For some time now I’ve become more and more intrigued by the food of the Caucasus  – Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia…..

I haven’t managed to get there yet, but it’s high on my list of places to visit just as soon as I can. My interest has been sparked by Olia Hercules, a beautiful, enchanting young cook who was born in Ukraine and came to London via Cyprus. She writes evocatively about the food of her homeland and the surrounding countries, rich beautiful peasant food, the sort of food I love to eat.

In this part of the world, where the home cooks have learned the skills from their parents, grandparents and great grandparents, they value every morsel of food and know how to use every scrap of seasonal produce deliciously. Foraging, pickling, fermenting and preserving is an innate part of their food culture. I long to taste some of the dishes Olia described so evocatively in her books – the result of many research trips to the Caucuses where she visited peoples’ farms and went into their kitchens to learn from traditional  home cooks. No fluffs or foams or skid marks going on here but beautiful real food, sometimes utterly traditional and other recipes where Olia has created a delicious twist on the original.  I met her recently at the Oxford Food Symposium where she cooked a delicious dinner Wild East Feast.

I’ve invited her to do a guest chef appearance here at The Ballymaloe Cookery School. I’ll keep you posted as soon as we finalise the date. I’m also hoping that she will do a Pop-Up dinner at Ballymaloe House in the Autumn and perhaps an East Cork Slow Food Event – all to be confirmed – you can see I’m smitten by this young cook whom the Observer Food Magazine named Rising Star of the Year in 2015 when her first cookbook Mamushka was published. Several of the recipes that follow come from her second book Kaukasis published by Octopus Books. I’ve especially picked delicious Summery recipes to use the bounty of fruit and vegetables that nature is providing for us at present.

 

Olia Hercules’s Tomato and Raspberry Salad

This salad came about when Ének, a first-generation Hungarian who had settled in Georgia, picked out some extremely good tomatoes at a market in Tbilisi. Inspired by Hungarian-rooted chefs from Bar Tarrine in San Francisco who do a version of this salad with sour cherries, she made one with raspberries, toasty unrefined sunflower oil and some green coriander seeds and flower heads. I know tomatoes and raspberries sound like a combination that should just be left alone, but it actually really works if you use excellent tomatoes, although not with hard, flavourless supermarket tomatoes. The tomatoes need to be ripe, sweet, flavoursome and juicy fruit so that they almost equal the raspberries in texture and juiciness. Strong, savoury, soft herbs also go very well here. Try marjoram or oregano mixed with mint or coriander leaves, dill or tarragon —you are going for intensity here. And make sure you season it really well with good flaky sea salt.

 

Serves 4 as a side

4 large super-ripe tomatoes

10 firm yellow, green and red cherry tomatoes

8 raspberries

5 black olives, pitted and torn

3 tablespoons unrefined sunflower oil

a few coriander flower heads or 3 sprigs of marjoram, leaves picked

1 sprig of mint, leaves picked and large ones torn

4 sprigs of dill, chopped

1/4 mild onion, thinly sliced

sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper

 

 

Cut the tomatoes into sections. Your tomatoes should be so ripe that you will end up with loads of juice on your chopping board. Don’t throw it away but add it to a bowl to use as part of the dressing.

 

Pop the tomatoes on to a serving plate and scatter over the raspberries and olives.

 

Whisk the unrefined sunflower oil into the reserved tomato juices and pour over the salad Season generously with some salt and pepper, and sprinkle over the herbs and onion. The juices remaining at the bottom of the salad are made for bread-mopping.

 

Tip:  If you can’t find the correct sunflower oil, try another nutty oil. Mix a little sesame oil with some avocado or rapeseed oil, or try walnut oil if you can find the good stuff.

From Kaukasis, the Cookbook by Olia Hercules published by Octopus Books

 

 

Olia Hercules’s Savoury Peach & Tarragon Salad

We are used to tarragon in creamy sauces in the West but mainly just with chicken, and it remains such an under-used herb, often declared as too strong and dominant. But Georgians love it and it finds its way into many, many dishes. We made this in Tbilisi in June, inspired by the gorgeous local produce. A savoury salad made only with fruit may seem unusual, but it works. Sour gooseberries or grapes combined with sweet peaches (or nectarines) along with savoury tarragon and salt makes a dream accompaniment to some grilled pork or iamb chops, or roasted meaty summer squashes.

 

 

Serves 2 as a side

 

2 peaches, stoned and sliced

50g (1¾ oz) gooseberries or grapes (or 4 tart plums, stoned and sliced)

1/2  small bunch of tarragon, leaves picked (or a few fennel fronds)

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1/4 small red chilli, deseeded and diced

1/2, teaspoon caster sugar or honey

1 small garlic clove, grated

sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper

 

Arrange the peaches and gooseberries or grapes on a plate. Mix the tarragon leaves with the lemon juice, fresh chilli, sugar or honey, garlic, some salt and a generous pinch of pepper then pour the dressing over the fruit and serve.

 

Variation: Mix a handful of pumpkin seeds with ½ tablespoon of maple syrup, a pinch of chilli flakes and some salt, spread them out on to a lined baking sheet and roast in the oven at 180°C (350°F), Gas Mark 4 for 5 minutes. Remove from

The oven, leave to cool, then use as a savoury topping.

From Kaukasis, the Cookbook by Olia Hercules published by Octopus Books

 

 

Olia Hercules’s Courgettes & Garlic Matsorii

This dish is simplicity itself. It used to be made with mayonnaise throughout the ex-Soviet Union, but thank goodness that’s all over and we can now use traditional premium dairy. As with all simple recipes, this is particularly tasty if you can source great home-grown or good-quality courgettes and make your own matsoni. If your courgettes are not the greatest, try using a mixture of all the soft herbs you like best to give them a bit of a lift. But if you have amazing vegetables and your own homemade yogurt, use just a little dill and let them sing their sweet, gentle song. And I love borage for its subtle cucumber flavour overtones.

