Smoked Mackerel Pate

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I'm a huge fan of Felicity Cloake regular column in the Guardian. 'How to cook the perfect...." I've used several of her recipes and they've all worked out very well. She cooks and reviews several chefs recipes for well known dishes. Then she creates her own 'perfect' recipe based on her results. I can only imagine what her home life is like "Hi family, this week we're eating only salad nicoise" in her attempt to test a range of different recipes and create her own.

I made this great smoked mackerel pate over the weekend. I'm in the process of a long move - so my kitchen things are in storage. I think the pate works quite well in these nice tea cups I got in the second hand shop!

Her recipe is over here. 
I followed it pretty closely - except I didn't use a blender as I prefer a coarser pate. The horseradish and dill off set the oily fish beautifully. A great dish that comes together very quickly. A great starter for a dinner party you can prepare the night before. Serve with homemade brown bread.

Rhubarb & Almond Cake

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A la Daily Spud I've been reading The Daily Spud for over a year now. It's where I learned of the heavenly combination of spud and harissa, and it's where I got the recipe for this super lovely cake. It's a perfect combination of almondy sweet sponge and tart rhubarb. I made it for my parents and then made it again the following weekend for our dinner party. Set out in the middle of the table it looks like we're having a kids party - great.
Here's the spuds version I followed the recipe to the letter but I'll re-write the recipe anyways

180g butter
180 g ground almonds
180g self raising flour
180g of caster sugar (so far so easy to remember)
360g rhubarb cut in good fine chunks
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1 egg
1 egg yolk
Icing sugar for looking fancy at the end

Grease a 20cm loose bottomed round tin, and line the sides with baking parchment and pre-heat your oven to gas mark 5. In a pan melt the butter. In a large bowl, sift the flour and then mix in the almonds, ground cinnamon and sugar. Combine your egg and the egg yolk. Pour the melted butter over the flour and mix, then add in the egg. When you mix all of this together, you'll get a thick ball of cake batter- don't be alarmed this is the plan.

Spread half of this over the bottom of your tin. Then toss in the rhubarb.
Add the rest of the cake mixture on top. You may need to do some subtle squishing here and there to ensure you cover as much of the fruit as you can, but a few little bits sticking out here and there is fine. Bake for an hour until the top is a rich golden brown colour. We served this with cream, but would be divine with some nice vanilla ice-cream especially if it was still warm from the oven.... Writing this is making me a little sad that it's all gone nowThat is pretty much our entire crop of red-currants on top of that cake!! Stupid slugs

Goats Cheese & Red Pepper Tartlet

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Refined pie

When feeding 14, a big beef pie is all very well, but we were aware that there would be more sensitive ladies present. So for our two gorgeous blond vegetarians, I whipped together this little beauty. Hey presto - pies for all!

For the pastry:

4 oz flour

2 oz butter

tbsp cold water

For the filling;

1 red pepper

1 small packet soft goats cheese

3 eggs

2 fl oz cream

chives

Make the pastry: sift the flour into a bowl and rub in the butter until the mixture resembles soft bread crumbs. Then add the water and bring it all together using your hands to form a dough. Roll this out on a floured surface and press into a greased pie dish (this will only make enough pastry for a small dish so if you want to make a big tart double the quantities).

Cover the pastry with a piece of greaseproof paper and fill this with baking beans. bake at 180c for about 20 mins, or until the pastry has gone opaque and a bit crusty, but not brown. Then take away the paper and beans and bake for a further 5-10 mins. Don't let the edges brown too much. Remove from the oven.

While the crust is baking, half the red pepper and remove the seeds and the core. Place, skin side up, under a hot grill until the skin has charred all over. Allow to cool and peel the charred skin from the flesh. It should come away easily, but if you are having difficulty, put the hot peppers in a plastic bag and leave them to cool for 10 mins. This should help the skin to come away easier.

Slice the peppers into strips and arrange on the baked pastry shell. Fleck the shell with dollops of the cheese (be generous), and sprinkle over the chopped chives. Beat the eggs and cream, add a little salt and pepper to this and pour it in to the pastry shell. Bake this in your preheated oven at 200c for about 20 mins, or until it is puffy and golden.

