August 2009 Archives

A mixture of stories and demonstrations around the theme of Irish pork made up the afternoon workshop at the Mitchelstown Food Festival on Friday. Carol O'Brien spoke about her pig farming family's experiences of the dioxin scare and how this incentivised them to become involved with the setting up of Truly Irish. A national cooperative, Truly Irish represents pig producers from the entire island and products - rashers, sausages and ham - sold under the brand will be sourced in Ireland. Truly Irish will be officially launched at the Mitchelstown Food Festival producers' market on Sunday and the products are available from Superquinn, Centra and SuperValu outlets around the country.

John Finn of Finn's Butchers arrived in with half a pig carcass and proceeded to demonstrate why you should buy meat from your local butcher, as he explained how to cook the various cuts. His experience and passion was evident as he entertained and educated, pointing out how much of the pig that we waste in this country and the value of a joint like the shoulder. He helped Paddy Ward of Teagasc to demonstrate how sausages are made, followed by Mervin Hodgins describing how Hodgins' Sausages (their herbal sausages are great in this Baked Stuffed Cabbage dish) started out and Caroline Rigney's account of how she embarked on producing Curraghchase Free Range Pork (watch out for the Slow Food open day at Rigney's Farm on Sunday 27 September).

A demonstration from Catherine Beary, head chef at O'Callaghan's Deli in Mitchelstown filled the room with savoury aromas as she cooked a glazed loin of bacon with a delicious creamy mustard sauce, a roast pork steak stuffed with pear and almond stuffing (this disappeared so fast that I only got to taste a few piquant crumbs) and a sticky Asian pork on a fresh bed of herb salad.

The Mitchelstown Food Festival continues with an open air barbecue on Lower Cork Street on Saturday evening and a producers' market tomorrow, Sunday 30 August, at the Coolnanave Business Park. After my afternoon, I'm now inspired to make a trip to Finn's Butchers - it's about time I got around to trying out Jamie Oliver's Six Hour Slow Roasted Pork Shoulder!

My Clonmel Cousin has been getting into the gardening gifts lately - and I've been the lucky recipient, getting a cheerful pink petunia and fuschia pot for my birthday and a Christmas present of a hazel tree with a pair of blueberry bushes. We had tried blueberries in the garden previously but they're big fans of acidic soil and I don't think we added enough peat moss into the spot where we planted them. This time round, when I was planting the bushes, I landed plenty of peat moss into the hole - with good results.

Our soft fruit area is near the clothesline so most of the fruit - that's also where our gooseberries, blackcurrants, raspberries and rhubarb are planted - bypasses the kitchen, going straight into my mouth as I hang out the (mostly pink) clothes. Having been down in Ladysbridge for a week, enough blueberries survived on the bush to cook with last weekend.

While the Husband took his cousin and her husband for a walk up the Canon Sheehan Trail in the Ballyhouras, Little Missy and I minded the house (and tent: short of space, the Husband, LM and I were camping in the garden for the weekend). We also took the opportunity to pick the ripe blueberries and stir them into the batter for Oatmeal Muffins. Warm out of the oven when the walkers returned, they didn't last for long and the mixture of oats and berries made us feel very virtuous, even when we were having thirds! Must try some blackberries next time I'm making those muffins.

Update 28 August: Forgot to give the link to the original muffin recipe! Here you go - Val's Oatmeal Muffins. Just add a large handful of freshly picked (approximately 100g) blueberries - or more! - to the batter before dividing it between the muffin cases.

The Mallow Food Festival may be over, but the local focus on food continues. This year's Mitchelstown Food Festival will take place this coming weekend, Friday 28, Saturday 29 and Sunday 30 August and the theme is, very appropriately after last year's pig-meat debacle, Bringing Home the Bacon.

Events over the festival weekend include a workshop on Irish Pork from Farm to Fork on Friday, an open air barbecue on Lower Cork Street Saturday evening and a producers' market, with local and national food products, at the Coolnanave Business Park on the main Dublin road (across from the Firgrove Hotel) on Sunday.

The workshop looks particularly interesting. It's taking place at the Firgrove Hotel, from 2pm to 5pm, and will be hosted by Eddie O'Neill, the local Teagasc Artisan Food Specialist. A flyer that I recently received (and promptly lost!) had more details about the participants, including producers from all aspects of the pork industry.

There's more information online at www.mitchelstownfoodfestival.com, via email (mitchelstownfood@gmail.com) or telephone (085 8003095).