 

Serves 4 as a side

2 large courgettes

4 tablespoons vegetable oil

100 (3½ oz) Homemade Matsoni or good-quality natural yogurt

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 tablespoon of your favourite mixture of soft herbs, roughly chopped

sea salt flakes

 

Slice the courgettes lengthways into 5mm (14 inch) strips.

Hear the oil in a large frying pan and fry the courgette slices on each side until deep golden. Remove and drain them on kitchen paper.

Mix the matsoni or yogurt with the garlic and add some salt, then taste – it should be really well seasoned, so add more salt if necessary. Drizzle the mixture over the courgettes and sprinkle over the herbs.

Variation

Try lightly coating the courgettes in flour before frying – it will give them a bit more body. Buckwheat flour adds a nice nuttiness to the flavour.

From Kaukasis, the Cookbook by Olia Hercules published by Octopus Books

 

 

 

 

Olia Hercules’s Herb Kükü OPTIONAL     

“I tried an Azerbaijani herby omelette called kükü I announced excitedly. “That dish was originally Iranian!” was Sabrina Ghayour’s response – there is no escaping her intensely Persian focus. While I agree with her that this dish definitely has Persian roots, it is also treasured in neighbouring Azerbaijan. I really love the name (it sounds so playful), love how herby it is (it’s mostly herbs held together by a little egg) and love the sprinkling of sumac on top. You can fry it in oil if you wish, but I do love soft herbs cooked in butter – there is so much satisfaction to be had from a combination of fresh, fragrant flavour, creamy dairy and eggs. Play around with the combination of soft herbs; there are endless variants to enjoy – I often use watercress, spring onion, sorrel, spinach or wild garlic. Serve with flatbreads, a simple tomato salad and some natural yogurt with chopped cucumber, chilli, salt and a tiny bit of garlic.

 

Serves 4

150g mixture of soft herbs, such as coriander, dill, purple or green basil, tarragon and chives

4 eggs

1 garlic clove, finely grated

3 spring onions, finely chopped

20g (3/4oz) Clarified Butter or ordinary butter and a drop of vegetable oil

½ teaspoon ground sumac

sea salt flakes

23cm (9 inch) diameter frying pan

 

Remove any tough stalks from your mixture of herbs, then finely chop the softer stalks together with the leaves.

Whisk the eggs with some salt and the garlic, then stir in all the chopped herbs and spring onions.

Heat the Clarified Butter in a 23cm (9 inch) diameter frying pan and add the herby eggs. Cook, without touching it, over a medium-low heat for about 5 minutes until the eggs are just set and the underside develops a golden crust.

Now comes the tricky bit. To flip the kükü, cover the pan with a big plate, turn it upside-down plate, then slide the kükü back into the pan. Continue cooking for 1 minute until other side is golden then remove from the heat and slide it on to a serving plate. Sprinkle the sumac on the top and serve.

 

VARIATION You can also add a handful of lightly toasted and crushed walnuts to the kuku. For a winter version of the dish, use thinly sliced Swiss chard or beetroot tops or sweet white cabbage instead of the herbs.

From Kaukasis, the Cookbook by Olia Hercules published by Octopus Books

 

 

Olia Hercules’s Tarragon & Cucumber Lemonade

Instead of cola and fizzy orange drinks, us ex-Soviet children grew up drinking a fizzy fluorescent green pop called “tarkhun”, meaning “tarragon”. It was poisonous-green, very sweet yet somehow delicious. Tarragon is extremely popular in Georgia – they do not shy away from its strong flavour. I do love the addition of cucumbers like they do in the Pheasant’s Tears restaurant in Signagi, a town in the Kakheti region of eastern Georgia,  which makes this summer drink even fresher.

Makes about 3 litres (51/4 pints)

500ml (18fl oz) water

200g (7oz) caster sugar

finely grated zest and juice of 4 (preferably Sicilian) lemons

2 bunches of tarragon

2 cucumbers, sliced

2 litres (31/2 pints) cold sparkling mineral water

 

Put the still water into a saucepan with the sugar and heat over a low heat, stirring often, until the sugar has completely dissolved. Leave to cool completely, then stir in the lemon zest and juice.

Blitz the tarragon (reserving a few sprigs) and half the cucumber in a blender or food processor (easier and less splashy than using a pestle and mortar, although you can do it that way). Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

Mix the lemony cordial with the tarragon and cucumber juice and dilute it as you would with any cordial – topped up with sparkling or still water. This is not too bad with a dash of gin, too.

From Kaukasis, the Cookbook by Olia Hercules published by Octopus Books

 

 

Olia Hercules’s Buckwheat Ice Cream

1 really, really wanted to use Marina’s pine cones in a dessert of my own, as they are just so unusual, a chef’s dream. But because they are so tannic and taste so strongly of pine, only a tiny bit could be used. I also really wanted to make buckwheat ice cream, as when we were children, mum used to boil buckwheat in salted water and then dress it with melted butter and sugar. That flavour was haunting me, just like I imagine the cereal milk would for those who grew up eating sweet cereal. My friend Alissa and I threw a Kino Vino supper club during Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky Week in London, showing his 1975 film called Mirror, followed by a feast inspired by the movie. One of the last scenes depicted a buckwheat field bordering a malachite-hued pine forest. Bingo. The two came together. So this is my poetic nostalgic dessert, although don’t worry about trying to find pine cones, as I’ve suggested using fresh bay leaves instead here to add savouriness.

 

Serves 6-8

100g (3 ½ oz) raw buckwheat groats (or use ready-toasted)

10 fresh bay leaves, crushed

250m1 (9fl oz) milk

250g (9oz) double cream

generous pinch of salt

150g (5½ oz) caster sugar (optional)

4 egg yolks

100-150g (3½ -5½ oz) granulated sugar poached rhubarb, to serve

You will also need (ideally) an ice-cream machine and a large piece of muslin

 

 

If using raw buckwheat, heat a large, frying pan over a medium heat, toss in the buckwheat and toast, wiggling the pan about from time to time, until it becomes golden but not burnt. Taste it and check that it is crunchy and edible – it’s very important that you get this right. Leave the buckwheat to cool.