Beef and Guinness Pie

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Ohm nom nom As Alan has been in Singapore for the last year eating only foreign muck (joking, he has told me many a tale about the wonderfulness of food in Singapore) we decided that he needed a good auld Irish dish as a welcome home.

I was going to cheat and buy the puff pastry, but they didn't have any in tesco's (bloody tesco parnell street is sooooo bad) so i had to make it from scratch. This was my first attempt at puff pastry, and while it was not actually that puffy, it did taste very good and was nice and light and crunchy.

We made the filling the night before the party for two reasons: 1- less stress on party day (considerable factor when you are cooking for 14) 2- leaving it overnight makes it more delicious. You could do it all in one day if you wanted to though Again, bear in mind that this recipe serves 14 so you can reduce all the amounts accordingly Ingredients: 11/2kg good quality stewing beef, cut into cubes by your butcher.
20 shallots
8-10 parsnips
8-10 carrots
1 large onion
3 cloves garlic
1 can Guinness extra stout
ltr good beef stock flour
salt & Pepper

Heat some oil in the biggest pot you own. Chop the onion and garlic finely and sweat them in the pot, covering them with the lid so they don't burn or colour. Toss the meat in a generous amount of flour into which you have added salt and ground black pepper until all the cubes are well covered. Toss these in the pan with the onions and brown all over. Stir constantly to stop the flour from burning on the bottom of the pan.

When all the meat has browned, add the peeled and chopped veggies (leave the carrots and parsnips in big-ish chunks) and stir until everything is combined. Then pour in the hot beef stock and stir to dissolve all the flour that has stuck to the bottom of the pan. Pour in the can of Guinness, cover and simmer for 15 mins.

Preheat your oven to about 175c and shove the whole pot in there. Leave it for about 3 hours. When you take it out the stew will be melty and gorgeous. Adjust the seasoning at this point, adding more slat and pepper if necessary. If you have time, leave it overnight and let all those gorgeous flavours intensify.

For the puff pastry: (this recipe is from Delia, her complete cookery course is my bible for basics like this)
1 lb strong white flour
8 oz lard
8oz margarine
10fl oz ice cold water


Sift the flour into a bowl with a pinch of salt. Chop up all the fat into inch sized squares and add to the flour. Now add the water and, using a palette knife make a series of straight cuts (like you are cutting a big cake) to incorporate everything. The aim is to leave the fat as intact as possible and still bring everything together into a dough-like ball.

When you have a reasonable ball of dough-like substance, take it out of the bowl (don't worry if it doesn't use up all of the flour) and place on a floured board. Shape it into a rough brick shape, and using a long, floured rolling pin, make 3 depressions across the brick. Make sure the dough and the pin are well dusted with flour at all times.

Then roll the whole thing out into an oblong that is roughly the length of your forearm (not including your hand!) and about 1/2 as wide. Now fold the top third down and the bottom third up so its a bit like an envelope. Seal the edges with a sharp press from the rolling pin. this locks in air, apparently. The dough will now be roughly the same size and shape as your original brick, so make the 3 depressions again and repeat the process again 4 or 5 times. What this does is spread out the large chunks of fat into layers with flour that you have used to dust the board, dough and pin. Clever, eh!

Allow the dough to rest in the fridge for at least half an hour before you roll it out. When you cut the dough in half you will be able to see all the layers of flour and fat, like the strata of a cliff. Because we had so much stew we had to use 2 pie dishes (big rectangular lasagne ones) but if you are making a smaller amount you could use a pretty round dish. Fill your dish up to almost full with the stew filling. Then cover with the rolled out pastry and make nice decorations on top (not a big penis, like Alan did) and a few cuts to allow steam to escape. I was going to put an egg wash over the pastry to make it nice and shiny (just a beaten egg brushed all over the pastry) but I forgot. We served this with boiled new potatoes and steamed broccoli. YUUUUMMMM

