Inishfood

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The Best of Inishowen, and Ireland

So what started out as a few bloggers going to visit Harry's restaurant, became about 60 foodies, producers, farmers and chefs descending on the Inishowen Peninsula. It was a packed 2 days (it would have been 3 had the weather not failed us!) Filled with demos, tastings, lunches, dinners, coffees, drinks and the tasting of fresh blood!

The man that no one will argue was the driving force behind the weekend was Donal Doherty of Harry's restaurant. He made everyone equally welcome and seemed justifiably excited in the shared enthusiasm of everyone there for this ethos and ideas of how we should eat.

The atmosphere and tone of the weekend was unbridled enthusiasm and positivity,  which in recent times is like a refreshing jump in the cold Atlantic - yeouch! The occasion made you feel like you would look back at this weekend in the years to come and say - yes I was there! The simple and very straight forward fact is that we have such a rich and fantastic island here - we should eat as much that comes from it's soils for a multitude of reasons. Supporting our farmers, keeping money on our shores, keeping carbon emissions down, freshness, this list could go on and on. Donal used the term locavorism, a term he really takes seriously in the running of his restaurant, using meat and produce from his closest neighbors.

On a more personal level, recently I have become slightly disillusioned with the blog. A point that arrives in each bloggers life where you think "Do you know what I don't think anyone reads this?" A little down at heel I got myself all the way up to Donegal. Now re-inspired by a wealth of local producers and farmers, who all seemed keen and interested in the bloggers and the work that we do. Donal during his introduction to the walled garden community project, he said that bloggers were responsible for spreading the word. The weekend told me no don't give up, what you do is important to people outside the blogging community.

Now to do a quick pictorial run through of the weekend - get ready to drool!

Darren Bradley - very generously invited us all into his back yard where he has built his own pizza oven. With the help of his neighbor they fired out the pizza for several hours, while we all enjoyed a beer. My favorite slice was of goats cheese, carmelised onions, rosemary and truffle oil pizza.

Men of the moment - Donal of Harry's and Darren Bradley - self named Pizza Guy

After a quick welcome speech from the lovely Kirsten and Caroline of the Irish Food Bloggers Association and the blogs Dinner Du Jour and Bibliocook. It was the turn of Colin & Seanin from L. Mulligans Grocer in Stoneybatter. He introduced 3 Irish brewed and produced beers. Dungarvan Brewery's Helwick Gold, a lovely crisp beer ideal for serving with fish and chicken. A second beer that escapes me now. Thirdly was Dark Arts from Trouble Brewing Company, a truly beautiful porter, it maybe in the running for my new favourite beer.

Colin from L Mulligans Grocer loves his beer

Then it was away down a candle lit drive to Linsfort Castle B&B for storytelling and songs. A great range of stories told from Inishowen natives. The highlight of which had to be Bertie (88?) a true performer and he made me cry.

In the room next door a stew was bubbling on the stove, of venison and Dexter beef, prepared by Raymond Moran the head Chef at Harry's. It was truly tasty. In the following room a table was groaning under a weigh of cakes and a wheel of the creamy goodness that is Durrus cheese and Glebe Brethan cheese too.

Off to bed, breakfast the next morning was prepared by the welcoming Mary at Westbrook B&B.

The day at Harry's was kicked off by the lovely Juan of Coffee Angel, he was using Bailies Coffee Beans in a multitude of different ways to produce a range of coffees. 

Harrys' own butcher butchers one quarter of beef every week, so when it's gone it's off the menu! They have their own hanging room where they hang all their meat. Surprisingly little waste as seen here in this bin!

Then it was over the the enigmatic Ed Hick to demonstrate Pork Curing. We all got stuck in and I have alovely piece curing away in my fridge. I also got talking to the pigs producer of Wishing Well Farm, who told me this was his first pig. I'll be reporting back on my piece when it's ready to go.

Fluffy Blood

Pudding Ingredients

Ed Hick gets down to business

Jack Mc Carthy - you can't hide behind that pudding!

Theatrical Shots of the Puddings

McCarthy of Kanturk Award Winning Pudding

The Happy Butchers!

Lunch was slow cooked the brisket, rib, pot roast & shoulder from Marshall farms very first dexter  5mins from Harry's

After lunch we were treated to  raw milk latte, which was Divine. Then it was onto butter making with Imen from I married an Irish farmer. Great demo and so easy to do - you just need some good elbow grease. I think I've learnt the secret to Imens great photos - it's all her  pretty accessories! 

                                                

Then a tour of the walled garden that Donal along with the help of are setting up as a community garden. 