 

Wrap the crushed bay leaves and buckwheat in the muslin and tie securely. Add it to the milk and cream in a large saucepan over a medium heat. Add the salt and taste the mixture – you should be able to detect the salt ever so slightly. If you intend to serve the ice cream with something tart, add 150g (5½ oz) caster sugar.

When the milk mixture is almost boiling, turn the heat off and leave to infuse for an hour.

Beat the egg yolks and sugar together in a large heatproof bowl.

Remove the muslin and squeeze out all the flavour, then discard. Bring the milk mixture back up to almost boiling. Pour it on to the egg yolk mixture, stirring constantly, then pour back into the pan and cook over a low heat, stirring, for about 5 this mixture minutes or until slightly thickened.

Cover the surface of the custard with clingfilm to prevent a skin from forming and leave the custard to cool.

Churn the ice cream in an ice-cream machine according to the manufacturers instructions, then serve with some simple poached rhubarb.

Tip If you don’t have an ice-cream machine, create a semifreddo with the custard. Make the custard as instructed above and leave to cool, then fold  through  egg whites, whisked until firm peaks form. Freeze for 2 hours and serve slightly soft.

From Kaukasis, the Cookbook by Olia Hercules published by Octopus Books

 

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Corn flowers, primroses, forget-me-nots, day lilies, marigolds, roses, lavender, nasturtiums, dahlias, chrysanthemum…

I love to scatter flower petals over desserts, cakes and biscuits. Judiciously used they also add a little magic to starter plates and salads. Of course the flowers must be edible but a wide variety of blossoms are, as well as the flowers of broad beans, scarlet runners, sun chokes, peas and sea kale, but remember they will  eventually grow into the vegetables so pick sparingly.

 

The canary yellow zucchini and squash blossoms are also irresistible not just to tear into salads but also to dip into a tempura batter – stuffed or unstuffed.

 

Even the cheery little nasturtium flower with its peppery taste are both cute and delicious stuffed with a little herby cream cheese. We also chop the gaily coloured nasturtium blossom and add them into a lemony butter to serve with a piece of spanking fresh fish.

 

Fennell and dill flowers have a delicious liquoricey, aniseed flavour. They too add magic to fish dishes and broths but also to some pastas and of course salads.

Dahlia flowers are gorgeous sprinkled over salads, I particularly love them scattered over an heirloom tomato or potato salad.

 

Thyme flowers are various shades of blue and purple – we love to use them to garnish little pots of pate or to sprinkle over a bowl of silky onion and thyme leaf soup.

Sage and hyssop flowers are even more intensely blue and they two give a vibrant and perky flavour to salads and summer vegetable dishes.

The kombuchas and water kefirs that we serve at the school every day also include edible flowers which introduce the yeast of the area into the gut enhancing drink.

 

This freekeh salad makes a wonderful vehicle for a variety of edible flowers. Pomegranate molasses is now widely available and now has become a favourite ingredient for those of us who have developed a passion for Middle Eastern flavours.

 

Heritage Tomato Salad with Flowers, Za’atar and Freekeh

This is a pretty salad with lots of edible flowers from the garden and the tomatoes are particularly good. Freekeh is a Lebanese wheat. It’s picked while still under ripe and set on fire to remove the husk, which smokes and toasts the grain.

 

Serves 4

 

100g (3½ oz) freekeh or farro

sea salt

extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon pomegranate molasses

12 cherry tomatoes

2 teaspoons za’atar

lots of edible flowers, perhaps marigolds, cornflowers, violas, rocket flowers, or borage (remove furry calyx from behind the flower), chive or coriander or fennel blossom depending on what’s available in Summer.

 

Put the freekeh or farro into a saucepan with cold water, bring to the boil and simmer for 4-6 minutes, depending on the freekeh (some are broken grains, others whole). It should be soft but still slightly chewy. Drain, season with salt and drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and toss.  Taste and correct the seasoning.

 

In a little bowl, whisk the pomegranate molasses with 3 tablespoons  extra virgin olive oil to emulsify.

 

Cut the tomatoes into wedges. Season with salt and a little extra virgin olive oil. Lay the tomatoes on a plate, scatter with the freekeh, then sprinkle over the za’atar and edible flowers. Finish the plate by drizzling with the pomegranate molasses mixture.  Taste and add a few more sea salt flakes if necessary.

 

Note

Freekeh cooking times vary quite dramatically depending on the type and age of the freekeh.

Onion, Thyme Leaf  and Thyme Flower Soup

Sprinkle thyme flowers over the top to add a little “je ne sais quoi”

 

Serves 6 approximately

 

450g 1lb (1lb) chopped onions

225g (8oz) chopped potatoes

45g (1 1/2oz) butter

1-2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves

salt and freshly ground pepper

1 litre (1 3/4 pints) homemade chicken stock or vegetable stock

150ml (5fl oz) cream or cream and milk mixed, approx.

 

Garnish

fresh thyme leaves and thyme or chive  flowers

a little whipped cream (optional)

 

Peel and chop the onions and potatoes into small dice, about one third inch.  Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan. As soon as it foams, add the onions and potatoes, stir until they are well coated with butter. Add the thyme leaves, season with salt and freshly ground pepper.  Place a paper lid on top of the vegetables directly to keep in the steam. Then cover the saucepan with a tight fitting lid and sweat on a low heat for 10 minutes approx. The potatoes and onions should be soft but not coloured. Add the chicken stock, bring it to the boil and simmer until the potatoes are cooked, 5-8 minutes approx. Liquidise the soup and add a little cream or creamy milk. Taste and correct the seasoning if necessary.

 

Serve in soup bowls or in a soup tureen garnished with a blob of whipped cream, sprinkle with thyme leaves and thyme or chive flowers.

 

 

Stuffed Nasturtium Flowers

Nasturtiums are the flower that keeps on giving – super easy to grow. This charming little bite, also good served with a little smoked mackerel alongside, a delicious little starter or a nibble to go with a glass of wine.

Children love helping to fill the flowers.

