Bibliocook: All About Food

Dishes that we cooked or were cooked for us as children always hold a special luster. I had a set of kids' cookery cards from Irish sugar company Siúcra which had great recipes like The Last of the Mohicans Baked Beans (think the recipes were based on classic books!) and a desert of bananas warmed in a sauce made of orange juice (Swiss Family Robinson Bananas, perhaps?).

Paula Daly's much-loved and much-used Stork Cookery Books are full of similarly evocative recipes, including things like Steak Diane, Franzipan Flan, Drop Scones and Gougère. I recently wrote up Paula Daly's Gingerbread recipe after receiving a request for it and subsequently received an email from Sorcha asking me to look out for a recipe for Huzzar's (or Hussar's) Chicken, which she described as "absolutely divine." I found it in the second cookbook, the one with the green cover, and - although I haven't yet had a chance to try it out myself, here you go. I've substituted olive oil for the Crisp 'n Dry and butter for the Stork but, if you're in search for a more authentic-to-the-period flavour, feel free to change them around. Happy cooking Sorcha!

Continue reading "By Request: Huzzar's Chicken" »

Beware when you're sowing seeds. Especially if, as happened to us, you've ordered them from the Irish Seed Savers Association or Brown Envelope Seeds and every single last one of the seeds sprout forth. We planted way too many in March, didn't thin the seedlings enough, and now have copious amounts of kale, purple sprouting broccoli and leeks for later in the season so I'm keeping my eye out for recipes for those (will definitely have to check out some of Sarah's ideas for the broccoli!). The squash is trying to escape from the confines of our rabbit-proof fenced veggie garden while I try to figure out what to do with armloads of silverbeet.

Silverbeet, better known as Swiss chard in this hemisphere, is like a larger and more handsome version of spinach. We grow the rainbow variety, which has red, orange and yellow as well as white stalks. Some recipes call just for the stalks, others for the deep green leaves. You can combine the two but you need to ensure that the stalks cooked for longer. Silverbeet is found in every garden and supermarket in New Zealand. Despite the fact that it's proven really easy to grow here, happily thriving amidst all this summer's rain, it has been difficult to track it down in Ireland.

The Husband was brought up on and loves silverbeet but it's been more of a slow getting-to-know-you for me. New Zealand's Cuisine magazine has proved a good source of recipes as have seasonal cookbooks like Sarah Raven's Garden Cookbook and Growers Market by Leanne Kitchen. Stephanie Alexander's books - both Kitchen Garden Cooking with Kids and her Cook's Companion, a very welcome wedding gift! - also have some great ideas and Heidi's recipe from Super Natural Cooking which incorporates fried, crusted butter beans with silverbeet is a real winner. Instead of Spanakopita this weather we're making Silverbeet Pie, a successful way of introducing this vegetable to people who have never tasted it before. Anyone out there got any more ideas? I'm always looking to try out new ways of using it, especially as we can't seem to make a dent on the supply at all.

Just a reminder that the Festival of World Cultures kicks off tonight in Dún Laoghaire. It is taking place all weekend with lots of free music and plenty of good eating. Slow Food has a stand at the Cool Earth eco-fair in the Town Hall so, if you're interested in learning about SF - and tasting some products from Irish artisan producers! - call in over the weekend.

Chocolate Chippies are big in New Zealand. Also known as chocolate chip cookies, none of the Husband's family gatherings are complete without a box - or several - of these small addictive biscuits, made by the Husband's Mother or Sisters. When we were in Nelson in January, I spent time going through the Husband's Mother's great collection of recipe notebooks, taking down details of dishes I have enjoyed in the past - especially Gracie's Brown Rice and Chickpea Salad and the Chocolate Chippies.

With this summer a non-starter for barbeques, the salad hasn't been made yet, but the KitchenAid has been put into use several times in recent weeks for the Chocolate Chippies. I love the texture that the condensed milk gives these cookies and they're also happy to sit around - a handful abandoned in the biscuit tin a couple of weeks ago were fine when rediscovered - although they don't normally get a chance. The first time I made these we had the Small Brother staying over and, with the constant urging of the Husband, they got through a large chunk of that batch while they were cooling in the kitchen. The still-molten chocolate chips made for an easy discovery of the culprits.

Last weekend, the discovery of a bag of dried cranberries when I moved my baking trolley (the Husband was installing a washing machine into that corner!) gave me inspiration for these orange-flavoured Choc Chip Cranberry Cookies, using that Chocolate Chippies recipe. I also used dark, unrefined Muscovado sugar to give them a richer molasses flavour. Start to finish, they only take about half-an-hour to make and cook. Just remember to take the butter out of the fridge a while beforehand so that it is easy to cream.

Continue reading "Choc Chip Cranberry Cookies (by way of Chocolate Chippies)" »

After discovering a leak in the ceiling of our bedroom in the Dublin flat on Monday and subsequently having to spend the night on the floor in the kitchen, neither the Husband nor myself were in any particular hurry to get back there on Tuesday evening. Heavy rain plus no umbrella (the Husband) and flip flops (me) didn't help morale on our walk home so we decided to meet in Ranelagh and try out the recently opened wine bar - Wine Upstairs - over Tribeca. The restaurant is always buzzing, as it was last night, but, after we had shaken our bedraggled selves off, stashed my umbrella and walked up the stairs, we arrived in an airy room, with lots of tables, plenty of bottles of wine on display - and no other people. Stashing ourselves in the corner by the New Zealand wines, the Husband looked at wines while I devoted myself to a perusal of the short, but well formed, menu.

