggs (depending on size)
1/2 - 1 glass of whiskey
1/2 lb Flour
1/2 lb Breadcrumbs (or less if you wish)
Optional addition - Juice and Rind of a Lemon

Mix dry ingredients. Add Eggs and mix very well (5 minutes stirring recommended). Grease pudding bowls with butter and divide the mixture between the 2 bowls. Cover with greaseproof paper, then tinfoil, then more paper and tie with string. Place a saucer in a large pot and place the pudding on top. Add lots of boiling water (as close to the top as you can) and cover. Steam the puddings for 4 hours and allow to mature for as long as possible (you can add a little more brandy or whiskey as it matures to keep it moist - pour over the whiskey and poke with a skewer).

To heat for serving you can microwave it but a further boiling of an hour is a bit better.

Caitriona's Stew

Cold wintry weather has descended on us in the last two weeks so it’s time to bring out the stew pot.

Everyone needs to know how to make a good stew and the secret is to keep it simple.

Irish stew should be simply layers of trimmed neck of lamb and potatoes interspersed with onions, chopped herbs and salt and pepper and topped up with water and cooked for a few hours. Using a mix of floury and firm potatoes will thicken the stew and if you want carrots serve them on the side.

The main recipe this week is not my own. I have made dozens of different stews over the years, usually adding wine and other fancy ingredients but I have come to the conclusion that simple is best, and the rest of my family and friends agree that my wife’s stew cannot be beaten.

Caitríona’s Old Fashioned Stew
Ingredients: 1.5 kg Rib Steak (or Round Steak), 2 tbs Flour, 1 tsp Salt, Black Pepper, 2tbs Sunflower Oil, 5 medium Onions, 3 large Carrots, 3 large Parsnips, 10 medium Potatoes

Carefully trim as much fat from the meat as possible and cut into 1 inch cubes. Add the meat to a plastic bag followed by the flour, salt and pepper. Shake the bag well so that the meat is fully coated in the seasoned flour.

Heat the oil in a large casserole dish and once you see a hint of smoke, add the flour-coated meat and brown quickly, stirring occasionally to prevent the meat from sticking.

Peel the onions, chop into chunks and stir and brown in the casserole. Add water until the meat and onions are covered. Bring the water to a simmer, cover and leave to stew on very low heat for 1.5 hours.

Peel and top and tail the carrots and parsnips. Chop into chunks or strips of similar size and add to the dish. Wash and peel the potatoes, cut into large chunks and add to the dish. Add boiling water until the meat and veg. are fully covered. Simmer for a further 1.5 hours until the meat is tender and the veg are cooked. Check the seasoning after one hour and add more salt and pepper if necessary.

Serve in bowl with lots of juice and home made soda bread.

Healthy Snacks

Healthy Snacks are two buzz words you will see in every women’s magazine but kids need more than a few apple slices when they get home from school.

Almost all children are fussy eaters and there is very little parents can do except find things they like to eat that are relatively good for them (or at least not bad for them).

Processed foods kids love such as potato waffles and fish fingers will never be as good for them (or us) as real food prepared from scratch.

The recipes below are unlikely to appear in a dietician’s cookbook given that they are cooked in fat and contain salt, but the important thing is they are way better than any processed food, taste great and kids will eat them.

Feel free to scale up all the recipes below.

Chicken Nuggets
These are so tasty and easy you will never have to buy chicken nuggets again.

Blend 100g of cornflakes in a food processor with a good pinch of salt. Cut a chicken breast into nugget sized pieces and push each nugget into the cornflake crumbs. Both cornflakes and chicken breast are sticky so there is no need for egg. Shallow fry in a little oil and butter until firm and golden.


Fish Fingers / Fish Goujons
Whether you call these goujons or fish fingers depends on whether you cook them for adults or kids.

Cut 250g of white fish such as Cod, Haddock or Whiting into 2cm strips 10 cm long and 1cm thick. Rub the fish in plain flour and lightly coat each piece of fish. Process 3-4 slices of white bread into fine breadcrumbs. Beat a large egg with some salt and add a splash of milk. Dip the fish in the milk, followed by the breadcrumbs and shallow fry in sizzling butter mixed with a little sunflower oil until golden.


French Toast
Use any bread but this is best with slices of French stick or thick slices of crusty bread.

Beat 2 eggs with 200ml milk and add a pinch of salt. Dip thick slices of bread in the milk/egg mix and shallow fry in a little butter and oil until golden. Serve with maple syrup or a sprinkle of caster sugar.

Colcannon

With the wholesale adoption of Halloween by America we sometimes forget that it originated in Ireland and was brought to the US by Irish immigrants.

Pumpkins are much easier to carve than turnips so it is not all bad. Bobbing for apples is a tradition worth keeping and don’t forget to hang the apple from the door frame (or a doughnut) and don’t forget to add some money to the apple tart and colcannon.

Colcannon is one tradition that has not been commercialised, probably because it has far too much butter and full fat cream and milk to be of interest to America.

Feel free to adjust this recipe to your liking. If you prefer cabbage feel free to use it instead of kale. Do use full fat milk but feel free to omit the cream and reduce the butter. Some cooks (e.g. Theodora Fitzgibbon) suggest using equal weight of Kale to Potato, but I feel a proportion somewhere between a third and a half works best.

Don’t forget to include at least one coin.

Colcannon
700-800g Potatoes, 250g Curly Kale (or Cabbage), 1 Leek, 200ml Whole Milk or Cream (100ml of each), 100g butter, Salt and pepper. Coins well wrapped in grease proof paper.

Peel the potatoes and steam them until tender. Use a floury variety such as Kerr’s Pinks if you can, but Roosters will suffice.

Strip the leaves of the kale from their stalks, chop finely, and wash in lots of cold water. Place the still dripping leaves in a saucepan with a knob of butter and cook on medium heat in a closed pan for approx. 7 minutes. .

Simmer the cleaned and finely sliced leek in the milk or cream until tender.

Once the potatoes are cooked, mash them thoroughly or push through a potato ricer, add half the butter and beat with a wooden spoon until you have a smooth consistency.

Add the leek and hot milk/cream to the mash, mix in the kale, and beat well with a wooden spoon to spread the leek and kale through the potatoes.

Scrape into a large bowl or plate and push in the coins wrapped in paper. You can cover the dish at this point and heat it up later in the oven or microwave. Just before you bring it to the table make a well in the centre and add the remaining butter.

Venison

Bord Bia are doing a lot of good work to encourage us to eat in season and a quick look at their site www.bestinseason.ie will tell exactly what to look for in your local market.

For example Green beans are nearing the end of their season and Celeriac is just beginning, both go perfectly with the first of the autumn game.

Many of us forget that meat also has a season and autumn is Game season. It is illegal to shoot game during the spring and summer months (to allow the animals to breed and to keep their numbers up), but summer is long gone now so Grouse, Mallard and Venison are beginning to appear in specialist butchers such as Downeys in Terenure.

Venison is also a farmed meat so is available all year but the wild version seems to me to have a little more flavour, if not the consistency of texture of the farmed version.

Recipes for Venison often ask for the meat to be marinated in wine, vinegar and juniper berries for 2-3 days to tenderise and add moisture and flavour. Marinating works but is really only necessary for old tough animals, not like the young bucks most likely found in the butchers.

I treat venison haunches and legs much as I would a piece of beef; rub olive oil into the flesh with some salt and pepper, brown it in a hot pan and roast in a hot oven at 20 minutes per 500g plus an additional 25 minutes. Allow the meat to rest and it will be as tender as any roast of beef.

Similarly cook Venison steaks exactly as you would sirloin.

Venison is very low in fat and needs a good gravy to add moisture. The following is adapted from a recipe of the 19th century chef Antonin Carême.

Venison Sauce
Ingredients: 200ml of Pinot Noir (or any light red wine), 2 tbs of Red Wine Vinegar, the flesh of half a skinned Lemon (skin removed), 3 tbs of Redcurrant Jelly, 50ml Stock.

