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.

Vantastival Camper Van Cook Off

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Van-tastic Fun

Vantastival is a camper and family friendly festival now in it's second year. It takes place on the gorgeous Dunanny Estate in lush county Louth, a gust away from the Irish Sea. The cook off sees 6 campervans competing to win the 2011 prize. This year's sponsors were Cully & Sully. Cully himself was down to do the judging, bringing along with him their chef Ivan, and also the Cheffactor 2010 winner Christine. Read about here experiences at Ballymaloe here.

Some of the finished dishes

The ingredients for the 45 minute cook off included Minced beef, green pepper, chick peas, onion, chili, chopped tomatoes, wild garlic, rice, black pudding, brie, cream & a banana. All teams could use a few store cupboard ingredients from their van cupboards. The brief was to produce two dishes, but all vans turned out three in the allotted time. 

Ivan gets comfy

Disco Dinner

Christine finds one of the entries hilarious

Well done to all the great chefs who could well under the baking hot sun and in front of the huge crowd that grew around them hungrily licking their lips. 

Did someone say dinner?

The judges get down to some hard work

The winners

The festival was such a success that it's back on the calendar for 2012, so if you're looking for a great family festival that has great music come on down to Dunanny. Or better still beg/borrow/steal a campervan and see if you can be crowned champion for 2012!

Like I said family friendly!

That'll be me

And a big thanks to Delo for the amazing photos! 

Saffron Spiced Bulgur Pilaf with Pomegranate

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Anti-oxidant Rich and Quick

So I have a quick hour to prepare some dinner after work before nipping off to rehearsal. I’d also like some food for my lunch tomorrow, so decide to make up a kind of fancy bulgur pilaf. Something full on flavour and light on time. You can substitute the bulgur for cous-cous, quinoa or rice if you have them handy.

Ingredients
2 as a main - 3 as a side
1 cup of bulgur wheat
5 strands of saffron
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 small red onion - finely diced
2 small cloves of garlic crushed
2 teaspoons of poppy seeds
1 large handful of cashews
1 handful of raisins
1/2 pomegranate - seeds
big pinch of garam masala

In a pan - add one cupful of hot water to the saffron strands, crush the strands gently with a wooden spoon to release the colour. Leave to steep while you prepare the rest of your dinner.

Fry the onion, in a non-stick pan, for two minutes over a medium heat for a few minutes before adding in the garlic. Cook until the onion is translucent. Stir in the garam masala and cook for another minute. Stir in the bulgur wheat until coated with oil, then add in the saffron water, and then another cup of water. Bring to a simmer and cook for three minutes, add a little more water if this begins to stick.

Stir in the seeds, raisins and cashew nuts when you think it’s cooked. A big bunch of freshly chopped parsley would be great stirred in here, or some fresh coriander if you have some. Stir in the pomegranate seeds when off the heat, reserve a few more for garnish.

This makes a great side to serve alongside baked sweet potatoe falafel or hummus, or alongside some sticky ginger roast chicken legs. It would be a great little dish to bring along to a picnic or buffet lunch. The yellow from the saffron and the red little jewels of pomegranate seeds make it a very pretty side dish. I served it with some carrots that I parboiled and then glazed with honey and balsamic vinegar and popped under the grill to get rich and brown.

Artichokes al Fresco

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We bought and artichoke and looked at it in confusion for several days, being in a field with no internet - how would we ever know what to do with it.

So I went for an easy option of wrapping it in tinfoil, throwing in some butter and garlic and throwing it on the barbeque. After cutting away the stalk and the tops of the leaves, we cooked it for about 15-20 minutes. Then peeled ff the outside leaves, and nibbled the ends covered in butter, then took away the flowery parts in the centre to reveal a nicely cooked heart

Good guess work, now to find out how you're really supposed to cook them....