Chicken Liver Pate

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Loads and loads of Lovely Little Livers for the Liver Lovers
(and by Liver Lovers we mean our friend Alan) My mum used to make this recipe for posh dinner parties in the early 90s. I LOVED it, but it always ran out too fast. Its not something that most people would allow themselves to eat much of, so for our dinner party I decided to make loads so that everyone could get a big generous slice. I made this a few days before the party (it keeps for up to a week in the fridge as long as you seal it with the melted butter) Ok, I wasn't sure how many people we would actually have to feed, but I knew it would be between 10 and 15, so I decided to err on the side of caution and make a huge batch. You could probably half or even quarter these measurements but actually, its so delicious that you will want to have loads. We even had some left overs and last night we benefited from a post pub midnight snack of pate on toast... It must have soaked up the booze good because this morning I am miraculously hang-over-less! I don't have a blender, just a humble stick blender but it worked perfectly for this and the pate was lovely and smooth. Ingredients:
2kg chicken livers
2 onions
(or 6 shallots)
3 cloves garlic
2 springs rosemary (other herbs like thyme or juniper berries would also work)
1/2 a wine class of hennessy (or similar cognac)
1 big block of butter

Method: Start by chopping the onions (shallots are better but they didn't have them in Tesco) really really finely. As fine as you can get them. Same thing for the garlic. Mely a big knob of butter in a frying pan and sweat the onions and garlic and herbs until they are translucent and soft. Don't brown them.

Transfer them to the bowl of a food processor ( or, if like me, you only have a stick blender, to a normal bowl) Rinse the chicken livers and trim off any fat or gristle (if you can possibly bear it... yek!) dry them on kitchen towels. Melt about an ounce knob of butter in the same pan, and gently fry the livers (i did them in two batches) turn them over, they should be browned on the outside and slightly pink in the middle (but not too pink! if you are not sure leave them in longer).

Transfer the cooked livers and the melted butter and cooking juices into the bowl with the onions. Then return the pan to the heat, pour in the cognac and allow it to bubble for a few seconds. Tip this into the bowl and whizz everything together until as smooth as you can get it. Then add about 1/2 of the butter you have left and whizz it all up again. The colour will go lighter and the consistency will be looser.

Line a bread tin with cling film and pour the mixture in. If you prefer, you could serve this in individual ramekins, in which case there is no need for the cling film.Using a palette knife, smooth down the top of the pate so its as flat and level as you can get it. Melt the rest of the butter in a clean pan or in the microwave. Pour the melted butter into the mold and make sure that it completely covers every bit of the pate. This will seal the pate so it will keep in the fridge for up to a week.

We served the pate with a little salad, a nasturtium each from the front garden (cause we're being wanky!) , and melba toast, which is great because it stops your guests from filling up too much on bread. To make melba toast, get a sliced pan of 'killer' white bread. Toast the slices as usual, then cut off the crusts and using a thin serrated knife, cut through the middle of the toast so you now have two thinner slices the same size. Toast the untoasted sides of these under the grill. Be careful, they burn quick!

Sarah’s Stew

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A hug in a bowl

This is also slightly French due to the amount of wine we added! Make lots of this as it tastes even better the next day.

Enough stewing beef for 4 people

2 tbsps flour

2 onions, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

4 parsnips

6 carrots

about 20 small new potatoes with skins left on

1 bottle red plonk

1 pint beef stock

1 desert spoon worcester sauce

salt and pepper

1 desert spoon balsamic vinager

dried herbs

1 bay leaf

Toss the beef pieces in the flour and brown off in a large, deep pan, stiring vigourously to prevent the flour from sticking. Remove the browned meat from the pan, and add the onions and garlic. Cover and allow to sweat for 5 mins. While this is happening, chop the vegetables into similar sized pieces. Add all the veg and the meat back into the pan with the onions and garlic. Pour in the botte of red wine and the stock. If it looks like it needs more liquid, add some water. The liquid should almost cover all the other ingredients. Add a few grinds of pepper, the worcester sauce, vinegar and a few pinched of whatever dried herbs you have handy. Or you could add a bouquet garni of fresh herbs, left on the sprigs and tied together with string. This can then be removed once the stew is cooked. Bring to the boil and simmer for 5 mins. Then cover and place in a hot oven for about 3 hours, or a cooler oven for 4 hours. More than enough time to go out for a nice walk/pint.