Bring all the ingredients except the stock to a boil and cook rapidly until the sauce has reduced by two thirds. Add the Stock (any brown stock) and reduce the sauce for another 2-3 minutes. Adjust the seasoning with some salt and pepper.

Autumn Roasts

Autumn is the beginning of the comfort food season. Slow roasting meat and veg. makes for no-fuss cooking and tasty, warming food to brighten the dark evenings..

The golden colours of Autumn are reflected in the recipes below – Lamb and Autumn vegetables roasted until they are the colour of the Autumn leaves - rich yellows and browns with flashes of red (if you add a red pepper!).

Roast Shoulder of Lamb with Apple and Parsnips
Ingredients: 1 Shoulder of Lamb, 2-3 Dessert Apples, 2 medium Parsnips, 1 medium Onion, Wine (white or rosé), Salt and Pepper.

Ask your butcher for a shoulder of lamb with the bone still intact but the blade removed. Core and roughly chop the apples and lay in the bottom of a roasting pan or dish. Peel and chop the parsnips and onion and mix with the apples.

Lay the shoulder on top of the veg. and add 2 full glasses of wine plus 500ml water. Cover loosely with foil and slow roast in the oven at 160o C for approximately 4 hours.

Check the liquid levels every hour or so and baste the meat. You will probably need to add a little water to the dish to keep the liquid levels at 1-2cm deep.

The slow roasting allows most of the fat to render out and should give you a nice blend of crispy skin and moist interior. Serve a small pile of the apple/parsnip/onion with each portion.


Roast Autumn Vegetables
Ingredients: Pumpkin, Acorn Squash, Parsnips, Carrots, Onion, Courgettes, Aubergines, Red Peppers, Garlic, Fresh Herbs such as Rosemary and Bay, Olive Oil

Proportions for this dish are very flexible. Feel free to use all the veg mentioned or just a few - pumpkin, parsnip and onion work well for example.

It is best to use more pumpkin, squash and carrots (up to two thirds) and less of the softer veg such as courgettes and onions.

Peel the root veg. and de-seed and scrape the squashes and chop all into roughly equal pieces. Garlic can be left whole or peeled. Rosemary works best but any fresh herbs will add flavour.

Mix all the chopped veg with a generous splash of olive oil, add a good sprinkle of salt and pepper and roast for two hours at 160o C.

Celery

Celery
Celery is the classic diet food, particularly given the rumour that we burn more calories to digest celery than are actually contained in the vegetable.

This seems to be largely true, but the dozen or so calories you burn are unlikely to make much difference to your waistline.

Rarely taken on its own merits, celery is very useful for flavouring soups, sauces and stews, not to mention stirring bloody marys.

Italians almost always include a stalk or two as a base for their stews and tomato based pasta sauces and speaking of Italy, celery and Gorgonzola are a match made in heaven.

Most books recommend that you blanch celery in boiling salted water but I find it better to braise it for ten minutes on low heat in a little oil or butter.

Once you have braised the celery you can add a béchamel sauce and bake in the oven topped with parmesan or add a few skinned tomatoes (fresh or tinned) plus some garlic, fresh herbs and salt and pepper and cook for a further 15 minutes.


Waldorf Salad
Fans of Fawlty Towers will remember that this simple salad is made with equal parts apple and celery mixed with walnuts, grapes and mayonnaise. The grapes are optional and no Waldorfs are required.

Celery and Blue Cheese Soup (serves 4)
1 head of green Celery, 2 medium onions, 1 medium potato, 50g Butter, 50g Flour, 1ltr Stock (preferably Chicken), 80g Strong Blue Cheese – Crozier, Gorgonzola, St. Agur.

Chop the celery, onions and the peeled potato as finely as you can and reserve a few celery leaves. Melt the butter in a large saucepan and add the vegetables. Cook the veg. with the lid on at low heat for 15 minutes until very soft. Add the flour and stir in, followed by the stock. Allow to cook for 50-60 minutes on low heat.

I recommend buzzing the soup with a stick blender to thicken it a little but this is not essential. Crumble or chop the blue cheese and remove the soup from the heat. Gradually add the cheese, whisking the soup after each batch.

As you fill each bowl, add a small mound of cheese to the centre plus some finely chopped celery leaf.

Bellagio, Terenure, Truffle Menu...

Bellagio is at first glance your typical local Italian restaurant
serving bruschetta, pizza and pasta. Neighbourhood restaurants need
to be sure they can attract the conservative as well as the
adventurous diner so yes there are (excellent) takeaway pizzas for under a tenner and you will find words like Carbonara and Bolognese on the menu but this is not the whole story.

Watch out for special dishes and events and you will find a lot more. From their Truffle festival (likely to be annual thanks to the huge success of its first outing in the Autumn of 2009) to the fantastic quality of their espresso and the fact that the pasta will always be cooked to perfection and the less conventional sauces such as Linguine with scallops and artichokes or Pappardelle with beef fillet and porcini.

The Autumn 09 Truffle evening I attended on Tuesday was extraordinary in the quality of the dishes offered. I simply didn't know that thisrestaurant could do this kind of food.

Beef Carpaccio with Baby Leaves, Shaved Black Truffle and Fontina Cheese Breadcrumbs was thick cut delicious beef with solid flavours from carpaccio deressing and the truffles and the Fontina. the Fresh Sea Scallops with Langoustine Bisque, Cream of Beans and Crispy Green
Cabbage (the small bit I was allowed to steal!) were perfectly cooked. Sweet and perfectly caramelised on the outside, barely cooked through on the inside. the creamy cabbage was perfect and the bisque added extra light fishy flavours but all was accented but not overwhelmed by
the truffle.

The black truffle tagliatelli was rich and perhaps a little too
filling but that was my greediness for eating it all. the Fillet of beef was cooked rare as requested and came with just dots of potatoes and veg. (a good thing given the food already in my belly). this is the classic Italian style - you want meat, they give you meat. ask for potatoes if you want them.

the brown trout had one slightly overcooked piece and one delicious perfectly cooked piece - I suspect it was the lights on the pass did the damage to the top piece. creamy spinach was rich and tasty with hints of truffle.

Finally 5 years aged red cow parmigiano, truffle pecorino, fontina and creamy dolce gorgonzola. The crema on the coffee seemed about a half-centimetre thick, underneath was refreshing strong strong espresso with no hint of bitter almonds.

Owner Fabio Capelli sheds a small tear sometimes when he sees three more spaghetti bolognese and a lasagne leaving the kitchen but the regular Irish customers expect certain things from their local pizza pasta places and he is happy to provide it, knowing as he does that he can occasionally offer truffle infused pecorino or the freshest
scallops and baby clams to those who understand a little more about the joys of La Cucina Italiana.

more info at http://www.bellagiorestaurant.ie/

Bellagio Restaurant, 92 Terenure Road North, Dublin 6w. Tel: 01-492 7625

Beef on the Bone

Roast Rib of Beef on the bone, is one of those perfect dishes that can be served to prince or pauper and be enjoyed with equal relish.

Most butchers will remove the bones so you may need to order ahead. Meat on the bone seems to taste better and shrink less. If you forget to order in advance you will just have to visit Ennis Butchers in Rialto where Derek Bolger slowly dry-ages all his beef until it is tender and juicy and sells all his joints on the bone.

Dry-aging removes water but increases the juice content. Once tasted, this is the meat you will want to eat for your final meal.

Cooking times are meaningless if the beef is straight from the fridge so allow it to come to room temperature. For perfect rare beef, season with salt, pepper and dry mustard and brown in a hot pan. Roast in the oven at 200o C for 20 minutes per 500g plus 20 minutes over. Remove and rest for 20 minutes to allow the juices to redistribute. Add some butter and wine (red or white) to the pan juices to make gravy.

Yorkshire Pudding
After many experiments this is the recipe I have settled on. It produces perfectly risen, light as a feather puddings. The recipe is adapted from a mix of chefs but the extra eggs and the vinegar are from Brian Turner.

Ingredients: 1 large mug of Eggs, 1 large mug of Flour, pinch of Salt, 1 large mug of Milk and Water (half and half), 1tbs Malt Vinegar, 60g fat (dripping, duck fat or oil).