 

Serves

 

12 whole nasturtium flowers, freshly picked (+ 1 for tasting)

110g (4oz) fresh ricotta or goat cheese

2 teaspoons of chopped chives

1 teaspoon lemon thyme

1 teaspoon chervil, chopped

a little honey, optional

½ teaspoon sea salt and freshly ground pepper

 

Garnish

2 chive blossoms

12 pickled nasturtium capers

 

Mix the freshly chopped herbs gently with the cheese.  Taste, add a little honey and seasoning if necessary.

Open a flower, use a piping bag or teaspoon to fill the centre.  Almost cover with the petals.  (Taste to make sure the balance of flavours is good)

Tweak if necessary and continue to stuff the remainder of the flowers.

Cover a serving plate with nasturtium leaves, lay the flowers on top.

Garnish with a sprinkling of chive blossom and nasturtium capers.

 

Pan-grilled Fish with Vietnamese Cucumbers and Fennell Flowers

 

Pan-grilling is one of my favourite ways to cook fish, meat and vegetables.  Square or oblong cast-iron pan-grills can be bought in virtually all good kitchen shops and are a ‘must have’ as far as I am concerned.  In this recipe you can use almost any fish – mackerel, grey sea mullet, cod, sea bass, haddock – provided it is very fresh.

 

Serves 8-10

 

8 x 175g (6oz) of very fresh fish fillets

seasoned flour

small knob of butter (soft)

 

Accompaniment

Vietnamese Cucumbers (see below)

Fennell flowers

 

Heat the pan grill. Dry the fish fillets well. Just before cooking but not earlier dip the fish fillets in flour which has been well seasoned with salt and freshly ground pepper. Pass the floured fillet between the palms of your hands to shake off the excess flour and then spread a little soft butter evenly over the entire surface of the flesh side, as though you were buttering a slice of bread rather meanly. When the grill is hot but not smoking, place the fish fillets butter side down on the grill; the fish should sizzle as soon as they touch the pan. Turn down the heat slightly and let them cook for 4 or 5 minutes (time depends on the thickness of the fish). Turnover and cook on the other side until crisp and golden. Serve on a hot plate with the Vietnamese cucumbers and fresh herbs on the side.

Sprinkle a few fennel flowers on top.

 

Tip

Be sure to wash and dry the grill-pan each time between batches.

 

 

Vietnamese Cucumbers

 

Serves 8-10

 

4 cucumbers

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Fish Sauce (Nam pla)

2.5cm (1 inch) piece of ginger, peeled and cut into fine julienne

2 tablespoons palm sugar

1-2 Serrano or Jalapeno or fresh Thai chillies

juice of 2 or 3 limes

 

fistful of fresh mint sprigs

fistful basil sprigs

thinly sliced scallions or onion

 

Peel the cucumbers, cut them lengthwise in half, and remove the seeds with a spoon if they are large.  Slice the cucumbers into thickish half-moons and put them in a large bowl.  Season with salt and pepper, sprinkle lightly with fish sauce, then add the ginger and palm sugar.  Toss well, and let the cucumbers sit for 5 minutes or so.

 

Add a good spoonful of the chopped Serrano or Jalapeno chillies (seeds removed, if desired) or finely slivered Thai chillies.  Squeeze over the juice of 2 limes and toss again, then cover and refrigerate until ready to serving.

 

Just before serving add a fistful of roughly chopped mint and basil leaves.  Taste and adjust the seasoning with lime juice as well as salt and pepper.  Garnish with thinly sliced scallions or paper-thin slices of onion.

 

 

 

Honey and Lavender Ice-Cream

Honey and lavender is a particularly delicious marriage of flavours. We make this richly scented ice cream when the lavender flowers are in bloom in early Summer.  Lavender is at its most aromatic just before the flowers burst open.  Serve it totally alone on chilled plates and savour every mouthful.

 

Serves 8-10

 

250ml (9floz) milk

450ml (16floz) cream

40 sprigs of fresh lavender or less of dried (use the blossom end only)

6 organic egg yolks

175ml (6floz) pure Irish honey, we use our own apple blossom honey, although Provencal lavender honey would also be wonderful

Garnish

sprigs of lavender

 

Put the milk and cream into a heavy bottomed saucepan with the lavender sprigs, bring slowly to the boil and leave to infuse for 15-20 minutes. This will both flavour and perfume the cream deliciously.  Whisk the egg yolks, add a little of the lavender flavoured liquid and then mix the two together.  Cook over a low heat until the mixture barely thickens and lightly coats the back of a spoon (careful it doesn’t curdle).  Melt the honey gently, just to liquefy, whisk into the custard.  Strain out lavender heads.

 

Chill thoroughly and freeze, preferably in an ice-cream maker.

 

Serve garnished with sprigs of fresh or frozen lavender (see recipe)

Frosted Lavender

Frosted lavender sprigs are adorable and delicious to use for garnish.  Pick lavender in dry weather while the flowers are still closed.  Whisk a little egg white lightly, just enough to break it up, brush the entire lavender sprig with the egg white, sprinkle all over with sieved, dry castor sugar.  Lay on a sheet of silicone paper.  Allow to dry and crisp in a warm spot – hot press or near a radiator until dry and crisp.  Store in an airtight tin.

 

Honey Mousse with Lavender Jelly

JR Ryall, head pastry chef at Ballymaloe House, loves to make this dessert in June using the lavender from the walled garden at Ballymaloe, just before the flowers open.  Using only the best quality local Irish honey will make this feather light mousse truly unforgettable.

 

Serves 6

 

For the honey mousse:

 

1 egg

1 teaspoon gelatine

1½ tablespoons cold water

350ml (12 fl oz) whipping cream

75g (30z) best quality local Irish honey

1 tablespoon Grand Marnier, to taste

 

Whip the cream to soft peaks and keep in the fridge.  Sprinkle the gelatine over the cold water in a small bowl and allow to ‘sponge’.  Once fully rehydrated, melt the gelatine by placing the bowl over hot but not boiling water.  Add the honey and Grand Marnier to the melted gelatine and stir until the mixture is an even consistency and allow to return to room temperature.   Whisk the egg to a pale mousse, using an electric mixer, then gently fold the mousse into the whipped cream.   Now fold the cream mixture into the honey and gelatine in three stages.   Pour the mousse into its serving dish and chill until set.   Now prepare the lavender jelly.