Updated 26 August 2009: Just found the flyer and here's the line-up for Friday.
Pig Farming from Farm to Fork - Carol O'Brien
Recession Busting Butchery - Finn's Butchers
Traditional Sausage-Making Demo - Paddy Ward, Teagasc
Hodgins' Sausages Achievments - Mervin Hodgins
Cookery Demo: Pork Belly - O'Callaghan's Deli
Artisan Food Discussion - Caroline Rigney

Despite the weather, there was a good turn out at the Mallow Food Festival on Sunday, plenty of people around to eat at the stalls that lined the main street. Our pick of the lot was the fresh fish and chips from West Cork, fish caught that morning and battered as we watched, decent chips and homemade tartare sauce for dipping. The Husband declared it the best fish 'n' chips that he had eaten since we were last in New Zealand, it being practically a national dish there.

An unhappy baby, sodden Husband and damp guests (the Husband's cousin and her husband were staying with us for the weekend) made our trip a short one. I still managed to grab a bag of (slightly muddy!) borlotti beans, some Old Millbank Smokehouse smoked trout, a jar of homemade pesto from a Mallow Farmers' Market stalwart, a couple of Green Saffron spice blends and, most exciting of all, a bag of some very fine coffee from a new local boutique coffee roasters called Badger & Dodo.

I only drink coffee at breakfast but, especially after Little Missy decides on a middle-of-the-night-waking, it is an essential part of the day. Owner Brock Lewin recommended the Ethiopian Harrar for use in stove-top moka pot and ground it specially - I'm already addicted to sniffing the bag and hope to progress on to opening it soon, having been promised plenty of blueberry flavours!

Well done to all involved in organising this year's Mallow Food Festival - fingers crossed for better weather next year.

...Mallow Food Festival on tomorrow, Sunday 23 August, from 12pm to 3.30pm. See you there!

Growing up in a household where Punjabi rotia and English casseroles each had their own places, Vicky Bhogal revels in placing ingredients from different cultures side by side. In the introduction to Flavour, she talks about making the most of imported as well as local foods, explaining her own democratic approach to ingredients. She revels in comforting risotto as much the tartness of tamarind, the garam masala of her Indian childhood used as much as Italian peccorino.

Some of the combinations may seem, on first glance, to be a little outlandish but Vicky explains the reasons behind each dish in a brief recipe introduction and there are many inspiring ideas: rainbow trout are crusted in oatmeal and served with a poppy seed and ginger butter sauce; spiced plums and star anise combined with duck risotto; steak rubbed with piri piri and cocoa. She keeps her recipes balanced and in proportion, concentrating on just three flavours and noting where you can substitute ingredients with similar flavour profiles.

Flavour is a bright, well-illustrated book, full of colourful sketches and jam-packed full of ideas. When Vicky is not expanding her simple and unusual recipes, giving a selection of alternatives or substitutions, she's exploring the lineage of the ingredients with references to Sanskrit literature, Jewish custom and ancient Greek texts.

Punchy and exciting, Flavour is the kind of cookbook that will really inspire you in the kitchen.

Must try: Crumbled Lincolnshire Sausage, Cranberry and Lemon Pasta; Grilled Sardines with Beetroot, Pink Grapefruit and Parsley; and, especially yummy, a fantastic recipe for Foil-Baked Feta

Flavour by Vicky Bhogal is published by Hodder & Stoughton.

Last year, on a trip to London, I picked up a spork - a light plastic utensil which features a spoon at one end, fork at the other and serrated knife edge on the fork side - in a kitchenware shop and I've rarely been without it since. The last quarter of 2008 was taken up with train trips to Dublin as I worked on the Foodtalk documentary series and, food on the train being what it is - or isn't - my spork was invaluable.

Breakfast on the early morning Mallow-Dublin train was made easy by making sure there was some tortilla left over from last night's dinner to pack and eat en route but it was on the homeward leg, normally in the late afternoon, that the spork really came into its own. Short on time, I often ran into Fallon & Byrne or Avoca to choose from a selection of hummus, crackers, cheese, bread and pâté with, perhaps, a few cherry tomatoes thrown in for good measure.

After my usual last minute scramble to make the train, I relaxed, ensconced in my train seat, and - to the amusment of my fellow passengers - happily cut, scooped, spread and (s)forked up my supper. At that stage in the year, pregnant with Little Missy, I just couldn't wait until I got home for food or stomach the limp train sandwiches.