Lemon & Tarragon Barbecued Whiting

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Fish in a Box

This is a quick and delicious way to prepare fish, the tarragon lightly infuses the meat as it cooks gently over a medium heat barbecue. The slices of lemon lend a subtle flavour, whilst preventing the fish from sticking to your grill or 'fish box'.
Gut your whiting, fill the cavity with some fresh tarragon and some slices of lemon - salt and pepper gently. Then place some other slices of lemon on either side and place into your 'fish box' This makes it so much easier to turn the fish and prevents fall apart.

Cooks in 10 -12 minutes.

Breakfast in France

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Le Petit Dejeuner Galette

I didn't make this so maybe I shouldn't blog it, but it was a wonderful start to the day, delivered to me on a plate - I love holidays, thanks Delo.We ate a number of crepes and galettes while we were away, crepes are sweet, while galettes are savory and made with buckwheat flour. We bought these pre-made ones from the supermarket to play with back at the van. Often a galette comes with an egg on, the white quickly finds it way through the holes in the pancake and cooks while the yoke stay all gooey. Inside hidden away from sight are some nice little lardons (batons of bacon - see detail photo!) and some melty emmental. A grind of black pepper and a coffee and you're done.Also specialities in Brittany are creme de caramel au beurre salle, which is creme caramel made with salted butter, served on crepes with cooked apples or bananas and chantilly. There's always the classic lemon and sugar.

The best galletes we ate were in Roscoff and were just too delicious to photograph! Bacon with leeks fondue, the other had scallops with gratin vegetables, both were bursting with flavour and showed what a wide range of tastes and ingredients these little galletes can handle.... now I regret not taking a photo ah well, sometimes the moment is just too good to spoil

A Lovely Lunch in Stephens Green

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It's Friday.....

On a Friday lunchtime in work I like to treat myself so it was off on my bike to Sushi-King on Baggot Street (close to Stephens Green end opposite Donney & Nesbits) I picked up some delicious Salmon and Avocado roll and best of all some tom yum soup.

For those of you who haven't had it yet, it's a spicy broth, with a great kick of chili, and a heady mix of lemongrass and coriander.

I'm sure it's really good for you. Pictures don't do it justice I'm afraid (yeah cause I ate it before I took the picture). But I did happen upon some music in the band stand - two guys were all hooked up and playing bluegrass. The sun was nearly shining, my belly was full and I was a happy girl. The music is going on all summer at lunch time (not sure if it's just Fridays -but starts at 1) well worth checking out

Potato Salad

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The Anti-Salad

Not sure whether it was worth blogging a simple potato salad – but you never know. Mostly I eat salads to get some low carb, low fat and high vegetable content into my life – this salad does not comply to the above standards – being actually the complete opposite. But it’s Sunday and I’m hungover and I miss my friend Kate so all bets are off ok.


Ingredients
5 small new potatoes
5 shards of chives
3 sprigs of parsley
4 little pink radishes
2 spoons of mayonnaise
Salt & Pepper
1 slice of ham
a small handful of cashew nuts
1 teaspoon grainy mustard

The lovely Sarah Lowry introduced me to radishes in potato salad and now I wouldn’t have it any other way. Cook potatoes, chop parsley and chives, slice the radishes finely, slice ham and crush nuts gently. Combine all ingredients in a bowl – mix and serve.

I like to pop the potatoes in still warm – but if you want to cool them down – just run them under the cold tap for 30 seconds or so.

It’s great as a side dish for barbecues and summer food, quiches, fish and chicken – eat outside if possible. To prepare as a side dish simply leave out the ham and nuts

1 minute Hummus

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1 minute is all it takes (if you have a hand-blender that is) and yes we did time it!

Hummus

1 can of chickpeas - retain some of the brine
2 cloves of garlic
Good quality olive oil
Salt & Pepper
Juice of one lemon
Dripping tablespoon of Tahini

Put all ingredients into blender - blend - viola - add in a little of the chickpea brine if it's too thick. Sprinkle with paprika and add more olive oil if desired to serve. I used to use a potato masher to do the blending, and produces a coarser hummus which has equal charms.

