A Summer Dedication

Woodford Bournes Patrick St

Its quite some time since I last wrote a post. Many things got in the way mainly too much much going on and something had to give. Over the last couple of months though one of things that did not change was my interest in cooking in fact it has served me well as a stress reliever. I recently spent a few days away in West Clare with the kids, my Mum, her Sister, my Cousin and her little girl. We were staying in self catering accommodation so everyone brought stuff with them including  my Mums pressed ox tongue and a galantine. These items have always been firm family favourites in our family as my gran had always included them on the menu for special occasions. So last week there was alot of oohing and aaahhing over them and they didn't last too long!! These things have morphed in may ways over the years and I now make them my way for my family and have become favourites in my home too. This got me thinking about how I got my love for cooking and brought back many early food memories. My Mum is a marvelous cook and she didn't lick it off the stones. My Gran won many competitions through her involvement in the ICA and indeed fish cookery was her speciality as my Grandad was very partial to a bit of Turbot or Brill on a Friday!!
During the course of planning this post I had the most wonderful conversation with my Mum about grocery shopping back in the day. My Mum is from Cork and she told me all about how wonderful the shops on both Princes St and Patrick St were, recalling merchants like Woodford Bourne wine & spirit merchants, Smiths Stores and the L&N who were general merchants with whom you would place your order and it would be all packaged up and delivered to your door. She recalls shops called Quaines for fish, Mortells for eggs, Rose Bros for Pork and O Hares in the English Market for meat.

The English Market

She particularly recalled being sent into town when she was about twelve to get some vegetables and picking  up a bunch of radishes in Russells vegetable shop and a lady asking her what they were !! So really it is no wonder that my earliest memories of food are cooking with my Mum and Gran and I can still recall the aromatic smells from their kitchens. So the two main recipes in this post are a celebration of the fabulous influential women in my early life , both of whom instilled the importance of good home cooking into my psyche.


Menu

Pressed Ox Tongue with Port Jelly
Country Terrine
****
Rice & Pimento Salad
Mushroom Salad
Beetroot Jelly
Stuffed Eggs
Potato Salad  
What my Gran called a General Salad


Pressed Ox Tongue with Port Jelly

Ingredients:
1 Pickled Ox Tongue (soaked overnight)
1 Onion
1 Carrot
1 Stick celery
1 Bouquet Garni
2 Gelatine leaves
50 mls Port

Place the soaked tongue into a large pot add the onion halved
the carrot and celery along with the bouquet garni and cover with water. Allow come to the boil and simmer on a low heat for approximately 3 hours. At this stage remove the tongue from the cooking liquor and allow cool a little. Retain the cooking liquor. when the tongue is cool enough to handle remove the skin and any fatty bits at the base.  Put 150 mls of the cooking liquor into a pot and heat gently. Soak the gleatine in 50mls cold water and allow soak for approx. 10 minutes until spongy. Squeeze out and add to the liquor and allow the gelatine dissolve stirring gently. Finally add the port. Then quickly curl the tongue into a tight fitting bowl and pour over the jelly. Cover tightly with clingfilm and invert a saucer on top. Place a heavy object on top ( I use the bowl of my pestle & mortar) and stand until cool. The place in the fridge with weight still on top in the fridge overnight.

Country Terrine


My gran would have called her version of this a galantine which is traditionally made from minced chicken but that would have been extremely expensive back in the day. She used to use beef mince and sausage meat. She also used to put two boiled eggs in the centre, wrap it in muslin and boil it.

Ingredients.

500g Lean beef steak mince
300g Turkey Mince or pork mince whichever you prefer.
A boiled ham hock
1 onion finely diced
2 cloves garlic
150g mushrooms sliced finely.
4 tbsp freshly chopped herbs such as parsley, sage, thyme, chives
1 egg
100g breadcrumbs
dash of Leas & Perrins
dash of tomato sauce.
sat & pepper to season