Set the oven to 200°C/Gas 6. Break eggs into the mug until it is almost full and add to a bowl with half the milk/water. Beat well, sift in the flour and whisk again until all the lumps have disappeared.

Add the rest of the liquid and the malt vinegar and (if you have time) allow to rest for 20 minutes.

Add a half-teaspoon of fat to each compartment in a muffin tin and place in the oven for ten minutes until hot. Pour the batter into each section of the tin and roast for 25-30 minutes.

Use up any remaining batter in a baking tin – heating the oil first as described above.

Apples in Season

The best of the summer fruit and veg. are coming near the end of their season, but don’t despair as one of our fantastic native fruits, the humble apple is now at its very best.

By apples I don’t mean the shiny watery ones in the supermarkets, but the old native varieties like the ones being saved by Irish Seed Savers www.irishseedsavers.ie or the ones you find on the organic farmers stalls at markets all over the country – Denis and Duncan Healy’s stands throughout Dublin are particularly recommended.

You often don’t even need to spend any money to enjoy this autumn gift. You are bound to have an elderly neighbour or relative that would love you to come and pick their apples in exchange for a tart or two.

Apples also grow in some of our public parks and hang over onto laneways from back gardens throughout the city. Technically, picking up windfalls that drop onto public property is clearing litter not stealing (or so I believe).

Many of Dublin’s leafy suburbs are lined with crab apple trees which can be substituted for cooking apples when making apple jelly and even apple sauce.

I don’t want to compete with reader’s mums and grannies, so ask them for the recipe for apple tart that you remember from childhood.

Don’t forget that apples are not just for dessert but work with meat dishes such as pork and fowl. Cubes of apples fried in butter are a delicious garnish for free range chicken or guinea fowl.

My favourite match for apple is probably with black pudding. A regular lunch in my house is some crusty bread, slices of fried black pudding and slices of whatever apples I have to hand.

If you want to get fancy fry some black pudding and slices of apple and layer them one on top of the other and serve with a green salad which also includes some apple matchsticks.

Bramley Apple Sauce
Perfect match for Roast Pork and poultry such as duck or goose. Also delicious as a starter served with Clonakilty Black Pudding (or your local butcher’s version).

For every 200g of peeled and chopped Bramley apple add 20-30g of sugar and a splash of water. Cook in a non stick pot over a brisk heat for 10-15 minutes.

Follow Leslie on Twitter - lesliesrealfood

Buckwheat

Buckwheat is one of those ingredients everyone has heard of but few could tell you what to do with. Originating in Russia and Asia the plant is relatively new to our diet and only came to western Europe in the late middle ages.

Buckwheat flour is generally available in health food shops and is a useful store cupboard staple. In France, and Brittany in particular, it is very easy to source as it is used for making savoury crepes.

For savoury crepes just use a standard pancake recipe (2 eggs, 250g Flour, 450ml Milk) but substitute buckwheat for most or all of the flour in the recipe. Cook the pancakes as thin as you can and fold them with ham, eggs, smoked bacon etc.

In the US you will find buckwheat used for both sweet and savoury pancakes and the slightly smoky flavour works particularly well with blueberries.

Blinis are the classic yeast based pancake to be found in Russia and Eastern Europe. This is one of those things everyone should know how to make for the day somebody brings a tin of Caviar to your house. I know this is unlikely to happen for at least a decade given our current woes, but you never know.

Blinis are probably even better with smoked salmon, especially for breakfast, and at least that is something we can all afford.

Blinis
250g Buckwheat Flour
1 packet Instant Yeast (or 15g fresh yeast)
250ml Water (lukewarm)
250ml Milk (lukewarm)
2 eggs, separated
1tbs melted butter
Smoked Salmon, Caviar (optional)
Sour Cream or Crème Fraiche

Mix the yeast with the water, 125g flour and 125ml of milk, cover and allow to ferment for 1½ hours. Beat the egg yolks with the remaining flour and milk and add the melted butter and a pinch of salt. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the batter. Allow to stand for half an hour.

Heat a pan and add a small dab of butter until sizzling. Add a ladleful of pancake mix to the pan and cook on both sides for approx. 60 seconds. Each blini should 3-4 inches in diameter. Stack and keep warm

Serve with smoked salmon and sour cream (or crème fraiche) or try some inexpensive lumpfish caviar. Of course if you know a rich banker you could steal some of their caviar stash.

Blackberries

Blackberries are the great free (and often ignored) treasure of Autumn.

Every hedgerow in Ireland contains blackberry bushes of varying quality and all are worth picking - even the smallest and bitterest.

The sweetest berries are the ones at the bottom of the bunch, and only pick the ones that come away from the stalk easily.

Blackberry jam is the classic recipe and has a nice rustic edge you don't get from other fruits such as blackcurrant, raspberry or strawberry. If you are not keen on the gritty texture you could make a jelly by allowing the pulp to drip through muslin over a couple of days.

Adding a dash of Crème de Mure (the blackberry equivalent of Crème de Cassis) will add some depth of flavour to the recipes below but it can be difficult to find in Ireland so experiment with Crème de Cassis.

Blackberry and Apple Jam
500g Cooking Apples, 1500g Blackberries,1500g sugar
Peel core and chop apples and boil in a little water until very soft, then push through a sieve. Combine the apple pulp with the blackberries and sugar in a large saucepan, bring slowly to a boil and cook rapidly for 30-40 minutes, stirring regularly, until the Jam will set (test with a saucer). If the jam fails to set add the juice of a lemon.


Blackberry Ice Cream
500g Blackberries, 50g Caster Sugar, Juice of 1 lemon, 400ml Double Cream.

Combine the blackberries and sugar and blend for 1 minute. Push through a plastic sieve to remove seeds. Whip cream lightly, mix with the Blackberry pulp and chill for 2 hours. Transfer to plastic tub and freeze or add to an ice-cream maker and churn until the consistency of whipped cream. If you are still freezing you should remove after an hour to beat out the ice crystals.


Blackberry Syrup
Put 1 kilo of picked-over de-stalked blackberries in a shallow bowl with about 200ml of water and leave overnight in a cool place. Add 400g of Caster Sugar and blend for a minute. Push through a sieve and adjust the flavour with lemon juice if you wish but be warned that the lemon will cause the syrup to thicken. Bottle in glass bottles and keep in the fridge. Pour on ice-cream, apple tarts and crumbles, or add to Cava or Prosecco to make Kir.

Bottling it

Autumn is the traditional time to bottle and preserve the bounty of the harvest to offer comfort in the cold winter months ahead.

Nobody bothers preserving vegetables any more, but fruit is a different matter. Brandy preserved peaches eaten in December is a wonderful reminder of warmer days.

Almost any fruit can be preserved and these recipes can be adapted and experimented with. Sterilization of the bottling jars is important however - heat the jars and lids in the microwave or oven until they are too hot to touch.

There is no need to use pristine fruit – bargain with your greengrocer for the damaged fruit. Similarly don’t use expensive brandy, the inexpensive XO from Aldi works very well.

I use brandy below but you could also use Vodka, Tequila or Poitín for equally delicious results.

Cherry Brandy (adapted from Jane Grigson’s Good Things)
This works best with sour morello cherries but unless you have a tree in your garden you will only find sweet cherries for sale.

Wash and pick over the cherries and cut off any bruised bits. Prick each cherry a few times and pack into a sterilized jar. Add a couple of tablespoons of sugar and fill to the brim with brandy. Add extra sugar if using bitter cherries. Close tightly and store at the back of the cupboard for three months (or 20 years).

Once you pour off the brandy, the cherries can be eaten with cream or to make the very best Black Forest Gateaux.

Grape Brandy
Follow the same method as above but use grapes, especially Muscats.

Brandy Preserved Peaches
Peel 12 peaches (boil in water for 60 sec.), cut into quarters and add to a saucepan with their stones. Add 500g of sugar, 1000ml of inexpensive Brandy, a crushed cinnamon stick, a teaspoon of cloves and a quarter of a grated nutmeg. Stir over gentle heat until the sugar is dissolved.