To serve - pittas, falafel, cous cous, bulgar and roasted veg, sandwiches, add to vinaigrette to make a tasty salad dressing, carrot sticks, celery salad.... any more suggestions welcome.

I made a very tasty variation a few months back - adding in some roasted red peppers and harissa (a North African hot red sauce or paste made from chili peppers & garlic) - possibly the best hummus ever, quite possibly. The variations are numerous and delicious - yum!

Carrot Muffin Cupcakes

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Have you see the Muffin Ladies?

190 g Self Raising flour
150 g Sugar
pinch salt tsp
baking powder
80ml Vegetable oil
1 egg
80 ml milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 small carrots, grated
1 handful sultanas
8 Dates
1 big handful pecan nuts
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to gas 6/200c Line a bun tray with bun cases or (like we did) squares of baking parchment. Mix the flour, salt, baking powder, sugar and spices in a bowl. In a measuring jug, combine the egg, milk and oil. Whisk and pour in to the flour mixture.


Mix up and add all the other ingredients. using a teaspoon, transfer the mix into the prepared cases. bake for 20 mins.

To make the icing combine 200g low fat cream cheese with 2 tbsps honey. Wait until the buns are cold, then swirl the icing on top of them. Enjoy!

If you leave out the spices, fruit and carrot, you have a basic muffin recipe, to which you can add fruit such a blueberrys, raspberrys etc. Also good is to substitute brown sugar for the sugar, add some rolled oats or bran, some chopped apple and cinnemon and you will have the perfect breakfast muffin. We will post some photos and a proper recipe for this soon!

Lemon Possum

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So full of fish and looking at the Sunday papers we found this baby! Woooo who are we to say no - I've just copied the below recipe from the Guardian site - we didn't change anything and with such a perfect recipe - why would you. We halved the amount to serve 4 which worked pretty well - and we had some biscuits left over for the next day

Lemon posset

One of the simplest and most delicious of all English puddings. It's remarkable that something that takes only minutes to make tastes so luxurious. Serve it as it is, with small shortbread biscuits as we do here, or with a few raspberries later in the summer. Serves six.

600ml double cream
150g caster sugar or vanilla sugar
Juice of 3 medium-sized lemons

Pour the cream into a large saucepan and add the sugar. Warm gently, stirring to dissolve the sugar, then bring to a boil and boil for exactly three minutes, without stirring. Remove from the heat and whisk in the lemon juice. Strain into a jug, then pour into six ramekins or small glasses. Cool, cover, and refrigerate for four hours before serving.

River Cottage shortbread

Makes about 24 biscuits.

175g butter, softened
90g caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
A generous pinch of salt
2 medium egg yolks
Grated zest of an orange or lemon
200g plain flour, plus extra for dusting

In a mixer, beat together the butter and sugar on a medium-high speed until very pale and fluffy - you want it to be almost white - scraping down the sides of the bowl with a spatula as you go. Lower the speed to medium and add the salt, egg yolks and zest. Beat for half a minute, then gently fold in the flour using a spatula. The dough will be very sticky.

With floured hands, scrape the dough on to a floured surface and pat into a wide, flat disc. Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Roll out the dough on a floured surface to a thickness of about 3mm and use a 6cm pastry cutter to cut out your biscuits. Use a palette knife to transfer to a nonstick baking sheet or one lined with baking parchment. Bake for seven to 10 minutes, until just golden around the edges but pale on top. Remove from the oven and sprinkle generously with caster sugar. Leave on the baking sheet to firm up for a minute or two, then carefully transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Use your biscuits to dip into the lemon possum - delicious

Mackerel Pate

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Lovely Pate for your Plate

Mackerel Pate

There were 3 of us for lunch, and we bought 4 big fillets, so there
was one left over. I cooked it and turned it into mackerel pate, like
so:

Flake the mackerel into a bowl with about 1 oz softened butter. add
half a lemon worth of juice, some chopped capers, chopped dill and
chives and mix well with a fork. Serve on crusty bread. Yum