 

For the Lavender Jelly

 

6 fresh lavender heads

225ml (8fl.oz) water

110g (4oz) sugar

1½ teaspoon gelatine

2½ tablespoon cold water

 

Put the sugar and the 225ml/8fl.oz water in a heavy bottomed saucepan and bring slowly to the boil. Once the syrup has boiled remove the saucepan from the heat and drop in the lavender heads.  Enjoy the wonderful lavender perfume as the syrup cools to room temperature.   Meanwhile sprinkle the gelatine over the 2½ tablespoon cold water in a small bowl and allow to ‘sponge’.   Once fully rehydrated, melt the gelatine by placing the bowl over hot but not boiling water.   Strain the cooled syrup through a sieve, add to the melted gelatine and mix well.   Arrange 6 lavender heads on top of the set mousse and carefully spoon over enough liquid jelly to cover the lavender and chill until the jelly is set.

 

 

 

 

 

We need to talk about ‘no shows’. Some may not even understand the term used by restaurants when guests who have booked a table do not show up on the night or cancel at the last minute when it’s too late to refill the table.

We are fortunate that this is a rare occurrence at Ballymaloe House but this practice is rampant around the country and appears, as on restauranteur put it , to have become ‘a national sport’. I’m quite sure those who lightly book two or three restaurants on the same night and then decide after a few drinks where they’ll actually go don’t realise the devastating impact they are having on the restaurant industry where the margins are very tight and no shows can and do make the difference between profit and loss, survival or not.

The Restaurant Association of Ireland in support of its members earlier this year urged them to take non-refundable deposits which would be deducted from the final bill in an effort to raise awareness of the impact of ‘no shows’. This decision was made after an average of 15% to 20% of bookings over the Christmas period turned out to be ‘no shows’. This is not just an Irish phenomenon, restaurants in the US and UK are also experiencing similar challenges and are responding by charging non-refundable booking deposits.

This practice seems to enrage many Irish customers yet, where else can we expect to book something without paying – a theatre or concert ticket – no way…

The BBC Radio 4 Food Programme recently did an entire segment on the problem with several chefs, owners and restaurant critics discussing the impact. Interestingly, the problem seemed to be considerably less among the restaurants who answer the phone rather than take bookings on a ‘booking engine’ or ‘answering machine’. Not surprisingly personal contact, a friendly human voice and a little chat, creates a bond and somehow seems to make it more difficult for customers not to show up. Some restaurants don’t even have a telephone number any longer so you must book on line. At a time when costs are soaring, business rates are increasing dramatically, particularly in cities, investment and growth in the industry is slowing down and there are acute labour shortages, no shows, are the last straw for many hard pressed restaurateurs.

 

Some restaurants in cities have opted to have a no-booking policy, guests just show up, take their chance and must be prepared to queue, that at least eliminates the ‘no show’ problem, but only works in a densely populated area where there are enough customers who are prepared to queue and the food must be worth the wait….

In just one small seasonal restaurant in West Cork last Summer, there were over 60 ‘no shows’ during the month of August which eliminated the profit for the entire month. Sadly several were regulars who would have been quite affronted at the suggestion that they should pay a non-refundable booking deposit.   In our busy lives we often don’t realize the impact of our actions – but this is not OK….

Of course plans change for a variety of reasons, some totally unavoidable but at the very least, let’s pick up the phone and cancel at the earliest opportunity so the restaurant has the opportunity to refill the table. Few restaurants will hold a deposit in the case of unexpected death or a misfortunate accident.

 

So now for something more cheerful – some of the dishes we have been enjoying with the delicious fresh summer produce from the garden, glasshouses and local area.

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Hummus with Spiced Lamb, Pinenuts and Coriander

Serves 6-8 (depending on how it is served)

450g (1lb) lamb, shoulder or fillet

 

Marinade:

1 garlic clove, crushed

extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 teaspoon sumac

½ teaspoon marjoram or oregano, coarsely chopped

½ teaspoon ground turmeric

A pinch of Aleppo pepper (pul biber) or cayenne pepper

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

 

 

Hummus 

170g (6oz) chickpeas, cooked, save the cooking liquid

freshly squeezed juice of 2-3 lemons, or to taste

2-3 large or small cloves garlic, crushed

150ml (5fl oz) tahini paste

1 teaspoon ground cumin

salt

 

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, for frying

30g Italian pine nuts

 

To garnish:

fresh coriander leaves, coarsely, chopped

1-2 teaspoons sumac

extra virgin olive oil

a few fresh pomegranate seeds (optional)

Chop the lamb fillet into 1cm-thick pieces.

Mix all the ingredients of the marinade in a bowl.

Add to the marinade and allow to soak up the flavours for 30 minutes to an hour.

 

Meanwhile make the hummus, drain the chickpeas, save the cooking liquid. Whizz up the remainder in a food processor with the freshly squeezed lemon juice and a little cooking water if necessary. Add the crushed garlic, tahini paste, cumin and salt to taste. Blend to a soft creamy paste. Taste and continue to add lemon juice and salt until you are happy with the flavour.

 

 

Toast the pine kernels over a gentle heat in a frying pan or under a grill tossing regularly. Set aside

 

Heat a little olive oil in a pan and fry the lamb for 3-4 minutes over a medium heat until it is just cooked through.

 

When you are ready to eat, transfer the hummus to individual serving bowls, use the back of a spoon to make a shallow well in each. Spoon the lamb over, finishing with a sprinkling of coriander, the toasted pine nuts and a pinch of sumac. Serve with pitta bread or any white crusty bread, we love to use the Alsham Bakery Syrian flat bread, made in Cork city.

 

Drizzle with a little extra virgin olive oil and sprinkle a few fresh pomegranate seeds over the top if you like.