Spoon peaches and brandy into sterilized jars with some cinnamon, a stone or two and some spices. Fill to the brim, close tightly and leave in a cool place for approx. 3 months. The peaches add a kick to fruit salad and taste as good as the brandy. Pears or Apricots work well also.

Summer Kids Cooking

Summer is time to spend with children so why not give them a simple cooking lesson. They might even get to like it and start preparing mid-week dinners for the family (as well as rice crispie buns).

Begin with simple recipes of things the kids like to eat. Home made cheese burgers is an obvious example – make the burger from quality mince meat with salt and pepper (no need for binding agents).

To make chicken nuggets; whiz some cornflakes and salt in a food processor or pestle and mortar and roll pieces of chicken breast in the crumbs. Both the chicken and corn flakes are sticky so should be easy. Shallow fry in a little melted butter mixed with sunflower oil.

Home made fish fingers are also easy. Take strips of fresh cod or haddock and dip in beaten egg, roll them in fine breadcrumbs, sprinkle with salt, and fry in butter and oil as above.

For dessert this chocolate biscuit cake cannot be beaten.

Rich Chocolate Biscuit Cake
Make this into an adult cake by adding a glass or two of whiskey. Children will expect milk chocolate but I use a mix of good quality dark chocolate and standard dairy milk. The proportions below are guidelines, feel free to improvise.

2 Eggs, 100g Butter, 3 tbs of Sugar, 2 tbs of Golden Syrup, 2 tbs of Cocoa Powder, 300g Biscuits (Digestives, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Hob Nobs etc.) broken roughly with your hands, 250g Chocolate (dark, milk or a mix), 50-100g Smarties (for decoration).

Break the eggs into a food processor, add the butter and sugar and blend until smooth and fluffy (or do this by hand). Add the golden syrup, broken biscuits, golden syrup and cocoa powder and mix thoroughly.

Break the chocolate into a bowl and place the bowl in a saucepan of barely simmering water. Stir until the chocolate is melted. Adding a little milk (or whiskey) will speed the process and decrease the risk of the chocolate separating.

Add half the melted chocolate to the biscuit mix and stir. Scrape the mix into an 8 inch square cake tin lined with greaseproof paper. Scrape the remaining melted chocolate evenly over the top and sprinkle with Smarties or chocolate pieces for decoration. Set in the fridge for 2 hours.

Cauliflower

The Cauliflower is rarely treated with the respect it deserves.

While it is available in Ireland all year round, I think they are at their best in early summer.

Cauliflower is also a particularly rich source of vitamins and minerals such as folic acid, iron and calcium.

Always choose the firmest, freshest one you can find and look for tight outer leaves. Cook the cauliflower for just a few minutes and serve it while still firm - overcook it and it can taste rancid.

The glorious shape of a whole cauliflower deserves to be maintained if possible, but you can of course cut it into florets.

To cook a whole cauliflower remove the outer leaves and cut across at the stalk end without damaging the structure. Bring a large pot of salted water (at least 6cm deep) to a rolling boil, drop in the cauliflower (stalk up) and cover with a lid or tin foil.

Cook for about 8 minutes until a sharp knife will penetrate the flesh easily. Remove with a large slotted spoon and place triumphantly on a plate with some melted butter or grated cheese oozing all over.

Cauliflower likes herbs such as parsley, coriander and mint, and works surprisingly well with Indian sauces using tomatoes, turmeric, cumin and ginger.

Alternatively make a good old-fashioned Cauliflower au Gratin (Cauliflower Cheese):

Cook the cauliflower as described above, plunge into cold water and carefully cut into florets.

For the cheese sauce; melt 2tbs of butter in a pan and fry a chopped onion until translucent. Add 2tbs of flour and stir for at least 90 seconds to allow the flour to cook. Gradually add 100ml of milk, followed by 100ml of the cauliflower’s cooking water (or use all milk). Stir and cook for 2 min., then add a handful of grated gruyere or farmhouse cheddar (e.g. Mount Callan), and stir until thick.

Pour a quarter of the sauce into an ovenproof dish and add the florets. Pour over the remainder of the cheese sauce, sprinkle on lots more grated gruyere followed by breadcrumbs followed by grated parmesan. Drizzle with melted butter and bake in a hot oven (200o C) for ten minutes until browned.

Seasonal Cheese

Most of us are unaware that Cheeses have a season.

To find seasonal cheeses you need to visit a decent cheese shop like Sheridans on South Anne St. (also Galway and various farmers markets).

The milk from cows, sheep or goats fed on winter hay will never provide as good a flavour as the rich grass and wild flowers available in the springtime.

You can particularly taste the difference in a fresh goats cheese made from spring milk such as St. Tola (Co. Clare), Sainte Maure (Loire) or Roves de Garrigues (Provence).

Washed rind cheeses can be eaten all year but summer is also the best time to eat the likes of Reblochon, Durrus and Ardrahan

Tartiflette is a modern classic from the Savoy although only around since the 1980s (created by the reblochon promotion board).

This is a popular dish with winter skiers in the French Alps but is even better in summer. Feel free to swap the bacon bits with spinach or cress to make this vegetarian.

Tartiflette

175g streaky rashers or lardons
2 medium onions
1.5kg Potatoes
240-250g very ripe Reblochon, Durrus or Ardrahan
200g Crème Fraiche
50g Butter

De-rind and chop the rashers and fry with the chopped onions until the bacon has begun to crisp slightly and the onions have begun to colour ever so slightly. Remove from the heat.

Wash and peel the potatoes and cut into thick slices. As you cut them add them to a large pot of cold water. Bring the pot slowly to a boil and cook the potatoes gently until they are soft but not cooked through. Drain and run under cold water to allow to cool a little.

Rub the butter around a large ovenproof dish and add a layer of sliced potatoes, followed by some bacon and onion, followed by some thin slices of cheese. If the rind on the cheese is hard you should remove it but if it is soft you can leave it on. Continue until you have filled the dish and topped with the last of the cheese. Pour the crème fraîche over the top and sides and bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Serve with a green salad and some crusty bread.

Pea Season?

Why don’t we have a pea season anymore? On a visit to Helsinki last summer I was amazed to find stalls heaving with peas on every corner – we ate them almost every day.

Prices were fairly high for that day’s peas but the previous day’s peas could be bought for a fraction of the price (and were still miles better than most of what you will find in shops in Ireland).

The frozen pea must have seemed like a miracle when it was first introduced but the novelty wore off a long time ago.

Who over the age of 12 looks forward to eating frozen peas any more than they would fish fingers?

The very best fresh summer peas should be eaten within a few hours of picking so you will have to grow your own or find a farmer selling his own produce to taste them at their best.

If you do find perfectly fresh peas just pod them and boil them for a few minutes in salted water, drain and add some butter and mint and serve decorated with some pea shoots (the curly bits from the pea plant).

If the peas are very young you can even cook them in their pods and eat them whole.

If you are buying from your supermarket or greengrocer, choose the firmest, youngest looking pods and try the recipe below which is my favourite way to deal with peas of uncertain age and is far nicer than anything that Captain can produce.

Peas à la Francaise
To turn this recipe into Peas Bonne Femme simply fry some bacon lardons and add to the recipe.

Ingredients: 1 baby Cos Lettuce, 1tbs Chopped Parsley, 4 Chopped Spring Onions, 1tsp Salt, 1tsp Sugar, 40g Butter, 1 Diced Carrot, 400g Fresh Peas (approx 1kg in their pods), 6tbs water.

Line the saucepan with the lettuce leaves and add the other ingredients in the order above. Cover the saucepan with a tight lid and place on a hot ring for 30 seconds, turn the heat to low and allow the peas to steam for approx. 15 minutes. Serve with some grilled or barbecued lamb or steak.

Quick Summer Food

Quick Kebabs
Trim and cube 1kg of round steak purchased from a butcher that ages his meat (to ensure tenderness) - Ennis Butchers in Rialto is one example but there are many all over the country.