Since LM has started on solids, the spork is back in use again. For the last week, while we were housesitting for friends in East Cork, it let me prep her lunch on the move. Bananas, nectarines, pears or, on one day, much to Little Missy's distain, a kiwi fruit were brought along in a little bowl, peeled, chopped, mashed and fed to the child while we were out and about. While we were able to enjoy lunch in the Ballymaloe House Café (yum), Stephen Pearce Emporium (yum) or Aherne's of Youghal (hmm), LM chowed down on her own food, making it a positive experience for us as well as the other diners!

The only places I've seen these sporks in Ireland are in the shops at Ballymaloe House and the Ballmaloe Cooking School (priced about €2.95) but I think that they should be easy to find in outdoor shops and you can see them online at http://www.light-my-fire.se/230-147-spork.htm. Well worth picking up - for children of all ages.

When we were in college, the Brother's Housemate came from a catering household. His mother used to make hundreds of superb Christmas cakes and puddings each year, cook for parties and events and, most importantly to us, make the best Caramel Squares known to students.

Living on an unbroken biscuit diet of Cadbury's Chocolate Fingers - our habitual study food (oh, the excitement when a white chocolate variety came on the market) - these were manna from heaven. Every time the Brother's Housemate was able to sneak or was given (we never knew, never asked) a box of them, we would descend on his house like a plague of biscuit-seeking locusts.

Although I'll never be able to make Caramel Squares quite as good - the circumstances will never lend themselves in exactly the same way - this recipe gets me pretty close. Very good to donate to any students you know, if you can bear to part with a few. The recipe is basically the same as the one for Tan Slice, which is handy to know if you discover at the last minute that you don't have any chocolate for the topping in the house.

I wrote last week about the smoked trout from Old Millbank Smokehouse in Buttevant. If you're interested in picking some up, Geraldine will have her stall at the Mallow Food Festival on Sunday 23 August with plenty of trout, salmon and some of her fantastic pates and fishcakes. Many of my favourite traders will also be there, including Arun Kapil's Green Saffron, wafting gorgeous smells of curry down the street, Gudrun Shinick's Fermoy Natural Cheese, the Baking Emporium (make sure you pick up a pack of their fantastic spelt cheese crackers) and skin care products that are good enough to eat from Shirley's Herbal Care. There will also be baking from Nibbles Food Emporium, tasty snacks from Allan's Crepes and Tom's Sushi alongside a selection of ethnic foods from the Caribbean (The Joy Store), Lithuania (Vias) and Thailand (Thai Lanna).

I had a great day working (and meeting people) at last year's festival: this time round I'm going to take the opportunity to land Little Missy in her sling and introduce to the sights, smells and sounds of yet another market. Fingers crossed for another sunny festival Sunday!

The Mallow Food Festival takes place on Sunday 23 August.

When we had the Mallow Farmers' Market taking place outside Urru last summer, I never missed the chance to pick up a pack of Old Millbank Smokehouse hot smoked trout from Geraldine Bass. Saturday mornings in work were always busy so I had to watch for a gap between customers to make a dive out of the shop before all the good stuff was gone. Geraldine would also have her smoked salmon and, for a real treat, some very fine smoked salmon pâté but I always made a beeline for the trout, a much underrated ingredient and one that I'd pick any day over smoked salmon.

Each vacumn pack cost €5 for a whole smoked trout and with, one of those in the fridge, we always had something good for dinner. We baked it with pasta, broccoli and cream for cold day comfort food, mashed into cream cheese to spread on rye bread, and used in many sunny day salads, my favourite of which is the Smoked Trout and Lemon Pasta variation below.

Even though the Mallow Farmers' Market may be no more, fortunately Geraldine sells her wares at the Killavullen Farmers' Market and you can also pick up Old Millbank Smokehouse products at Mahon Point Farmers' Market. If you can't get your hands on any smoked trout, then you could use another smoked fish instead. Mackerel is a good, inexpensive substitute.

From Burdass-Reared Wold's lamb to Ampleforth Abbey Apple Tart Tatin, Andrew Pern's Black Pudding and Foie Gras is as firmly rooted in the food of Yorkshire as his Michelin-stared establishment is embedded in the village of Harome. Andrew's Star Inn is a 14th century country pub in North Yorkshire which opened 13 years ago. He laughs as he recalls that it all started with just three people - himself in the kitchen, his wife Jacquie working front of house and her mother behind the bar. Now they run a total of seven interlinked businesses in Harome, including self catering cottages, a deli and a butcher's shop, employing some 120 people.