Globe Artichokes with Melted Butter

 

Serves 6

 

In season:

 

Whole Globe artichokes are quite fiddly to eat. First you pull off each leaf separately and dip in the sauce. Eventually you are rewarded for your patience when you come to the heart! Don’t forget to scrape off the tickly ‘choke’; then cut the heart into manageable pieces, sprinkle with a little sea salt before you dip it into the remainder of your sauce.  Simply Delicious!

 

6 globe artichokes

1.1 litres (2pints) water

2 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons approx. white wine vinegar

 

Melted Butter

175g (6oz) butter

1-2 tablespoons freshly squeezed

 

Some restaurants do very complicated preparation but I merely trim the base just before cooking so the artichokes will sit steadily on the plate, rub the cut end with lemon juice or vinegar to prevent it from discolouring.

 

Have a large saucepan of boiling water ready, add 2 teaspoons of vinegar and 2 teaspoons of salt to every 2 pints of water, pop in the artichokes and bring the water back to the boil. Simmer steadily for about 25 minutes. After about 20 minutes you could try testing to see if they are done.  I do this by tugging off one of the larger leaves at the base, it should come away easily, if it doesn’t continue to cook for another 5 – 10 minutes. Remove and drain upside down on a plate.

 

While they are cooking simply melt the butter and add lemon juice to taste.

 

To Serve

Put each warm artichoke onto a hot serving plate, serve the sauce or melted butter in a little bowl beside it.  Artichokes are eaten with your fingers, so you might like to provide a finger bowl. A spare plate to collect all the nibbled leaves will also be useful.

 

Bocconcini, Olive, Heriloom Cherry Tomatoes and Pesto on Skewers

 

Bocconcini are baby mozzarella – great fun for salads, finger food and some pasta dishes however they need a little bit of help from the flavour perspective.  Pesto is an obvious choice.

 

Makes 20

 

20 bocconcini

Extra virgin olive oil

Pesto (see Hot Tips)

 

20–40 basil leaves

20 Kalamata olives

20 heirloom cherry tomatoes

 

bamboo cocktail sticks or short satay sticks

 

Drain the bocconcini and pop them into a bowl, drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and a generous tablespoon of homemade pesto. Toss to coat. Cover closely, leave to marinade for at least 5 minutes.

Note; The pesto will discolour if the bocconcini are tossed too far ahead.

 

 

Buffalo Mozzarella with Caponata

Love this as a starter with some crusty sourdough.  We use the fresh tender Irish mozzarella made near Macroom in West Cork.

Serves 4

 

4 buffalo mozzarella

4-6 tablespoon Caponata, see below

6-8 leaves fresh basil

Extra virgin olive oil

Flaky sea salt

 

 

To serve:

 

Cut each of the mozzarella into quarters. Arrange four wedges on a large plate.   Spoon a generous tablespoon of caponata on top.   Drizzle extra virgin olive oil.   Sprinkle with a chiffonade of basil and a few flakes of sea salt.   Serve immediately with good crusty bread.

Caponata

 

Serves 4-6

 

1 large aubergine, dice in 1/2- 3/4inch (1cm-2cm) but not peeled

salt

5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

5-6 stalks of celery, chopped

1 large onion, chopped

1 x 400g (14oz) tin chopped tomatoes

1 – 1 1/2 tablespoons caster sugar

4 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1/2-1 teaspoon freshly ground coriander

1 teaspoon capers

12 black olives, pitted and roughly chopped

2 tablespoons coarsely chopped flat parsley, chopped

salt and pepper

 

Cut the aubergine into 1-2cm (1/2-3/4inch) dice. Sprinkle with salt. Leave to drain for 30 minutes approximately. Rinse and gently dry with a clean tea towel or kitchen paper.
Heat 4 tablespoons) extra virgin olive oil in a wide sauté pan. Add the celery and cook slightly until browned. Transfer to a plate. Add the aubergine to the pan; add more oil if necessary, sauté until golden and tender, sauté. Leave to cool.

 

Add another tablespoon oil to the pan and sauté the onion until golden. Chop the tomatoes and add with the juice. Simmer for 15 minutes or so until thick. Add sugar, wine, vinegar and coriander. Cook for a further 10 minutes. Stir in the capers, olives, parsley, aubergine and celery. Season with salt and plenty of pepper. Taste and adjust seasoning, pour into a serving dish.

Serve warm or cool.

 

Carpaccio of wild salmon with fennel flowers and pollen

A rare and special treat enjoyed during the few weeks a year when we can get a precious wild salmon.

 

Serves 4

 

175g spanking fresh wild salmon

homemade mayonnaise

freshly squeezed lemon juice

extra virgin olive oil

fennel pollen

fennel flowers

fennel fronds

freshly cracked pepper

 

 

Chill the salmon for several hours or pop into the freezer for 30 minutes.

Chill the plates.

 

Just before serving:

Slice the salmon as thinly as possible.  Spread a very little homemade mayonnaise on the base of each chilled plate.   Lay a single layer of salmon on top.  Sprinkle with a few drops of freshly squeezed lemon juice and a tiny drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

Sprinkle some fennel pollen over each plate.  Snip some fennel flowers and fronds on top and finally a little sprinkling of freshly cracked pepper.

Serve as soon as possible with Ballymaloe Brown Yeast Bread – sublime.

 

 

 

 

 

Loganberry Jellies with Fresh Mint Cream

 

Makes 9-10

Syrup

200g (7oz) sugar

225ml (8fl oz) water

4 sprigs fresh mint

1 dessertspoon Framboise

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

 

3 teaspoons gelatine

3 tablespoons water

 

450g (1lb) fresh loganberries

Mint Cream

15 mint leaves approximate

1 tablespoon lemon juice

150ml (5fl oz) cream

mint leaves and loganberries for garnish

 

9-10 round or oval moulds – 75ml (3fl oz) capacity

(2 1/2 x 1 1/4 inches/6.6 x 3cm)

 

Make a syrup by bringing sugar, water and mint leaves slowly to the boil. Simmer for a few minutes, allow to cool, add the Framboise and lemon juice.