Rub the steak with salt, pepper, mild chilli powder (Aleppo Chilli MIx if you can find it), allspice, nutmeg and dried oregano. Add a splash of olive oil and some lemon juice, mix well and allow to marinate for at least an hour. Push onto skewers and grill on the barbecue.

Trim and cube 4 chicken breasts and place in a bowl. Add salt, pepper, lemon juice, olive oil, chopped chilli pepper (optional), fresh coriander or other herbs. Allow to marinate and push onto skewers and grill.

Couscous Salad
Pour 300g of couscous into a dish and pour on 300ml of hot water containing ½ - 1 teaspoon of salt. Stir the couscous vigorously so that the water is absorbed evenly and leave it to swell for ten minutes. Add 100ml of extra virgin olive oil and rub the couscous between your fingers to break up any lumps and to ensure it is light and fluffy. This last step is the most important so spend a few minutes lifting and separating the grains with your fingertips. Finally add a chopped red pepper, chopped red onion, black pepper and lots of fresh mint.

Grill some merguez or lamb sausages (available in halal and fancier butchers) and add to the couscous cold or warm.

In Season...

Anyone reading this column in the past will have noticed my emphasis on seasonality. I’ll say it one more time for anyone that missed it: locally grown food in season tastes better and costs less.

If you are unsure about what is in season the Bord Bia site: www.bestinseason.ie has a very useful chart.

The best way of dealing with seasonal produce is to do as little as possible with it to preserve the natural flavours, and one of the best ways to do this is to make a salad, the ultimate summer food.

Salad doesn’t have to contain leaves but there is a good reason for eating sweet young leaves at this time of year when they reach their peak of flavour. You still have time to plant some “cut and come again” lettuce that will give you continual supplies over the coming months.

Fresh herbs are at their best in summer so liberally add any that you have to hand.

Warm salads (where hot cooked ingredients are added) are useful to avoid accusations of serving rabbit food. Thinly sliced rare steak, fried bacon lardoons and shellfish work well; as does offal such as lamb kidneys, sweetbreads and even black pudding (add some apple).

Flowers can add a decorative element but also flavours, particularly nectar sweet Violets or pungent peppery Nasturtiums. Herb flowers such as chive or rosemary work well and jasmine, primroses and even fuscia are all worth trying. Beware of poisonous flowers such as potato or sweet pea.

French Dressing
3 tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil, 1tbs Sherry or Wine Vinegar, 1tsp Dijon Mustard, Salt and Freshly Ground Pepper.

Add the ingredients to a jam jar and shake vigorously to emulsify.

Variations: replace the vinegar with twice as much lemon or grapefruit juice; replace the olive oil with hazel or walnut oil; for salads containing shellfish add a half teaspoon of Thai fish sauce and some chopped lemongrass; for meat based salads add the deglazed juices from the pan.

Strawberry Ice Cream

Irish strawberries are well and truly in season now and the price has finally begun to drop.

The tunnel grown fruits are being replaced with the outdoor fruit which always seems to taste sweeter.

Strawberries are rich in Vitamin C and naturally sweet, though I usually add a light sprinkle of caster sugar and let them sit for a few minutes to macerate.

Strawberries and cream is one of the great indulgences of the Irish summer and Glenilen double cream (from specialist supermarkets and delis) is the finest I have found, usually containing large globules of cream that are just begging to be scooped off with your finger.

Dip the strawberries in melted chocolate and refrigerate for an hour for the perfect TV snack.

Stuff some warm pancakes with strawberries, and perhaps some chocolate, and serve with vanilla ice cream and a strawberry coulis (strawberries blended with some sugar and lemon juice).

Sprinkle the strawberries with sugar and drizzle with top quality balsamic vinegar for a surprising Italian twist that really seems to intensify the strawberry flavours.

The simple strawberry ice cream below gets made at least a dozen times every summer in my house and is delicious on its own, with chocolate sauce or served with fruit tarts.

You will get best results with an ice cream maker but if you don’t have one simply follow the still-freezing instructions below.

Strawberry Ice Cream
400g Strawberries
75g Caster Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1tbs Strawberry Syrup (optional)
240ml Cream (Glenilen double cream for preference)

Buzz the strawberries and sugar in a food processor until they form a smooth pulp (or mash and stir them vigorously with a wooden spoon). Add the vanilla and strawberry syrup and mix well. Beat the cream until it forms soft peaks and mix well with the pulped strawberries.

Freeze for 90 minutes, remove and mix in the frozen bits at the edges until you have a smooth mix. Repeat this process a couple of times over the next few hours to prevent ice crystals. Alternatively pour the mix into an ice cream maker and churn until stiff.

Mangos

(More recent (April 2010) posting on mangos here)

A good mango is hard to find. The large green-red mangos in our
supermarkets all year round are pale shadows of what this glorious
fruit can taste like when ripe and in season.

The new season mangos are arriving ripe by airplane on a daily basis
to provide our ethnic communities with a little taste of home (hang
the air miles, a little ozone depletion is worth it for a taste this
good). Look for small yellow varieties with slightly yielding flesh
and intoxicating perfume.

The Anwar Ratol variety is the best around at the moment, described as
“the king of mangos” by the shop I visited on Clanbrassil Street. A
box of 15 cost me 12 euro, a bargain given that this is the variety
gifted by Pakistan to visiting heads of state.

Ripe mangos do not need anything other than a sharp knife and a
willingness to get your hands messy but you can also serve with
savoury dishes or with curries or make them into delicious sorbet.

Mango Tart Tatin
This upside down tart is best made using a frying pan with a metal
handle that can be placed in the oven, or use a standard pie dish.

First make a caramel. Add 75g Sugar and 2tbs water to a heavy pan and
cook on high heat for around 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until
brown flecks appear. Reduce the heat and cook until the sugar is
caramelized and is uniformly golden. Remove from the heat and stir in
25g of butter. If using a pie dish scrape the caramel into the dish
at this point.

Peel approximately 1kg of ripe mangos using a sharp potato peeler or
paring knife. Try to remove as little flesh as possible. Cut a thick
slice either side of the central stone and arrange in the pan or dish
on top of the caramel. Scrape all the remaining flesh from each stone
onto the dish. Dot the mango with 25g butter and bake in a hot oven
at Gas 6, 190oC for 20 minutes.

Roll out 200g of frozen puff pastry (or short crust) and place on top.
Bake for a further 25 minutes until the pastry has browned and risen.
Remove from the oven and place a large plate on top of the pan, with
one movement flip the pan over. Serve with lots of double cream or
crème fraiche.

Elderflowers

Elderflowers

The finest free food of the summer began appearing in the last couple of weeks.

Elderflowers are the creamy white bursts of strongly scented, spiky tasting flowers that decorate hedgerows and parklands all over Ireland and can be spotted at 100 metres.

The flowers eventually become elderberries in the autumn, a berry that is only moderately useful, so feel free to pick as many as you can reach.

Identify them once, and you will not mistake them again as the aroma is very distinctive.

Pick the flowers on a dry day, choosing only fully open sprays. You can return in a week and pick just as many as the tree flowers abundantly.

For a delicious dessert dip the flowers in good batter (beer and flour works well), sprinkle with caster or vanilla sugar and serve hot with ice cream.

For Sorbet, mix ten flowers into 500ml of hot sugar syrup (half sugar, half water), add the rind and juice of 2 lemons, and allow to cool. The following day freeze the sorbet in an ice cream maker or half freeze, and remove every 20 minutes to beat out the ice crystals.

Cordial is the most common use of elderflowers and can be poured on ice cream or used to make a kind of kir with a dry white wine or kir royale with sparkling wine.

Elderflower Cordial
Bring 3 pints (1.7 ltrs) of water to the boil in a large pot and stir in 3lb (1.5Kg) of sugar.

Add the grated zest of 3 lemons, followed by their juice, and two ounces (50g) of citric acid (buy or order from your local pharmacy).

When fully dissolved remove from the heat and add 30-40 clumps of elderflowers. Try to remove most of the stalks as too many will give a slightly bitter flavour. Stir well and leave to cool overnight.