When you come back the house will smell amazing.

French Onion Soup

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Cheesy soupy goodness

I came home early on saturday night from a rained out Oxegen (large and very wet music festival in Co.Kildare), feeling very tired, a little disgruntled, and slightly regretful that I didn’t persevere to see some of the great acts that were playing later on Saturday and on Sunday. Sarah was more hardcore and stayed until the bitter end of saturday night, and got even more soaked than I did.

Anyway, by the time Sunday came around we decided that we needed some serious comfort food. Clare Louise came round to help us eat three courses of wintery, stodgy goodness.

French Onion Soup

Serves 4

About 8 medium size onions

4 cloves garlic

1 tsp sugar

½ pint white wine

1 pint beef stock

1 tsp worcester sauce

1 small baguette

gruyere or white cheddar cheese

Peel the onions and chop them in half from root to stem. Then slice them thinly into semi-circles. Finely chop the garlic. Melt some butter and olive oil in a large pot and fry the onions and garlic with the sugar until everything has started to caramelise and turn a nice brown colour.

Add the wine and stock and simmer for about 40 mins on a low heat. Add Worcester sauce, taste and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. When done, cut the baguette into slices, 2 or 3 per person and flash them quickly under the grill to toast on both sides. Grate the cheese. Ladel the hot soup into flameproof bowls and float the toast on top of the soup. Top the toast with the grated cheese and place under the hot grill until the cheese is melter and a bit bubbly. Serve with plenty of black pepper.

Shepherds Pie

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Beef up the Security Pie

Right so long story short - a bad man got into our house, Delo saw him off. He didn't get anything. Then he came back again. Then Delo saw him off again.

So while the girls and Delo beefed up the security and I beefed us up a pie to calm our poor nerves. When our neighbours heard they brought us over a bottle of wine, so it all ended well.

Thanks Delo and thanks Shelia.

I added in some extras like leeks, carrots and a tin of broad beans, as pie for 2 became pie for 4 and then 5, and there was enough to go around. The beans really added an extra dimension, complemented well by the beef and the cheesy potato topping.

Ingredients

1 pound of beef (from Madina on Parnell St - where they minced it freshly before your eyes, nice to see it's fresh, not nice to hear the sound of it going through the mincer - eugh)
2 medium onions
3 cloves of garlic - crushed
2 tablespoons flour
2 carrots - cubed
1 leek - sliced 1 cm rings
1 tin of beans - whichever kind you think would work - I used broadbeans (red ones not green)
Stock/Stock Cube
5 large potatoes - boiled
Some milk
Some grated cheese (I used cheddar)
Salt & Pepper

Boil your carrots along with the skins until tender - remove carrots, discard skins and keep water for later.

Fry up the onion with the garlic for a few minutes until it starts to go tender. Then add in the leeks cook until the onions are translucent and the leeks are getting soft. Then add in the beef and cook until it all goes brown. Then add in the flour mix well, then sprinkle over your stock/stock cube, and add a dash of Lea & Perrins. Combine the carrots and beans with the meat.

Use the water from the carrots to make the sauce - add a little at a time until you achieve your desired consistency. then simmer for a few minutes, making sure it doesn't stick to the bottom of your pan. Mash your potatoes with some milk, salt & pepper and half the cheese.

In a oven proof dish - layer the meat mixture on the bottom - top with the potato and then sprinkle with cheese. Bake at Gas Mark 7 for about 30-45 mins until it looks golden and crispy and wonderful. Serve with some green veg - to balance out the colours of your plate. Your break in worries will be a thing of the past...... ahhhh

Baked Courgette Fritatta

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In the hope of using up some of the leftover cheese and cream from after the fondue party I came across this recipe on seriouseats

I love it when a good plan comes together easily, and also my friend James was coming over, hurray

1 pound courgette (about 2 large) grated
2 teaspoons salt
3 large eggs
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup Parmesan, grated
1 teaspoon curry powder
2 talbespoons of cream (feel free to omit this for a healthier option - it will work perfectly fine)
olive oil


Preheat the oven to gas mark 7. Grate the courgette. Toss in a colander, sprinkle 1 teaspoon of the salt on top. Let it drain for about 30 minutes. Run the courgette under the tap for a few seconds, to rinse off the salt. Dry it on a towel.

