December 2009 Archives

Darina Allen's latest book focuses on kitchen skills and traditions - such as making yoghurt, keeping hens and baking bread - that have been lost in recent times. She talks to Caroline Hennessy for EveryMonday.ie about how the increasing interest in self-sufficiency can help us weather the recession.

Pavlova and barbeques, hokey pokey ice cream and long blacks: we've abandoned the cold and damp of an Irish December for Christmas in New Zealand! The Husband, Little Missy and I left Cork last Saturday and eventually arrived in Nelson on Tuesday. This way LM gets to spend her first Christmas with her Kiwi family and we all get to enjoy some proper summer weather (we are, however, hoping to bring the sunshine home with us...)

This time we travelled with Malaysia Airlines, who, we discovered, are brilliant at dealing with children, overnighting in Kuala Lumpur on the way. Travelling with an eight-month-old baby is a little more challenging than travelling solo, to say the least, but at least we're two to deal with one, rather than the other way round. It would have been quite useful if the one out of the two doing the packing had managed to travel a little lighter but small baby = many nappies, changes of clothes, sleeping bags, small toys and books for distraction - and that's just the carry on luggage.

One of the other advantages of coming over with Malaysia Airlines is the food. Take the Malaysian offering for meals and you won't go far wrong, with dishes like nasi lemak and beef rendang on offer. LM didn't fare as well in the dining department, both flights having only two basic Heinz baby foods but I was able to bring a good amount of food, both homemade and jarred, through security in Cork, Heathrow and KL airports without any problem.

Little Missy was great on the plane from Ireland but I wouldn't like to have been the hapless inhabitants of the room next door during that night in KL as she disregarded the eight hours time difference and stuck resolutely to her normal sleep time, which turned out to be 4.30am in Malaysia! Still, it was worth it for the break from travelling, not to mention the mugs of teh tarik, trays of roti telur and, one of my all time favourites, spicy laksa johor that we got a chance to devour while there.

Now, with Christmas almost upon us and a family wedding fast approaching, we're planted here for most of the next month. Plenty of time to soak up the sunshine, enjoy vineyard and brewpub visits, savour the fantastic food both at home - the Husband's mother is a fantastic cook - and around Nelson, and introduce LM to all her family in the southern hemisphere. Merry Christmas to all!

Since the release of Julie and Julia, both the book and the film,Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking has taken on a new lease of life. Now when readers look at this classic cookbook - first published in 1961 - they do so with the memory of Julie Powell's consternation while tackling recipes like Boeuf Bourguignonne and Homard a l'Americaine. And they hear Julia Child's idiosyncratic voice (and Meryl Streep's take on that voice) in every line of this opinionated, entertaining and educational book.

But this is no quickly churned out film tie-in. The recipes here, all 1,000 of them, are the product of years of translation, cooking and testing by Les Trois Gourmandes - Child, with her cooking school companions Simone Beck, and Louisette Bertholle. But it is the gentle humour of Child that shines through in the text.

The book shows its age in two areas: infrequent illustrations take the place of the photo-per-page in today's cookbooks and the recipes are written in a style that alternates ingredients and method. That said, this is a great cookbook for anyone - and that should be anyone interested in food - who wants to learn about French cooking.

Child points out that none of the ingredients are inaccessible and that the title of the book could easily be "French Cooking from the Supermarket". It is worth remarking, though, that her supermarkets seem to stock useful things like tinned foie gras, lobsters and tinned truffles. More importantly, she places great emphasis on acquiring skills and technique, points out that it is important not to skimp on butter, cream - or time - but the main thing that she wants to impart is the joy of cooking.

In short, Mastering the Art of French Cooking is a treasure and one that is as relevent now as it was almost 50 years ago.

Must Cook: Cassoulet de Porc et de Mouton, Gâteau de Crêpes à la Florentine, Coq au Vin

Mastering the Art of French Cooking is published by Penguin Books.

I've always been a fan of porridge. It's one of those things that seems to fit in perfectly with a cold morning at the cottage: a steaming bowlful, topped with some stewed fruit and a dollop of natural yoghurt is just the thing to set myself and Little Missy up for the day. She eats the regular sort, which I grind up with my immersion blender (always useful but now indispensable) before cooking, but I've gotten hooked on Flahavan's Pinhead Oatmeal this winter.

It takes a little longer to cook than the rolled oats but when you're up around 6am, time is not exactly in short supply! I use cook mine with half milk, half water (LM gets expressed breast milk, or a little regular milk, plus water in her ground up oats), pop it on the cooker at a low setting and it cooks away by itself, with a couple of stirs from me between getting showered and dressed.

When I'm with it enough to soak the oats overnight it does shorten the cooking time a little but if I was super-organised what I'd do is cook a whole pot in advance, as recommended in Super Natural Cooking and the New York Times (steel-cut oats in America = pinhead oatmeal in Ireland) and reheat as necessary. And then there are porridge toppings. Stewed pear and allspice are popular here, as are apple and dried apricot compote or poached cinnamon plums, always with natural yoghurt and, for the members of the family with more than two teeth, a sprinkling of toasted nuts or seeds.

Porridge makes the best breakfast, being cheap, nutritious, easy - and local. If you pick up a bag of Flahavan's progress oatlets (I've always loved that progress bit!) you're also picking up a bit of history: the family-run business has been based in Kilmacthomas, Co Waterford, for the last 200 years.