Strain the cordial through muslin into a jug. Sterilize some glass bottles by filling them with boiling water for a few minutes and bottle the lemonade.

Dilute with fizzy or still water and add lemon or mint for extra zing. Keep the cordial in a cool place and refrigerate once you open a bottle.

Asparagus

Asparagus is justly called the king of vegetables; it seems to stand regally apart from its neighbours at the vegetable stall with a haughty look.

Asparagus is always expensive; it is difficult to grow, offers poor yields, and each spear is individually harvested.

The Belgians and Dutch deprive it of light to produce white asparagus but I prefer the rich green version.

While imported asparagus is available all year round, the very best is locally grown and available in just May and June.

Asparagus deteriorates within hours so is at its best bought direct from a farmer. Udo and Penny Lange of Ballinroan farm in Wicklow are one of the very few (possibly the only) commercial organic growers of asparagus in the country.

The Langes can be found at Brighton Square in Terenure on a Thursday or on Saturdays at St. Andrews Centre on Pearse St., and the Co-Op at Newmarket, off Cork Street.

To prepare asparagus snap or cut off the woody ends and peel each spear from below the tip down to the end. The spears are steamed or boiled, or you can cook them on a griddle pan. Whichever method you use, be very careful not to overcook them – 6-8 minutes should be plenty depending on thickness.

Once cooked you can wrap the spears in ham, or prosciutto; drizzle with olive oil and grate on some goat’s cheese or Parmesan and warm in the oven; or simply dip the spears in melted butter or hollandaise and eat with your fingers.

Asparagus With Mornay Sauce (serves 4)
Cook two bunches of asparagus as described above and plunge in cold water.


Heat 250ml of full fat milk on the cooker. Meanwhile melt 40g butter in a pan, add 40g of flour and stir until it comes together, frying for 60 secs.to cook the flour. Add the hot milk, salt and pepper and whisk vigorously until smooth. Add 100g of grated Mossfield Organic cheese (or Gruyère) and stir until melted.

Place the cooked asparagus in a baking dish, and barely cover with the sauce. Grate on some Parmesan cheese and heat at 200oC for 10 minutes.

New Potatoes

Too much choice, that’s what’s wrong with the modern world.

Women with packed wardrobes insist they have nothing to wear, men flick through 500 TV channels and insist there is nothing to watch, and we wander through the vegetable aisle of the supermarket unable to decide what to buy for dinner because there is too much choice.

It is for this reason that I try to remember to eat by the seasons. This is much easier said than done given that our supermarkets ignore seasons and offer us choices such as watery Peruvian asparagus for Halloween and Spanish strawberries for Christmas dinner.

March and April are difficult months for the seasonal cook but in May it starts getting interesting as the first Irish grown new potatoes begin to arrive, as precious and worthy of praise as any vintage wine.

Home Guard is the first early to appear and is delicious – smooth creamy flesh with a hint of flouriness that will increase as the season progresses.

Specialist vegetable shops such as Get Fresh on Marian Road in Rathfarnham are the place to go – the supermarkets lag long behind and will try to fob you off with Cypriot or Israeli new potatoes; do not succumb.

Early potatoes are not cheap but at a mere €5 per kilo at the time of writing, the value per mouthful of butter drizzled pleasure is enormous.

Steaming is recommended over boiling as this allows the potatoes to retain their vitamin C content and prevents them from breaking up.

Mint, Parsley, Marjoram and Oregano are my favourite herbs for new potatoes but anything green seems to work – even frozen peas.

Rocket leaves, with their slightly spiky texture and peppery flavours, match well, and for a real feast you need some pan fried wild salmon if you can find it (or know a fisherman you can mug); then you really will be eating the food of the Gods.

Onion Tart

You can’t say that you know your onions until you have cooked a sweet onion tart.

Onions have been cultivated for more than 5000 years and are by far the most commonly used flavouring vegetable, as crucial in Indian and Chinese food as they are in French and other European cuisines.

Virtually all savoury recipes are improved by the addition of onions and I believe it is simply impossible to have too many in a dish.

Cooking onions slowly in a little oil and butter will release their sugars gives you an unexpected sweet savoury flavour. Cook them for longer with a dash of wine or Balsamic vinegar and you get Onion Jam for spreading on sandwiches or for eating with cheese.

If you hate peeling onions placing them in the freezer for ten minutes will allow you to chop without tears.

This classic dish from Alsace works particularly well with a glass of Alsace Riesling Gewurztraminer or Pinot Gris from a good producer such as Trimbach.

Alsace Onion Tart (Zewelewai)

Peel and thinly slice 500g of onions and fry gently in 20g of butter for about 40 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they are very soft and sweet but not browned.

To make the tart base use frozen shortcrust pastry or whiz 200g plain flour with 100g of chilled butter in a food processor for 15 seconds. Add a medium egg and blend until the pastry has formed a ball. Remove, wrap in cling film and leave to rest for at least 30 minutes in the fridge.

Pre heat the oven to Gas 6, 200C. Line a greased 8-10 inch tart tin with the pastry, prick all over with a fork, cover with tinfoil and weight down with old beans or rice. If you have time chill the base for a further 30 minutes. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes, remove the tinfoil and beans/rice and replace in the oven for a further 5 minutes to allow the pastry to dry. Allow to cool until lukewarm.

Line the pie casing with the cooked onions and season with salt and pepper. Beat 300g of crème fraîche with two eggs and pour over the onions. Bake at 200C for 40 minutes.

Serve hot or warm with a green salad.

Cous Cous

Couscous is so good they named it twice.

Couscous refers to the dish of broth and meat served with the grain as well as the tiny balls of semolina rolled from ground durum wheat.

The wheat is moistened and rubbed into small balls which are then coated in flour so they can be steamed and retain their texture without dissolving into porridge.

Traditionally raw couscous is steamed over a stew of lamb with vegetables, and sometimes chickpeas. The name is said to derive from the Berber word Kesksou which (onomatopoeically) describes the sound of steam forcing its way through the grain as it cooks.

Sadly I have yet to find raw couscous for sale, even in France, but the instant couscous we get here works well and doesn’t need to be steamed for a long period over a stew.

For more info on couscous look to Clauda Roden’s book Arabesque or her Book of Middle Eastern Food.

Couscous with Roast Vegetables and Merguez Sausages
Chop a large peeled onion into chunks and place in a roasting dish followed by some similarly sized chunks of green pepper (or red or yellow), courgette and perhaps an aubergine or squash. Add a couple of chopped garlic cloves, sprinkle with salt and pepper, coat the veg. with lots of olive oil and roast at 190oC. for 60 minutes.

Chopped preserved lemons add greatly to the character of this dish and are available in North African shops or easily prepared at home by jamming cut lemons and lots of salt into a jar which is left for a month or two.

Pour 500g of couscous into a dish and pour on 600ml of hot water containing ½ - 1 teaspoon of salt. Stir the couscous vigorously so that the water is absorbed evenly and leave it to swell for ten minutes. Add a dash of olive oil and rub the couscous between your fingers to break up any lumps and to ensure it is light and fluffy. This last step is the most important so spend a few minutes lifting and separating the grains with your fingertips.

Grill some merguez or lamb sausages (available in halal and fancier butchers) and add to the couscous with the roasted veg. Add some more olive oil (if you wish), mix it all together and place in the oven to steam for about 20 minutes.

Beating It

A good beating really can make a difference.

In Ireland we tend to be shy about beating meat into submission but it is a habit worth forming.

Feel free to wallop a piece of tough rump steak to tenderise it before you slice it against the grain and marinate it for stir frying

For Chicken Cordon Bleu beat some chicken breasts thin, roll them with a slice of ham and Gruyère and secure with a tooth pick. Sprinkle on breadcrumbs, dot with butter and bake in the oven.

Veal is the traditional meat for escalopes but you can also use pork fillet or turkey breast.