Whisk together the eggs in a large bowl. Add the bread crumbs, cheese, curry powder, and the rest of the salt. Dump in the courgette. Stir well.

Pour the mixture into a 10 1/2 inch baking dish rubbed with oil. Pat the mixture down , until it is flat and smooth. Transfer to the oven and cook for 15 minutes. Remove, let cool for a few minutes, and then slice and serve.

The recipe suggested serving with tomato sauce, which would have been yum! We served it with salad, bread, hummous, baba ganoush, raclette cheese and some French saucisson, just cause that's what was knocking around.....

Cheese Fondue

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Cheesy 80's Party

We haven’t thrown a party in a while now, so we combined it with our love of cheese and our love of the 80’s. Perfect.
Matthew's Cheese Cellar on Baggot Street is an amazing place for any cheese fan, highly recommended as the palace of cheese, with silver finishing, red carpet and the largest range of cheeses this side of the Brittany

½ block of Edam Cheese (about 500g)
500g of Raclette Cheese
1 box of white wine
1 clove of garlic - skinned cut in half
Juice of 1/2 a lemon Grate all the cheese. Rub the cut side of the garlic all over the inside of the pan and discard - or use for salad dressing. Fill with about two glasses of wine - and heat the wine. Try not to let it boil.

When it's close to boiling, add in a handful of cheese. Stir well until it's smooth and lump free. Repeat a handful at a time, until you've Incorporated all the cheeese. Mine grew a bit thick so I added in more wine as I went, small amounts so that they combine easily. Add the lemon juice to cut through all that richness. Allow to reach a simmer and leave for two minutes.Then serve, it's just that easy and far more decadent that I had expected. As dipping material we used small bite size pieces of ciabatta, cooked sausages, mortadella, other cooked sausages, steamed cauliflower and broccoli florets and then more French bread. I was expecting this to be wonderful as I am a huge fan of cheese, but it surpassed even my cheesiest dreams - oooooh baby! Just after we took this photo - another few people arrived and the whole pot was gone in less then 10 minutes, next time I'll make seconds I promise. We invited all our friends to bring some 80's food with them, Pam made some great little vol-o-vents, filled with creamy chicken, bacon & mushroom. Thanks Pam Also produced were in no particular order, Angel Delight, After 8's, Refreshers, Galtee Cheese, Ritz crackers, Ritz the 'perry', West Coast Cooler (mmmmm) Black Forest Gateaux, Cheese & Pineapple Hedgehogs, Tayto crisps, the richest chocolate cake ever - Thanks Guys


Then it just turned into a party-job done!

Feast in Venice

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I went to the launch of the Venice Biennale recently, and on my first night in there was all by myself and wondering what to do for the evening, when the phone rang and I got invited to dinner. Patrick, Ruth and Rebecca were all staying in an apartment across town so I got on a vaparetto and trundled my way around the outside of the island. After being on a boat for 40 mins, you get sea legs, so when you get off, you get an horrible rocking sensation which lasts for ages. I think the only cure is prosecco, so I brought a bottle with me.

Patrick cooked lovely squid ink pasta with fennel, which I didn't photograph, but, here's what I think the recipe was...

Pasta with Fennel

Cook the pasta (Pat used black pasta which has squid ink in it)

while its cooking fry onion, garlic and chopped fennel in olive oil until soft. Mix into the cooked pasta and finish with a generous grating of Parmesan cheese. serve!

We also had a selection of Italian meats and antipasti, and a caprese salad, and LOADs of wine...

What a great night! I stayed until after the vaparettos had stopped running, so, resisting invitations to sleep on the couch, I tipsily venturing out into Venice and somehow found my way back to my hotel on the other side of town. I even took a detour to find a bar where other friends, who had just arrived, were having a late drink. Yay me! I love Venice at night. Thanks guys! It was the perfect way to start the week.