Preheat you oven to 200 C or 180 C Fan. Gently fry the onions and garlic together until almost translucent. Add the sliced mushrooms and allow to soften. Drain on some kitchen paper and allow to cool. In the meantime cut the meat off the ham hock and cut up into rough chunks. Then put all of the ingredients into a large mixing bowl and mix together ( I use my hands for this). Tightly pack the mix into a 2lb loaf tin  ... it will fit I promise! Then boil a kettle. Place the loaf tin into a roasting tin and fill the roasting tin until it comes just over half way above the height of the loaf tin. Put in the oven and time for 20mins. Then lower the temperature to 160 C or 150C fan and allow cook for a further 60 mins. Allow cool in the tin until lukewarm otherwise it will fall apart. When you remove it from the tin wrap the terrine in greaseproof or baking parchment and then tinfoil. Allow the terrine to go completely cold and then refrigerate overnight

A beetroot jelly would be made by adding chopped beetroot to blackcurrant jelly. A rice salad would be made with red pepper, scallion and some dried fruit. Gran stuffed eggs and my Mum still makes the best potato salad ever!  All of this would be served on crisp white linen with appropriate condiments such as homemade chutney and my Grandads pickled onions! My Mum has continued these traditions to this day and I am determined that my kids will carry these skills though to theirs. So thanks ladies for the love of food.

Friends for Easter Dinner

Easter is one of my favourite times of the year. Its not quite as frenetic as Christmas, the weather is improving and the evenings are bright. There's a lovely freshness to the young green leaves on the trees and you can really get out and enjoy the world around you. The other reason I love Easter so much is because it doesn't have quite the same hoo haa about  if you what I mean. Especially for Mummies!! Christmas is pressure city central whereas Easter is not quite so intense and I find that I enjoy it  without being fit for nothing but a lazy day on the couch afterwards.

As with so many others we often have family and friends for dinner on Easter Sunday and this means a little menu planning.  I'm a bit of a traditionalist  and would almost always have roast lamb but there are a number of friends and family who are not mad about lamb and so I find myself struggling with the should I cook what I want or serve what my guests like battle. What the guests like normally wins out and so roast duck is a nice alternative for Easter Sunday. Recently I did this and served it with a Kumquat & Cointreau Compote which was luscious!

Kumquat Compote:

250 g Kumquats
200ml Water
100g Sugar
Dollop Cointreau

Dissolve the sugar in water simmer until syrupy then add the kumquats and simmer for 5 minutes or so.

Add the Cointreau and simmer again until only a few tbsp of water remain.

I always roast duck slowly on a trivet having made sure the skin is dry and then rub salt in. I start it on a high heat and then lower right down to 150c and allow to cook slowly. Dont forget to save all the lovly duck fat you collect in the process - think of the confit you can do then!!

To start on this occasion was a lovely 

Chilled Tomato and Red Pepper Soup with a Crab Cocktail

This is an adaptation of a  Gordon Ramsay recipe and its dead easy and quick to prepare although it does need a couple of hours to chill.

Ingredients:

Soup:

500 grms  Ripe tomatoes

1 Large Red Pepper

1 Shallot

1 Clove Garlic

500ml Passata

200 ml Cream

Thyme and a bay leaf

Salt, Pepper & Sugar to season

Olive Oil

Saute the shallots and garlic in a small amount of olive oil gently until softened and transparent. Add the roughly chopped pepper and tomatoes and allow soften for five minutes on a low heat. Add the passata and allow to simmer for ten minute.Season and add the cream and allow to simmer very gently for two minutes. Then liquidize the soup and pass through a sieve. Allow the soup to cool and then chill two hours. adjust the seasoning.

Crab cocktail 

1  ripe avocado

400 g crabmeat

Chives

Chopped dessert apple with a squeez of lime.

200ml creme fraiche (or mayonnaise) 

A squeeze of tomato sauce

The juice of a lime.

Mash up the the avocado and mix with chopped apple and some chopped chive a spoon of creme fraiche and a squeeze of lime juice together. Then combine the remainder of the creme fraiche, lime juice and tomato sauce together. Retain a couple of tbsp of this for later. Then combine the crabmeat with rest of the dressing.

Using a ring or scone cutter place in the middle of a soup plate and put first a layer of the avocado and apple mix then a layer of the crab mis and then nap it with the retained dressing. The pour the chilled soup carefully around the side garnish with chives and serve.

Finally the piece de resistance:

Gateau Diane

This is a lovely crowd pleaser and is extremely rich - perfect for any occasion this one has an Easter twist. I got this recipe from this months Food & Wine magazine hadn't had it in years but it definitely won't be as long again.