The French like to make a creamy sauce to pour over thinly beaten meat to make up for the lost juices. Fry some mushrooms in butter, add some white wine and boil it down, then add some Dijon mustard and some cream and cook until thickened.

The Austrians exalt their Wiener Schnitzel (thin escalope slices of veal fried in breadcrumbs) but they probably robbed the idea from the Italians.

Pork Escalopes à la Milanaise
Mix 200g breadcrumbs with 50g of finely grated parmesan cheese and the finely grated rind of a lemon (feel free to use a food processor to make the crumbs extra fine). In a separate bowl mix two eggs with a splash of milk and add a good pinch of salt and pepper. Trim a pork steak fillet of all fat and sinews and cut into 2 inch slices.

Lay a piece of cling film on a chopping board and beat each piece of pork with a meat mallet or a rolling pin until it flattens to a 3-5mm thick escalope. Sprinkle the escalope with some salt and immerse in the egg wash, then press both sides into the parmesan breadcrumbs.

Drizzle a small amount of oil on a frying pan followed by a knob of butter. Once the butter is sizzling, fry as many escallopes as will fit in the pan for. 2 minutes per side until golden brown. Place in the oven at 120oC to keep warm while you cook the rest. Add fresh oil and butter to the pan before you cook each batch.

Serve immediately with slices of lemon and some creamy pasta or a salad

Sephardic Chicken and Rice Croquettes

From the Evening Herald - 30th April 2009

Jewish Passover celebrations last week sent me back to Claudia Roden’s Book of Jewish Food, as much a cultural history as a cookbook.

When most of us think of Jewish food we think of Woody Allen films and New York Jewish jokes about chopped liver, matzo balls and gefilte fish.

Roden’s book does indeed have many recipes from the Ashkenazi (European) world but the book is most interesting when it explores the cooking of Sephardic Jews.

Sephardic originally meant those Jews that had lived in Spain under the Moors but now signifies the Jewish diaspora with roots in the Mediterranean, Middle East, India and Africa.

Jewish dietary laws apply to both cuisines but Ashkenazi food is standardised while Sephardic food varies from country to country and even family to family, depending on their origins.

The main differences are based on climate and ingredients. The Ashkenazi world with its cold damp winters used lots of animal fats, meat, salted fish, potatoes and onions.

The Sephardic world is hot, and their cooking is lighter using olive oil, rice, aubergines, peppers and spices.

Roden’s recipe below is from the Baghdadi community in India, so called because most are of Iraqi descent and mix Indian flavours to the Iraqi and Syrian dishes they brought with them when they settled in India in the 19th century.

Risotto rice works best for this dish but you could also use pudding rice.

Baghdadi Chicken and Rice Croquettes
125g round rice (e.g. Arborio), 250g Chicken Fillets, 1 garlic clove, 1 inch piece of peeled fresh ginger, ½ tsp garam masala (or curry powder), ½ tsp turmeric, 4 tbs chopped parsley. Oil for deep frying.

Boil the rice in salted water for 15 minutes only, then drain. Mince the chicken to a paste in a food processor and then add the other ingredients, including the cooked rice, and blend until fully mixed.

Oil your hands as the mix is sticky. Take walnut-sized lumps and roll into fingers 5-6cm long. Deep fry in hot oil for c.5 minutes until golden.

Serve with salad, dips and relishes such as Mango Chutney and Raita (natural yoghurt mixed with chopped fresh mint, grated cucumber and lemon juice).

Easter Chocolate

My helpers for this Article are pictured above: Catherine, Grellan and Belle.

Easter means chocolate, too much chocolate. (From Today's Evening Herald - 16/4/09)

In our house Easter eggs and various chocolate bars hang around for weeks after Easter (guzzling) Sunday.

Melting the chocolate with whatever else is left over is a good way to rid the house of this waist stretcher and get the kids interested in cooking.

Cover marshmallows or plain biscuits with chocolate, dip strawberries or grapes, make rice crispie cakes, spread on pancakes, pour on ice cream, or simply use your finger to dip and lick..

Melting cheap milk chocolate as found in the average Easter egg is more difficult due to the lower (or non-existent) cocoa solids so proceed slowly.

Break the chocolate into a small bowl with a couple of spoons of fresh cream (or milk) and place over a saucepan of hot water on low heat. Make sure the bowl is not touching the water (less important for dark chocolate) and that the chocolate melts slowly. Gradually add more chocolate and stir all the time.

Short bursts in a microwave set to medium (fifteen seconds, remove and stir, repeat and repeat) can also work.

Most chocolate bars such as mars and toblerone melt well, a bashed up crunchie or twix will add texture, and smarties or m&ms add colour.

If the chocolate splits and goes grainy you can rescue it by gradually adding the grainy mix to a small amount of hot milk on a very low heat and stirring vigourously.

Biscuits (for dipping or coating)

Ingredients: 350g plain flour, 140g caster sugar, 170g unsalted butter (chilled and chopped), 1 egg, 1 tsp. vanilla extract, pinch of salt.

Sift the flour into a bowl or food processor, add the caster sugar and butter and mix well until it looks like breadcrumbs. Add the egg, vanilla and salt to a cup, whisk with a fork and add to the biscuit mix. Work the dough lightly until firm; add a teaspoon of water if the mixture is too dry. Roll into a ball, cover in cling film and refrigerate for 30 min.

Roll out the mix on a floured board until the dough is 2-4mm thick, cut into shapes, transfer to a baking tray and bake at 140C/gas 3 for 15 minutes. Allow to cool on a rack and then decorate with melted chocolate and smarties.

Tortilla Espagnole

Penelope Cruz winning her Oscar last month sent me back to her last great performance in the wonderful Pedro Almodovar film Volver where her character accidentally ends up running a restaurant (having hidden a dead body in their freezer – trust me it makes sense in the movie). In the film she cooks Tortilla and other classic Spanish dishes.

A Spanish tortilla is simply a potato omelet and is no relation to the Mexican tortilla. Tortilla is impossible to avoid in Spain, no matter the region; every family home, pub or restaurant will have their own version.

Most Spaniards believe it should be kept simple with just potatoes, onions, eggs and a little salt, but don’t be afraid to experiment.
Optional ingredients include fresh herbs, paprika, chopped tomato, red or green peppers, Chorizo, cooked ham, mushrooms etc. Try not to overload the omelet however, as potato and egg are the stars of the dish.
The quick and dirty version is to fry some chopped cold (cooked) potatoes with some onions, add some beaten eggs and cook as you would any omelet. However for best results cook the potatoes from scratch as in the recipe below.
Spanish Omelet
Gently heat 100ml of Spanish Olive Oil in a small frying pan (7-8 inches). Peel and slice 200g medium potatoes and cook in the olive oil until soft, turning occasionally (this may take up to 25 minutes).
Once the potatoes are almost cooked add a large sliced onion and cook until translucent.
Add 6 very fresh eggs to a bowl with a good pinch of salt and pepper and whisk with a fork. Remove the potatoes and onions from the pan with a slotted spoon and mix well with the eggs. Remove half the oil from the pan to a cup and turn heat to high for 30 seconds. Pour the eggs and potatoes onto the pan, reduce the heat and cook gently until the omelet has set and is golden underneath.
Place a large plate on top of the pan and flip out the omelet. Add the remaining oil to the pan, heat until sizzling, and slide in the omelet to cook the other side. Remove when golden underneath and eat hot or at room temperature with a glass of young Tempranillo.

Scoil Mologa Food and Wine Matching Masterclass

Scroll to the bottom of the next post for links to recipes for Orange cake and smoked salmon quiche.

Wines from last night's tasting were as follows -
Crement de la Loire, Chateau de Putille, bought from the producer for €6.40. They are based about 45 minutes from Nantes near Angers in a small village called La Pommeraye.
Food - Romanian Pork Sausages bought in Troyes Butcher on Moore St.
- Smoked Salmon and Dill Quiche. recipe at the bottom of the next posting.