 

Meanwhile brush the inside of the moulds with non-scented oil, I use light peanut or sunflower oil

 

Sponge the gelatine in the water, then place the bowl in a pan of simmering water until the gelatine completely dissolved.

 

Remove the mint leaves from the syrup, then pour the syrup onto the gelatine.  Add the loganberries and stir gently. Fill immediately into the lined moulds. Smooth them over the top so they won’t be wobbly when you unmould them onto a plate.  Put them into the fridge and leave to set for 3-4 hours.

 

 

Meanwhile make the Mint cream.

Crush the mint leaves in a pestle and mortar with the lemon juice, add the cream and stir, the lemon juice will thicken the cream.  If the cream becomes too thick, add a little water.

 

To Serve

Spread a little mint cream on a chilled a white plate, unmould a loganberry jelly and place in the centre. Place five mint leaves on the mint cream around the jelly. Decorate with a few perfect loganberries, repeat with the other jellies.  Serve chilled.

 

HOT TIPS

 

Preserve your gluts…

Basil Pesto Homemade Pesto takes minutes to make and tastes a million times better than most of what you buy.  The problem is getting enough basil, those of you grow your own will have plenty of basil this year.  If you have difficulty, use parsley, a mixture of parsley and mint or parsley and coriander – different but still delicious.

Serve with pasta, goat cheese, tomato and mozzerella.

4ozs (110g) fresh basil leaves

6 – 8fl oz (175 – 225ml) extra virgin olive oil

1oz (25g) fresh pine kernels (taste when you buy to make sure they are not rancid)

2 large cloves garlic, peeled and crushed

2oz (50g/) freshly grated Parmesan cheese (Parmigiana Reggiano is best)

salt to taste

 

Whizz the basil with the olive oil, pine kernels and garlic in a food processor or pound in a pestle and mortar.  Remove to a bowl and fold in the finely grated Parmesan cheese. Taste and season.

 

Pesto keeps for weeks, covered with a layer of olive oil in a jar in the fridge. It also freezes well but for best results don’t add the grated Parmesan until it has defrosted. Freeze in small jars for convenience.

The Currant and Berry garden here at the Ballymaloe Cookery School is bursting with ripe, juicy organic fruit and so are the Farmers Markets. Check out the Country Markets too and try to find chemical free fruit if at all possible. We can no longer say that we don’t know the damage that pesticides and herbicides are doing to our health and the environment….

So let’s make the most of these few weeks, sadly because strawberries are available from January to December as are raspberries, they are no longer considered quite the treat they were. Neither do they generate the excitement they used to, that’s unless they are the naturally smaller, intensely flavoured home-grown berries from your garden. When you taste one of these you remember or discover what they can taste like, although the dry conditions this year made it really challenging. In this column I’m going to concentrate on currants, black, white and red…

The latter can also be found in the shops pretty much year round coming in from as far away as Peru all over the world but black and white currants are a rarer treat as are gooseberries. Blackcurrant fool is one of my all-time favourite puddings made in minutes, sublime made with freshly picked currants but also pretty good made with frozen berries. All the currants freeze brilliantly so buy as much as you can and freeze them in convenient amounts. Don’t bother to string them, just shake the bags when they are frozen and all the strings will fall off. I discovered this a few years ago when I was too busy to string the currants before they went into the freezer….

Red and white currants have a deliciously sweet flavour and are very high in pectin so are excellent for jams or jellies. Redcurrant jelly is super versatile; use it to glaze tarts, to serve with pâtés or terrines, as a base for Cumberland sauce, good with lamb and a glazed ham too. I love this recipe for redcurrant jelly, a real gem that gives me double value from each batch of redcurrants. I use the redcurrant pulp, left over from the jelly making process to make a redcurrant bakewell slice or to add to strawberry jam to enhance the pectin content. Also delicious sugared on this frosted redcurrant and lemon verbena cake. White currants can be used in similar recipes – they too, make a sublime white currant jelly, which I particularly love, with a soft goat’s cheese and rocket or purslane leaves. White currants are also enchanting frosted.
This Blackcurrant and Rose Geranium Slice can be a pudding or an irresistible nibble to enjoy with a cup of tea or coffee.

Try poached blackcurrants with beetroot and duck breast, it’s a surprisingly good combination and best of all sprinkle them onto softly whipped cream in a meringue roulade. The tartness of the currants makes a perfect foil for the sweetness of the meringue and last but not least, if you have a few currants left over make some blackcurrant whiskey for Christmas, a delectable recipe from Darina Allen’s Irish Traditional Cooking, which I will include in a another column.

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Duck Breast with Beetroot, Blackcurrant and Dahlia Salad

 

Beetroot and blackcurrant are as surprisingly good combination – they complement the duck deliciously

Serves 4-6

 

4 duck breasts

extra virgin olive oil

red wine vinegar

flaky sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Beetroot, Blackcurrant and Dahlia Salad (see recipe below)

flat parsley

First make the Beetroot, Blackcurrant and Dahlia Salad, see below.

Fifteen minutes or more before cooking, score the fat on the duck breasts in a criss-cross pattern.  Season on both sides with salt and allow to sit on a wire rack.

When ready to cook, dry the duck breasts with a clean tea towel or kitchen paper.

Put fat side down on a cold pan-grill, turn on the heat to low and cook slowly for 15-20 minutes, or until the fat has rendered and the duck skin is crisp and golden.

Flip over and cook for a couple of minutes, or transfer to a preheated moderate oven, 180C/Gas Mark 4, until cooked to medium rare or medium, 5-10 minutes, depending on the size of the duck breasts.  Allow to rest for 5 minutes or more.

Put a portion of the beetroot, blackcurrant and dahlia salad. Thinly slice, cut or dice (8mm), the duck breasts and arrange or scatter on top.  Sprinkle with sprigs of flat parsley and dahlia petals.

Add a few flakes of sea salt and serve.

Beetroot, Blackcurrant and Dahlia Salad

Such an obvious combination but one I hadn’t tried until I tasted it in Sweden. We already love the marriage of raspberries and beetroot. This recipe can be served as a starter or an accompanying salad.