4 large eggs whites only (room temperature)

pinch of salt

225g caster sugar

250g chocolate I use 1/3 70% 2/3 55%

100 ml boiling water

500 ml double cream

Preheat your oven to 100c. Line two large baking trays with baking parchment and use a 7" round tin to trace out four circles.

Place the egg whites in a large spotlessly clean bowl , add a pinch of salt and whisk until at soft peak stage add the caster sugar a tbsp at a time and whisk until glossy with a stiff peak. . Then put the meringue mixture onto the parchment carefully in the circles. Bake for two hours and leave in the oven until cold so that the meringue is crisp and dry.

Break up the chocolate and add the boiling water. Place over a pan of simmering water and melt stirring until smooth. Allow to cool. Pour the chocolate into a large bowl with the cream and whisk until thick. (You could add a dollop of baileys or the tipple of your choice at this stage !!). Then place a meringue circle onto a pretty serving plat and spread a layer of the chocolate cream on top, continue with the other layers finishing with the chocolate cream on top. 

Decorate as you wish but for an Easter twist I used mini chocolate eggs and strawberries. Allow to chill in the fridge for two hours. Then serve with a dusting of icing sugar on top.

How are your curtains ?

I always love to see Summer time start. Its so lovely to see the bright evenings and I often feel people are like tortoises. They start to emerge from their shells and stretch out. Even driving through town yesterday evening I was struck by all the people out sitting having the tipple of their fancy - everyone was in great form.  The Market is the same. There are more stall holders and we see the return of our fair weather customers and the sense of community builds once more.

But this has made me think about the long dreary winter months and how we get through them. Once the buzz of Christmas is over we sink into a lull of hardcore regulars! Quite often as a stall holder this is a difficult time. So how do we keep going? Sure its for the love of what we do and for many their livelihood depends on it but its also because of the camaraderie and friendships that have formed between customers and stallholders alike.

Our fish stall holder is what can only be described as a devil. What he gets away with saying to his customers is unreal. The amount of times I've heard him chatting up women of all ages is phenomenal and he does it with such charm and humour that he gets away with murder. And while he's no George Clooney what woman doesn't mind being told she's only gorgeous! Because of this an orderly queue forms at his stall every Saturday whatever the weather and the roars of laughter can be heard and keep the customers coming back.

Then there are the customers who sweep in every Saturday laughing no matter what ! One lady in particular arrives with her dog Guinness every Saturday. Guinness always looks suave in his reflector jacket !!! He trots up to me and sits looking up at me with the most beautiful chocolate eyes that say please give me a treat. He is particularly fond of Gubbeen and Manchego. His owner then follows him over and decrees that her dog has the best taste ever and knows a good cheese when he smells one !

Then she will have a story for you. One that is normally not for small ears if you know what I mean. My particular favourite was about a French man, Italian man and an Irish man. While I could not possibly tell you the rest of the story on this blog as I would most certainly be tracked down and arrested suffice to say to say there were curtains involved and hence Mary now greets me with the line - "How are your curtains?" and the laughter rises again.

This is what makes a Market, this is what makes my Saturday mornings sunny all year round and in honour of the sun here is a nice little week day supper that celebrates the start of Summer flavours.

Roast Mediterranean Vegetable Salad with 

Grilled Goats Cheese and Wild Garlic Oil.

Serves 4
Prep 30 mins plus cooling

Ingredients:

1 Aubergine
1 Courgette
1 Red Onion
20 Cherry Tomatoes
100g Lardons
A mixture of salad leaves in season.
8 thin slices of Chevre Buche
Big bunch of Wild Garlic
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt & pepper

Chop up the onion, courgettes, aubergine place on a baking tray along with the cherry tomatoes. Drizzle with olive oil, season and roast in a preheated moderate oven (180 deg) for twenty mins. Then allow to cool.

In the meantime wash the wild garlic and dry.Then crush it with a pestle & mortar or whizz it in the processor and add enough oil to make it loose enough to drizzle. Fry the lardons until a they are a little bit crispy and allow to cool.

Place the slices of goats cheese on a baking tray. When the vegetables are cool place the goats cheese under the grill for two to three minutes. In the meantime arrange the salad leaves nicely. Arrange your vegetables and lardons on top. Finally place two slices of the grilled goats cheese on top and drizzle with the wild garlic oil. A lovely taste of Summer.