Pretty Lichen is bad for the fruit trees

A Man with a Vision!

Whippet on the Wall

Curious Horsie

Then home for a quick change of clothes and onto what I can pretty safely call the best meal of my life. Not only because of the quality of the food, cooking and ingredients, but the build up started that morning at Harry's when we got to talk to and meet the producers and farmers, that passion really came through in the food that night.

Selection of pates and toasted brioche

Butter we made earlier

Breaded Langoustine, Salt Cod and Greencastle Scampi

Pollack with Thai Spices, seaweed crisp and
sweet pepper sauce

Beef Shin Ravioli with horseradish Sauce on wild garlic

Venison Carpaccio, Mc Carthys pistahio, mint and chocolate black
pudding &  Venison Confit with Hazelnut Crust

Football Special Panna Cotta, Buttermilk Ice-cream
& deconstructed cheesecake with Yeats Country
Cream Cheese  

The only thing left to do is thank everyone from my fellow bloggers to the farmers and producers who all gave so generously of their time. Thanks to the lovely Joanna of Smorgasblog for the lift. To Catherine at the Runcible Spoon and the hilarious Aoife of I Can Has Cook for their good company. A big thank you to Caroline and Kirstin of the IFBA. An finally the man who I've mentioned about 20 times in the post - Donal Doherty for sharing his passion and showing us how things can be done when you really believe in the quality of our amazing local produce! 

Mum's Chocolate Cake

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Cake is gonna get you!

Here's Cake-ie!

My mum has been making this cake ever since I can remember - I think she got the recipe from Martha down the road - but I'm claiming it for my mum. Any occasion of note which involved kids saw this cake getting whipped up. It's a moist and delicious and appears a lot more complex than the simple recipe that makes it. The secret ingredient is black treacle - I won't hide it from you! 

Ingredients

9oz Caster Sugar

9oz Self Raising Flour

9oz Butter

3 eggs

2 tablespoons of Cocoa Powder

1/2 teaspoon of Baking Powder

1 tablespoon of Black Treacle

A dash of milk

For the icing

5oz of Icing Sugar

1.5oz Cocoa Powder

2oz Caster Sugar

3 tablespoons Water

3 oz Butter

Preheat the oven to Gas mark 4/180oc, and grease 2 circular cake tins, and line the bottoms. I used cake tins that had a diameter of 10 inches.

Sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder together in a large bowl. Add in the softened butter, eggs, treacle and the milk. Blend them all together until very well mixed, add more milk if the mixture appears too chick. Spoon into the tins and bake at the centre of the oven for 40 mins. 

Meanwhile you can prepare the icing. Sift the icing sugar and the cocoa powder into a bowl. Place the caster sugar, water and butter in a small pan.

When the cake is cooked it should spring up from a gentle press down, or a skewer should come out clean when poked into the centre. Remove gently form tins and allow to cool.

To make the icing - melt together the contents of the pan and then mix into the icing sugar mixture. If the mixture is a little thick for spreading - just add the smallest dash of boiling water and that should loosen it out a small bit. Similarly if it's to runny you could sieve in some more icing sugar. Spread over and between the two cooled sponges and you're done.

Decorate with chocolates and marshmallows for kids - or give it a dusting of icing sugar or cocoa powder for the adults. You can also make this in a tray and slice out little squares. It looks a bit like a scary ominous monster in this photo I think! It's the cake for every chocolate cake moment

Lemon and Thyme Roasted Chicken

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Chicken a la Stephen

Trying to look like we were just having a casual conversation instead of gossiping in work, me and Stephen started talking about the best way to roast a chicken. His suggestion sounded fresh with a touch of spring, so I gave it a shot!

This recipe comes from Stephen but possibly he thinks via Jamie Oliver - but I might give Stephen credit. It’s a really wonderful dish.

Stephen is the namesake for Stephen my canary - so if you haven’t met him already here a photo of his cute little yellow self. He was found by Stephen M, who was working late, one cold Sunday evening in May. He was hopping up Pearse Street, cold and lost. He opened the door of our office and in he came where he revived well and I adopted him the next day. Seems strange to put a photo of him in the same post as a roast chicken recipe, oh well! He eats boiled eggs so it’s the same thing really!

Ingredients
1 medium chicken
1 lemon
small bunch of fresh thyme
3 oz butter
1 red onion
3 parsnips
2 carrots
3 sticks of celery
1/2 a turnip

Wash the chicken inside and out - then pat dry. Pre-heat your oven to Gas mark 5. Peel your veg and chop into large chunks . Put into a large baking dish along with a good grind of black pepper, some salt and a few sprigs of thyme.