When we were in New Zealand just after Christmas, I came across a cookbook by Annabel Langbein called Assemble. Her idea is to select the best of ingredients so that meal preparation becomes a matter of assembly rather than preparation. That is exactly what the menu at Wine Upstairs does. It's not complex - platters of cheese (perfectly aged and sourced from Sheridan's Cheesemongers) and charcuterie (supplied by Fingal Ferguson of Gubbeen) sat alongside simple offerings of Ibérico ham with figs, pâtés, olives and last night's special - a Mediterranean fish stew. We started with a bottle of Rioja, a duck platter, which included well-flavoured rilettes and slices of duck "ham", and, unlike a recent experience in Olesya's Wine Bar, a generous plate of Irish cheeses, including Cashel Blue, my favourite Durrus and the memorable Mount Callan cheddar. These were served with walnuts, grapes, cornichons, pickled onions and charcoal crackers and an overflowing basket of bread - a good example of the assemble motto.

Although we were no longer the only refugees from the rain, as customers filled the tables around us and we were joined by the Tax Consultant, it wasn't enough to keep the waitress from refilling our glasses of water every time we took a sip. No complaints there from me, I'm always happy with a plentiful supply of water, although some may have found it intrusive. Another bottle of wine, a rather underwhelming French Pinot Noir, was added to the tally and we finished with a chocolate mousse and three spoons. The mousse was milk chocolate, so not as dark as I normally like, but it was lifted above the ordinary by a sprinkling of shredded fresh mint leaves on the cream it was topped with. It didn't last long.

A haven for us on a wet night, Wine Upstairs at Tribeca is a comfortable and relaxed place to have a bite to eat and a glass of wine. After a chilled out evening there, morale was much improved, we had (almost) dried out before we had to face the elements again and, best of all, when we got home the plumber had worked his magic on the ceiling so we could move back into the bedroom. Definitely worth checking out.

Wine Upstairs, TriBeCa, 65 Ranelagh, Dublin 6, 01 4974174.

For anyone who is interested in the relationship between food and farming in Ireland, the annual Euro-toques National Food Forum and Fair - entitled Reconnecting: Farming, Food & Rural Communities - will be taking place at Brooklodge Hotel in Macreddin Village, Co Wicklow on Sunday 2 September. On this year's panel are Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Trevor Sargent; UK organic movement pioneer and champion Helen Browning; Gerry Scully, the programme manager for Rural Development with Teagasc; Irish Farmers Journal columnist and farmer Peter Young; and Ross Lewis, chef/proprietor of Chapter One Restaurant and Commissioner of Euro-toques Ireland.

Peter Young, together with his wife, Jenny, recently opened Castlefarm Shop, a farm shop in Co Kildare selling organic, homemade and homegrown food. I've been reading about their dairy farm's conversion to organics and the work involved in running a weekly stall at a farmer's market as documented in Jenny's monthly column in Food & Wine Magazine. The farm shop definitely sounds like something to call into if you're around the area - I've added it into the Kildare page of my Bridgestone Irish Food Guide for future reference!

The forum takes place from 11am to 1.30pm and, after a break so that delegates can visit the nearby market, an organic and wild food barbecue will take place at the chapel in the grounds of Brooklodge Hotel. Last year's debate on food tourism in Ireland touched on many interesting points but it was all too short to fully discuss the issues raised. Still, it's an event well worth going to - lots of conversation with opinionated people, new producers to discover in the market and some really wonderful food at the barbeque. The forum, market and barbeque, which includes champagne reception and wines, costs just €45. For more information and bookings contact Ruth Hegarty of Euro-toques Ireland at info@eurotoquesirl.org.

I have a confession to make: I've just bought myself a shiny, glossy red KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer! The workhorse of many an American kitchen and beloved by cooks like Nigel and Nigella, I've been lusting after one of these babies for quite a while. I first fell in love with one I saw in the Cork branch of Meadows and Byrne a few years ago but, after peeking at the price tag, never thought there was going to be a chance that it would ever be sitting in my kitchen. Then we got married. And one of the lovely things about having a celebration of your relationship is that people give you gifts. So, several of those gifts, in the handbag of a rather giddy girl, made their way to Brown Thomas a couple of weeks ago. Although my hopes were initially dashed as they had sold out of red mixers - and, having set my heart on a red one, who would want an almond-coloured one instead? - the helpful staff ordered one in and gave me a call when it arrived. The poor Husband got the job of carrying the heavy box, all rapidly-getting-heavier 22lbs of it, home, having been promised future riches of cakes, cookies and breads, and it sat, in its box, in the hall of our Dublin flat - no space for mixers - until this weekend when I finally got to take it down to the cottage.

We barely got in the door before the KitchenAid, together with its shiny stainless steel bowl, dough hook, flat beater and a wire whisk, was taken out from its wrapping and I was finally able to admire it! Looking wasn't all I did with it, and over the weekend I made a Passion Fruit Cake (perfect with an afternoon cup of tea or coffee on a rainy Irish summer's afternoon), finally got the chance to try out the Husband's family's recipe for Chocolate Chippies, a loaf of bread - I just had to try out the dough hook - and some small bread rolls, which I baked in my Baker's Edge for maximum crust. It now sits proudly on the table in the baking corner of my cottage kitchen, below the flour cupboard and right next to the weighing scales. I've been revisiting my cookbooks with new eyes, no longer ignoring or skimming past recipes that involve creaming sugar and butter or whisking egg whites! Although it is also useful for kneading dough, if I'm making just a plain loaf of bread, I think I'll stick to the very successful No-Knead Bread recipe - because of its slow rise, it's got a lot more flavour than any normal homemade bread.

To read more from some fellow KitchenAid converts, check out David Lebovitz's article on the KitchenAid factory, other bloggers' joy at the arrival of their mixers, and some KitchenAid-friendly recipes.

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