Andrew is not one to do things by halves and he brought the same level of dedication to Black Pudding and Foie Gras, his first cookbook. He describes the handsome chocolate-coloured velvet-bound book as a "labour of love", adding that it is self-published because "we decided to do the whole thing ourselves." That included having someone decipher his scrawl: he wrote the original draft in longhand with a HB pencil. The book was named after his signature dish, which he started cooking 12 years ago at the Star, a well-judged combination of North Country staple with French luxury. It is this rich man/poor man juxtaposition that has made the place stand out - and Michelin come calling. The Star Inn is one of the few pubs in the UK to be awarded a star, and this despite a Michelin inspector telling Andrew that the Star had to choose between being a pub or a restaurant.

Black Pudding and Foie Gras picked up its own gong in July when Andrew took the silver medal for best chef book at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. The book is a culinary memoir, a love letter to Yorkshire producers and a showcase for many of the dishes that he cooks at The Star Inn. Andrew writes of the childhood influences that made cooking a way of life for him: new foods eaten on trips abroad; rabbit shooting and wild mushroom hunting on his dad's farm; the combination of flaccid Fray Bentos meat pies and Robert Carrier cookbooks that started him off on a career in kitchens. His real passion, however, is reserved for the ranks of suppliers that he relies on. Andrew's local network includes Sand Hutton Asparagus, fish from Alan Hodgson of Hartlepool, Ampleforth College Orchard and their own butchers, Pern's of Helmsley - a loving litany of names and places that reveals his deep attachment to the region. With accounts of cider-making merriment, anniversary parties which the whole village attends and the Star Inn cricket team, it is evident that the Perns are very much part of the community.

And then there are the recipes. While they read very much like an multi-faceted entry on a restaurant menu, they can each be broken down into their constituent parts for the not-quite-as-ambitious home cook. At first glance, a dish like Soused Hartlepool Halibut with Pink Peppercorns and Pickled Shallots, Crushed Pink Fir Apple Potato Salad, Dill Vodka is not something that you're likely to whip up of an evening at home but soused fish can be prepared a day in advance, the zesty potato salad is an easy addition to any meal and having a bottle of dill vodka in the freezer to accompany any fish dish sounds like a good idea.

I was particularly taken by Andrew's use of homemade liqueurs. The last chapter in the book, Drinks Cabinet, will encourage any reader to start making their own Rhubarb Schnapps, Gooseberry Gin and Damson Vodka. Other recipes which stand out include a traditional Baked Ginger Parkin with Rhubarb Ripple Ice Cream, Hot Spiced Treacle; Risotto of Felixkirk Organic Beetroot with a Deep-Fried Blue Wensleydale Beignet, Wild Garlic Pesto; and the pure theatre of Whiskey in a Jar. Lots of ideas to enjoy and plenty of dishes to try.

Andrew is to be commended for shining an affectionate light on an area that he has very definitely put on the map for anyone interested in good food. Black Pudding and Foie Gras will undoubtedly serve to whet many more appetites for his cooking at The Star Inn.

Must try: that Baked Ginger Parkin - I've never found a good recipe yet - to eat with some Rhubarb Schnapps.

Black Pudding and Foie Gras by Andrew Pern is published by Face. RRP £39.99.

I've always liked to bake. As soon as I was old enough to co-ordinate reading recipes and using a wooden spoon, I was anxious for any cake-making excuse - and most of them involved copious amounts of chocolate. Over the years there have been many good chocolate cakes, from my early attempts using chocolate-flavoured cake covering and marg to (when I started paying for my own shopping!) butter and 70% dark chocolate. This cake, however, although it may not look like much, stands head and shoulders above the rest.

I discovered it in the Green and Black's cookbook when we were in New Zealand. We had a friend who was coeliac so I was always on the look out for cakes that were suitable for her and this was a good one. Deep and dark and deliciously decadent, this was a gluten-free cake that didn't try to pretend it needed some kind of flour substitute. Neither did it need the eggs to be seperated and the whites whisked, something which - at the time I had no electric mixer or whisk - turned me off many a recipe.

This is a very quick cake to make: just melt, whisk, mix and bake. It can be served as it is with good vanilla ice cream or topped with a cloud of softly whipped cream and dusted with cocoa or grating of cacao. You can, of course, leave out the orange rind and spices but I love these flavours with the chocolate.