Make the herb butter by combining the zest of the lemon with the butter and 3 tablespoons of fresh thyme. Then gently press the butter in between the skin and the top of the breast - the skin needs a small amount of convincing.

Place the chicken on top of your bed of vegetables - give the outside of the chicken a little seasoning also. Cover the whole thing in tin foil, then cook in the middle of the oven for 2 hours.

Remove the tinfoil, drain away the excess juice and retain for gravy later. Pop back in the oven for another 30 mins to brown and allow the skin to crisp.

After 30 mins - remove chicken and allow to rest for 10-15 minutes, while the meat is resting take the veg to the top shelf of the oven and crank up the heat to gas mark 8/9 to get a nice crisp finish to your root veg.

Prepare the gravy - in the roasting tin, throw a large dash of sherry, scrape of all the nice juicy bits with your wooden spoon. Then mix in one heaped tablespoon of plain flour. Mix well so that it forms a paste with the sherry. Then the juices from the chicken that you removed earlier would have separated. Drain off the excess fat from the top, then stir the juices into your flour mixture a little at a time, until well incorporated, continue doing this until you have a nice thick gravy. Check the seasoning.

Then carve your chicken, a good sharp carving knife is always good to have around. Serve on a bed of roasted veg drizzled with gravy, the lemon. A fresh and subtle lemon flavor will be throughout the meat and gravy, the edges of your veg will be caramelised and crispy - wonderful! The butter above the breast made it fantastically moist and tasty.

Thanks Stephen, Lola declared it - the best roast chicken she’s ever had

Crepe Suzette

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Nearly three weeks from Pancake Tuesday we bring you the second course of our Pancake Extravaganza 100% intentional I promise!

I don't usually recommend songs - but they sing about pancake batter! a cover of the White Stripes by the Golden Filter

Make the Crepes as follows (again, this is a recipe from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking)

Ingredients Pancake Batter

1/2 cup cold water
1/2 cup milk
2 large eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 Tablespoons melted butter
1 tbsp caster sugat 

1tbsp cointreau or Grand marinier

Mix all the ingredients together and whizz in a food processor (I used my trusty stick blender) refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Make the crepes: Get a heavy bottomed non-stick frying pan really hot and melt some butter in it, wipe the majority of the butter away with a wodge of kitchen paper. Do this between each pancake. This recipe should make about 12 pancakes.

Spoon about half a ladle full (depends on how thin you like them, but for crepes, the thinner the better) of the mixture into the hot pan and swirl around quickly until evenly coated. Place back on the heat and cook for 2 or 3 minutes until golden brown, then flip and cook for another minute or so on the other side until golden brown.

You can make the crepes up to 4 or 5 hours in advance. Don't refrigerate them. Just stack them up on a plate on on top of the other and they should be fine.

When you're ready to serve the dessert mix the following ingredients in a bowl: (this will make enough sauce for 8 pancakes so you can increase everything a little if you want to use up all 12 of your crepes from the recipe above)

Ingredients Crepe Suzette Sauce

Zest of 1 orange
Juice of 3 oranges
1 tbsp cointreau/grand marnier
1 tbsp caster sugar


Transfer half of this into your frying pan and heat it up until warm and slightly bubbling. Ad 1 oz butter and swirl so that it all melts in. Place a crepe in this sauce, and quickly flip it so it is coated on both sides. Then fold it in half and half again. Leave the folded crepe in the pan while you heat up and fold another 3 crepes so you have 4 in the pan at once. 

Then quickly add in 2 tbsps cointreau and set in on fire with a match. Stand well back as it will Whoosh up and look very impressive. Bring it to the table and serve.

If you wanted to serve all 8 crepes at once you could probably fold them in 8ths...

We had this by itself and it was gorgeous, but if you wanted to be extra extra decadent you could serve it with ice-cream or Chantilly for an added French touch.

Steak Bearnaise

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Lets French!

or 
Mastering the Art of Butter

A few months ago Lu and I dragged my long suffering fella Colm along to see the ultimate foodie/chick flick Julie and Julia. By the end of the film he had to grudgingly admit that, actually, it was a pretty enjoyable film. So for Christmas this year Colm bought me a copy of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and inside was a ticket for two to Paris! Awww. So we are heading off on Thursday which had finally pushed me to blog this recipe, which I cooked from said book over a month ago for my friend Stuart.