More Granola

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Baby Food My friend Jen is having a baby in October, she put in a special request that next time I come to Limerick to see her, that I bring some granola. She's pregnant so I can't argue! I made her some granola, it as a nut heavy one with lashings of ginger and cinnamon, and a good dose of golden Syrup mmmm. I wanted this to taste a little like ginger nut biscuits, next time I'll add even more ginger. For recipe please refer to Peanut Butter Granola or Super-Granola-food

Then I went to visit my parents - so I made some more granola for my mother - I only took one photos - I'll save you the details, but I added in two teaspoons of mixed spice this time - giving it a nice Christmassy taste - I promise to be home again before Christmas too.... Apologies for all the pictures - but with all the lovely sunshine - they've just come out great

Tomato Dahl

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Tomato on your Roll Dahl?

Dahl is wonderfully satisfying served on top of rice as an accompaniment to curries. I've always had trouble reproducing a good one at home, they seem to vary widely in consistency. From a liquid to something thick and curry like. Because I love lentils I always tend to put too many of them in. This recipe I used only half a cup and this seemed to give a nice consistency, you could add more water if you wanted to serve it poured over the rice.

1 onion chopped
1 carrot small cubed
1-2 green chillies
4 tomatoes cubed (some recipes ask for peeled, but my life is too short to peel tomatoes)
½ cup of red lentils
2-3 garlic cloves crushed 1
inch ginger grated
¼ cup grated coconut (see previous post)
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 bay leaves
some coriander to serve
1-2 tablespoons of toasted almonds (mmmm)
Ghee /Veg Oil

In a pan heat up the oil, when hot throw in the mustard seeds, cumin & chillies. Cook until the mustard seeds start to go ‘pop’ and then you can add in the onions, tomatoes and carrots, as well as some salt and turmeric. Saute them until the onions and tomatoes are soft.

Add in the lentils and cook gently while stirring for 3 mins. Then add in two cups of water and some bay leaves. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 15 mins till the lentils are soft and falling apart. You may need to add in some more water if the lentils start to stick to the bottom – so just keep an eye on it.

After 15mins or so - add the coconut simmer for another 4-5 mins. Sprinkle with coriander and toasted almonds. Serve with spiced rice for warm and satisfying meal, and mango chutney of course. Or as a side dish to accompany butter paneer masala and toasty hot naan breads.

Apologies for the terrible title - I just had to

Paneer Butter Masala

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I love Paneer - Govindas used to come to our college on a Thursday and serve up huge plates of delicious rice and paneer in a spicy tomato sauce with peas and little crunchy poppadoms. And as Thursday was a drinking night - it was good soakage for later on. I've tried many recipes to re-create the Govindas Paneer, which I will blog in the future - I promise - my mum loves it.

Here I decided to try a different paneer recipe. For once I didn't fry it first in an attempt to see if it would come out softer. It didn't, but this may have been due to the fact that this didn't have a huge amount of sauce, though it worked beautiful with the sweet onions and the rich creamy nut sauce. I must try it with chicken sometime.

Paneer Butter Masala

Paneer - packet, cubed
Onions - 3 big, chopped as finely as you can
Tomatoes - 2 big
Ginger 1 inch grated
Coriander powder - 1 tsp
Medium curry masala powder - 1 tsp
Red chili powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric powder - a tsp
Cashew nuts - 2 tbsp, grind to paste - and then a few for garnish
Mustard seeds – a table spoon
Ghee - two desert spoons
Cream - 1 tbsp (optional)
Fresh coriander leaves - chopped, to serve

Heat the ghee in a pan and add the mustard seeds. Once they pop, add the onions and fry for 2 mins. Then add the ginger, and the cashewnut paste. Saute for another 2 mins. Now add the pureed tomatoes, coriander powder, turmeric, curry masala and salt. Stir well and leave on simmer for about 5 mins.

Next, add the paneer and let cook. If the gravy seems too thick, add little water and keep cooking for about 5-6 mins. Remove from heat, mix in the fresh cream if using and garnish with chopped coriander leaves and a few cashews.

I served this with some spiced rice, a tomato dahl, naan and also some mango chutney. I may have to wean myself off the mango chutney - I'm a bit addicted.