Santa Rita Reserva Sauv. Blanc, Casablanca Valley, Chile – 13.50 in Dunnes
Penne with chicken and mushrooms in a creamy sauce

St Halletts Poachers Blend White, Barossa Valley, Australia – 64% Semillon 23% Sauvignon Blanc and 13% Riesling
Served with Egg Fried Rice

Sangre de Toro Torres 10.70 in Dunnes
Garnacha and Carinena (Grenache and Carignan)
Tortilla Espagnole - Spanish Omelette

Parallel 45 Cotes du Rhone Paul Jaboulet
Rare Steak - tanins and steak go particularly well together

Santa Rita Medalla Real Cabernet Sauvignon 2004
Cous Cous with Merguez Sausages and Preserved Lemon

Anjou Coteaux de la Loire, Chateau de Putille, Chenin Blanc Moelleux
Orange Cake
White Chocolate

Bonnezeaux Domaine des Petits Quarts 2001

On Phylloxera I mentioned the following book
Phylloxera: How Wine Was Saved for the World by Christy Campbell
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Phylloxera-How-Wine-Saved-World/dp/0007115369

Wine and Food Matching

Below is a copy of the wine and food evening I conducted at Next Door Enfield on Thursday last March 26th. Recipes and links are below the text.

Few other topics in the wine world bring forth as much discussion as the great debate on what food should be served with what wine. The most important thing to remember when considering this subject is that there are relatively few certainties in food and wine matching and much is down to personal taste.

The first myth to dispel is “white wine with fish and whit meat, red wine with red meat”; while true in many instances this is simply too broad a statement. Oily fish such as salmon or tuna both go extremely well with lighter red wines such as those made from pinot noir or even light Bordeaux. Consider the weight of the food not the colour.

Similarly, rich white wines such as Pinot Gris from Alsace can be an interesting combination with lighter red meats and other savoury foods we traditionally associate with red wine such as game birds.

One useful tenet to remember is that wine should either complement the food or offer a contrast. Hence a creamy pasta sauce will go well with a light refreshing white wine such as Orvieto or Verdicchio from Italy, but can also go well with a richer ‘creamy’ wine such as a Chardonnay.

A food high in acidity and sweetness such as a granny smith apple could cause a rich wine to taste thin and metallic, while a savoury food such as mature hard cheese can make a lighter wine taste fuller and softer.

A salad dressing made with vinegar or lemon juice can make a cheap, acidic wine taste fuller and richer; while simply overpowering the taste of a top quality mature red wine making it taste somewhat bitter.

If the wine you have chosen seems too astringent and tannic adding a little more salt to your food will make the wine taste softer. Salt also brings out the residual sugar in a wine such as an Alsatian Gewurtztraminer making them taste sweeter.

Tannins in red wine combine well with the flavours we find in rare steak, the two textures seem to merge causing the tannins to soften and melt into the other flavours. Tannins can however overpower the delicate texture and flavour of a simply cooked white fish such as sole when what you really need is something acidic and crisp (in the same way that we sometimes squeeze lemon juice on our fish) that will lift and emphasise the delicate flavours.

If however the fish is served with a tomato based sauce (which of course adds acidity to the dish) then a red wine will often work better such as a Chianti or light Merlot. A wine light in tannins such as Beaujolais can work quite well with many fish dishes.

Salty and richly savoury food such as mature cheese (and especially blue cheese) will generally go very well with a sweet white wine, which can cope with the richness much better than a dry white wine, or a mature soft red wine. Salt in food seems to make a sweet wine taste even sweeter as mentioned above and as most cheese contains salt a dessert wine almost always works well cheese.

Champagne works surprisingly well with sausages as the bubbles and acidity cut through the grease of the sausages and lift their flavour; proving once again that Champagne is the perfect breakfast wine. Scrambled eggs with smoked salmon also goes very well with Champagne (making an excellent Valentine’s breakfast).

Serving wine with dessert can prove difficult. Any dry wine will of course taste bitter but many sweet wines will also taste unpleasant if they are not sweeter than the dessert. Lemon tart for example will simply kill a wine like Sauternes or Coteaux du Layon but can work with a very sweet Riesling or Hungarian Tokaii.
Chocolate is notorious for killing the flavour of wine, mostly because of its rich texture and sweetness. Powerful sweet wines such as Banyuls, the rich fortified wine from Provence can go very well with chocolate as they are simply sweeter and richer. Australian Liqueur Muscat from Australia also works well as can young sweet port. The rich texture and bitterness in Guinness works surprisingly well with chocolate as anyone that has eaten a snack bar with a pint in a pub will attest.

Sometimes it is best not to serve any wine at all (for example with ice cream) and you may find beer works better with oily savoury flavours such as those found in Chinese food. Beer can also work well with Indian food for the same reasons but personally I think a dry Rosé is the best choice with good quality Indian Food.

Simple flavours such as roast chicken will take almost any wine type as they act as a blank canvas on which the wine can work its magic.

If you ever find yourself lucky enough to have very old rare wine to drink, such as 20 year old Bordeaux, you are probably best to stick with simple flavours such as plain grilled steak or roast beef to allow the wine to shine.

In conclusion, try to think about the flavours of the wine or the food you are trying to match and initially decide whether you would like to contrast or complement the flavour. If in doubt open one of each and let your guests decide which combination they prefer.

If you find you have made a bad choice and the combination is not working try adding salt to the food as this can counteract and soften the flavours that are jarring. Also try not to fret too much as sometimes the wine you like best will go best with the food you like best.

Wines
Graham Beck Brut South Africa. 23.99
Smoked Salmon and Dill Quiche (recipe below). Pork Sausages.

Iona Sauvignon Blanc, South Africa – RRP €16.59
Penne with chicken and mushrooms in a creamy sauce. fry a shallot, a cubed chicken breast, some mushrooms. Add some white wine and boil it off a bit. Add a couple of spoons of creme fraiche and mix well. Add to the drained pasta while still hot and stir.

Chateau Tahbilk Marsanne '06 Australia. RRP €11.99
Ray and beurre noisette

Chateau Pique Segue '05, Bergerac, South West France RRP €11.50
Rare Steak - tanins and steak go particularly well together

Huia Pinot Noir '06 New Zealand RRP €19.99
Braised Rabbit. Duck breast.

Lehmann Barossa Shiraz 05 RRP € 10.99
Cassoulet. Cassoulet recipes are all over the internet or in any French cookbook. This is a passable one from the bbc website. leave out the duck legs or replace them with confit duck legs from a tin -

Lehman Botrytis Semillon 06 RRP €10.79
Orange Cake - This is a Claudia Roden Recipe from her Book of Middle Eastern Food. recipe is here:
Nigella's version (which I cooked because my clementines were in better condition than my oranges) is here: http://www.nigella.com/recipe/recipe_detail.aspx?rid=20002

--------------Recipes-------------------
Smoked Salmon and Shallot Quiche (adapted from Sophie Grigson)
Pastry: (bought short crust can be used)
200g plain flour
100g butter
1 small egg.

Filling:
100g shallots, sliced
30g butter
3 medium egg yolks
225ml Crème Fraîche (1 tub)
1tbs chopped dill
Finely grated zest of 1 large or 2 small organic lemons
Salt and Pepper
100g Smoked Salmon cut in strips

Pastry: Whiz the flour and chilled butter in a food processor for 15 seconds and add the egg. Continue to blend for around 40 seconds until the pastry has formed a ball. Remove, wrap in cling film and leave to rest for at least 30 minutes in the fridge.

Pre heat the oven to Gas 6, 200C. Line a greased 8 inch tart tin with the pastry, prick all over with a fork, cover with tinfoil and weight down with old beans or rice. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, remove the tinfoil and beans/rice and replace in the oven for a further 5 minutes to allow the pastry to dry. Allow to cool until lukewarm. Turn the oven down to Gas 4, 180C.

Gently sauté the shallots in the butter until soft and translucent. Beat the egg yolks with the crème fraîche, dill, zest and salt and pepper. Spread the shallots and smoked salmon around the pastry base, pour on the cream, egg, dill mixture and bake in the oven at Gas 4, 180C for around 35 minutes until the quiche has set. Serve hot or lukewarm as preferred.

--------------------