Having read a good few of the recipes over the Christmas period, I came to the conclusion that Julia Child's main philosophy of cooking is as follows: 'First melt some butter. Then sauté some slices of butter in some more butter. Then add some chopped cubes of cold butter. Finish with some melted butter'

Anyway, Stuart is a good Naval man so I figured he would appreciate a steak. He arrived brandishing two bottles of Ruby port and proceeded to show Lu and I how to make the perfect Hot Port on the high seas. Then we drank them all. Oh dear.

Julia Child's sauce Bearnaise (straight and unedited from the horses mouth)

(NB- I recently invested in a set of American Cup measurements and teaspoon/tablespoons. They are invaluable and only cost 3 euro in Allrooms on Liffey st!)

(NB 2- I have used square and curley brackets to try to make a bit more sense of her extremely complicated recipes)

Ingredients

1/4 cup wine vinegar

1/4 cup dry white wine or dry white vermouth

1 Tb minced shallots or green onions

1 Tb minced fresh tarragon or 1/2 Tb dried tarragon

1/8tsp pepper

pinch of salt

a small saucepan

3 egg yolks

2 tb cold butter

1 Tb cold water

1 Tb lemon Juice

big pinch of salt

1 Tb cold Butter

1 [another] Tb cold butter

1/2 to 2/3 cup melted butter

2 tb fresh minced tarragon or parsley

For 1 1/2 cups

Boil the vinegar, wine, shallots or onions, herbs and seasonings over a moderate heat until the liquid has reduced to 2 tablespoons. Let it cool.

Then proceed as though making a hollandaise, page 79 [cut the butter into pieces and melt it in a saucepan over a moderate heat. Then set aside Beat the egg yolks for about a minute in the {other medium enamel or stainless steel} saucepan until they become thick and sticky. add the water, lemon juice and salt and beat for half a minute more.

Add a tb of cold butter, but do not beat in. Place the saucepan over very low heat or barely simmering water and stir the egg yolks with a wire whip until they slowly thicken into a smooth cream. This will take 1 to 2 minutes. If they seem to be thickening too quickly, or even suggest a lumpy quality, immediately plunge the bottom of the pan in cold water , beating the yolks to cool them. {I did this, it works!} Then continue beating over the heat. The egg yolks have thickened enough when you can begin to see the bottom of the pan between strokes, and the mixture forms a light cream on the wires of the whip.] Strain in the vinegar mixture and beat

[Immediately remove from the heat and beat in the cold butter [1tb, I presume] which will cool the egg yolks and stop their cooking. Then beating the egg yolks with a wire whip, pour on the melted butter by droplets or quarter-teaspoon-fuls until the sauce begins to thicken into a very heavy cream. Then pour the butter a little more rapidly. Omit the milky residue at the bottom of the butter pan.]

Correct seasoning and beat in the tarragon or parsley

Phew!!!

I know, a bit of a palaver but actually it wasn't that bad when I actually did it. I got the vinegar mixture done ahead of time, and beat up the eggs well before I cooked the steak. then when the steak was cooking I made the sauce. At the end, I de-glazed the steak pan with one Tb white wine, which technically makes this a sauce Colbert, according to Julia.

I served with sauteed potatoes cooked in a stupid amount of butter, another Julia recipe, and some steamed asparagus. It was really super delish. It would want to be after all that butter.

Here's my translation of the potato recipe into modern day parlance, I cant take any more of those brackets!

Sauteed Potatoes
2 lb small new potatoes, peeled

3 - 4 tbs clarified butter (melted and milk solids skimmed off so it can't burn)

pinch salt

Peel the potatoes but don't wash them after or during peeling. Dry them in a clean tea towel. Pour the butter into a heavy skillet or frying pan which has a tight fitting lid. Heat until very hot but not coloring, or until it begins to foam. Then ad the potatoes. Leave for two minutes. Then give them a shake every now and then so that they sear on all sides. Cook for another 5-8 mins. Sprinkle them with salt. Lower the heat, cover the skillet with the lid and cook for about 15 mins, shaking every now and then to prevent sticking and ensure even coloring. They are done when they yield slightly to the pressure of your finger, or when a knife pierces them easily.

Ok, so now on to the
Hot Ports

Stuart reckons that the only way to make a good hot port is as follows

1) In a large wine glass heat the glass with some boiling water (make sure you have a metal spoon or similar in there so you wont break the glass)

2) Pour in a double measure of ruby port

3) Get a teaspoon of muscavado sugar (it has to be muscavado)

4) Hold it over the glass while you pour boiling hot water over it and into the glass, this way the sugar melts into the port.

No cloves or lemons need apply

Voila!

Here's a pic of the book itself with its best friend, a big load of butter. {I had a full 500g package of butter before I started cooking this meal so this gives you an idea of how much I used!}