If you're a porridge fan - or like your oatmeal in other dishes - you might be interested in the recently launched Flahavan's All-Ireland Porridge-Making Challenge. They have two categories: one is to make the perfect dish of porridge and the the other is to create a recipe using something from Flahavan's porridge oat range. The closing date is 31 January 2010 so you have all Christmas to come up with a few good ideas. There's more information below and you'll find the full terms and conditions on the Flahavan's website, along with some recipes from Kevin Dundon.

I love good olive oil and I especially love Colletta Olivieri Extra Virgin Olive Oil, which is imported direct from Italy by producer Lino Olivieri. This week he will be taking delivery of the delicious olio nuovo, new season olive oil, from his family's farm in Puglia so if you're looking for a Christmas present for someone who likes their food, then get your hands on this - it's €40 for a 5 litre can or €25 for the 3 litre can and Lino will courier it anywhere in the country for a very reasonable cost.

Our can lives in a cool place behind the kitchen door, easily accessible so that I can regularly decant it into the dark wine bottle that sits, easily accessible, on the counter. The oil being so fresh, it has a lovely peppery kick which is especially noticable when you eat it with fresh bread or drizzle it over garlic-rubbed toast.

You can read more about the oil below or on the Olivieri olive oil website. Lino Olivieri can be contacted by email (lino.olivieri@gmail.com) or mobile (086 8681803).

Nigel, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love your appetite-stimulating writing, your easy recipes, your ability to always show me something interesting to do with kitchen constants like cauliflower, onions or lentils. I love your weekly column in the Observer and I love the Observer Food Monthly magazine (which, while living in NZ, I had sent out to me by my long-suffering mother!). I love your books, right from the copy of Real Fast Food that I got when in college, through entertaining from Real Food and Appetite while in my first job, The Kitchen Diaries that I recommended to many of my customers in Urru, bookclub choice Toast and, now, to Tender.

Ah, Tender. Not only am a fan of Nigel's but I'm a sucker for ingredient-categorised books like this. Tender, as the title says, is a tale of a cook and his vegetable patch, of growing food in the city and what happens to the produce when it makes it into the kitchen. Nigel has a long, thin, London terrace garden that, with a lot of love and some help from friends (Monty Don being an especially good friend to have in this kind of situation), has been transformed into "a romantic mingling of vegetables, fruit, herbs and flowers." It's also productive, with vegetables like chard, courgettes and tomatoes all playing starring roles both inside and outside the house.

Each section has information on growing a particular vegetable, different varieties to try in the garden, a selection of recipes and - this is what Nigel is particularly good at doing - lots of ideas, both for ingredients that go well with it and different ways to cook/serve it. This will join Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book and the Garden Cookbook by Sarah Raven in the line of well-thumbed books that live on the kitchen mantelpiece for dealing with vegetable gluts. And it's not over yet. Volume II, his guide to the fruit garden, is due in May 2010. Another one to watch for.

Must Try: A Soup of Cauliflower and Cheese, Chocolate Beetroot Cake with Crème Fraîche and Poppy Seeds, Chickpeas with Pumpkin, Lemongrass and Coriander

Tender: v. 1: A Cook and His Vegetable Patch by Nigel Slater is published by Fourth Estate.

Related entries:
Gingerbread for tea
Comfort food: Dahl
Thoughts on cookbook collections
A tale of camping food and missing sleeping bags
A nice piece of cod

Christmas is the time for long, leisurely brunches with family and friends. Make it easy with dishes that you can prepare in advance and whip into the oven just before your guests arrive. Caroline Hennessy, writing for EveryMonday.ie, gives you a few easy ideas that won't have you losing your Christmas cheer. Click here for recipes for Christmas Muffins (pictured on the right), Potato, Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese Frittata and Buttermilk Pancakes with Cranberry Orange Sauce.

Cookery demonstrations + cakes + ovens + me = narrow escapes! On Wednesday night I was demonstrating some recipes in the community centre at Knockcarron, a really lovely renovated primary school in Co Limerick, when oven issues arose once again.

Last time I was dealing with an unfamiliar gas oven, which I very helpfully managed to turn off half way through so that that night's cake took about twice as long to cook. This time round I had an electric oven at my disposal so what could go wrong? I was making a Banana and Cardamon Cake, another simple upsidedown recipe which I cook in a large deep ovenproof frying pan. I melted and mixed and explained and landed everything into the pan - and then spent a few tense minutes trying to squeeze it into the oven. The handle was too long so the door just would not close. I had visions of stationing someone to sit in front of the oven and hold it shut for the baking duration!

Fortunately, my mother (very important to have an assistant who knows exactly where the demonstration is taking place!) had a brainwave and suggested turning the pan to the right instead of to the left so it - finally - very, very snugly fitted in and disaster was, once again, narrowly averted. It doesn't matter how well you're prepared for a demonstration, there's always something that can go wrong. Luckily, after all that, it tasted ok!

During the demonstration, I mentioned that I've also made a festive variation of this cake with fresh cranberries. I haven't seen them in the shops just yet but, for anyone who does manage to get their hands on them, here is the recipe: Cranberry Cake for Christmas

There are lots of lovely food orientated events taking place over the next week to celebrate Slow Food's Terre Madre Day, including meals in East and West Cork. These feasts will be taking place in the Grain Store at Ballymaloe House on Sunday 6 December and at the fantastic Blue Geranium Cafe at Hosford's Garden Centre on Wednesday 9 December. Both events will feature local foods and producers, including - in East Cork - plum puddings from Arun Kapil (his Green Saffron mixed spice is worth travelling miles for), chocolates from Casey O'Connaill and breads from both Arbutus and Scott Walsh. More information below...