Serves 8

450g (1lb) cooked beetroot

200g (7oz) sugar

450ml (16fl oz) water

1 onion, peeled and thinly sliced (optional)

225ml (8fl oz) white wine vinegar

¼ – ½lb blackcurrants

Syrup

Wine coloured dahlias and maybe a few marigold petals.

Roast or boil the beetroot. Leave 5cm (2 inches) of leaf stalks on top and the whole root on the beet. Hold it under a running tap and wash off the mud with the palms of your hands, so that you don’t damage the skin; otherwise the beetroot will bleed during cooking. Cover with cold water and add a little salt and sugar. Cover the pot, bring to the boil and simmer on top, or in an oven, for 1-2 hours depending on size. Beetroot are usually cooked if the skin rubs off easily and if they dent when pressed with a finger.  If in doubt test with a skewer or the tip of a knife.

Meanwhile, make the pickle. Dissolve the sugar in water, bringing it to the boil. Add the sliced onion and simmer for 3-4 minutes. Add the vinegar, pour over the peeled sliced (diced or cut into wedges) beet and leave to cool. Add the blackcurrants bring back to the boil and then turn off the heat.

Note: The onion can be omitted if desired.

Allow the pickle to cool completely.

To serve:- surround the plate with blackcurrant leaves. Pile the salad into the centre, decorate with flowers and serve.

 

Blackcurrant and Lemon Verbena Sugar Squares

Makes 24

 

6ozs (175g) soft butter

5ozs (150g) castor sugar

2 eggs, preferably free range

6ozs (175g) self-raising flour

2 tablespoons freshly chopped sweet or rose geranium

8ozs (225g) blackcurrants

2ozs (50g) castor sugar

1 tablespoon of freshly chopped lemon verbena

10 x 7 inch (25.5 x 18 cm) Swiss roll tin, well-greased

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4.

Put the butter, castor sugar, eggs and self-raising flour and chopped sweet geranium into a food processor. Whizz for a few seconds to amalgamate. Spread evenly in the well-buttered tin. Sprinkle the blackcurrants as evenly as possible over the top.

Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes approx. or until golden brown and well risen.

Allow to cool slightly, sprinkle with caster sugar whizzed with leaves of lemon verbena. Serve in squares.

 

Almond Cake with Frosted Currants

We serve tiny slices of this delicious moist cake with a cup of China tea or Expresso coffee.  A mixture of frosted red, black and white currants are so beautiful adorning this simple cake.   If you only have one type of currant it will still be pretty and delicious.

Serves 10

110g ground almonds

110g icing sugar

75g plain white flour

3 egg yolks, free-range if possible

125ml melted butter

Filling: 2-3 tablespoons Redcurrant or Blackcurrant Jelly (see recipe) optional

 

Icing

175g icing sugar

1½ tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice – sieved

Decoration

9-12 bunches frosted red, black and white currants (see below)

Candied angelica

18cm round tin with shallow sides – A pop up base is handy but is not essential.

Preheat the oven to 180C/regulo 4

Grease the tin evenly with melted butter and dust with a little white flour.

Mix the ground almonds, icing sugar and flour in a bowl.  Make a well in the centre; add the egg yolks and the cooled melted butter, stir until all the ingredients are thoroughly mixed. Spread the cake evenly in the prepared tin, make a little hollow in the centre and tap on the worktop to release any large air bubbles.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes.  It should still be moist but cooked through.  Allow to sit in the tin for 5 or 6 minutes before unmoulding onto a wire rack.

Allow to cool.

Optional – Split the cake in half and spread with Redcurrant Jelly, sandwich the two pieces together.

To make the icing:

Sieve the icing sugar into a bowl, mix to a thickish smooth icing with the sieved lemon juice.  Pile onto the cake using a palette knife dipped in the boiling water and dried to spread it gently over the top and sides of the cake.

Decorate with the frosted redcurrants and little diamonds of angelica.

 Frosted Redcurrants

Take about 12 perfect bunches of black, white or redcurrants attached to the stem.

Whisk one egg white in a bowl until broken up and slightly fluffy.

Spread 115g castor sugar onto a flat plate.

Dip a bunch of redcurrants in the egg white, ensure that every berry has been lightly coated, drain very well.

Lay on the castor sugar and sprinkle castor sugar over the top.   Check that every surface is covered.

Arrange carefully on a tray covered with silicone paper and put into a dry airy place until crisp and frosted.

Redcurrant or Whitecurrant Jelly

Redcurrant jelly is a very delicious and versatile product to have in your larder.  It has a myriad of uses. It can be used like a jam on bread or scones, or served as an accompaniment to roast lamb, bacon or ham. It is also good with some rough pâtés and game, and is invaluable as a glaze for red fruit tarts.

This recipe is a particular favourite of mine, not only because it’s fast to make and results in delicious intensely flavoured jelly, but because one can use the left over pulp to make a fruit tart, so one gets double value from the redcurrants.  Unlike most other fruit jelly, no water is needed in this recipe.

We’ve used frozen fruits for this recipe also, stir over the heat until the sugar dissolves, proceeds as below.  You can use white currants – which will be difficult to find unless you have your own bush. The white currant version is wonderful with cream cheese as a dessert or makes a perfect accompaniment to lamb or pork.

Makes 3 x 450g (1lb) jars

900g (2lbs/8 cups) redcurrants or white currants

790g (1lb 12oz) granulated sugar

Remove the strings from the redcurrants either by hand or with a fork. Put the redcurrants and sugar into a wide stainless steel saucepan and stir continuously until they come to the boil. Boil for exactly 8 minutes, stirring only if they appear to be sticking to the bottom. Skim carefully.

Turn into a nylon sieve and allow to drip through, do not push the pulp through or the jelly will be cloudy. You can stir in gently once or twice just to free the bottom of the sieve of pulp.

Pour the jelly into sterilised pots immediately. Redcurrants are very high in pectin so the jelly will begin to set just as soon as it begins to cool.

White Currant and White Peach Tart

The pastry is made by the creaming method so people who are convinced that they suffer from ‘hot hands’ don’t have to worry about rubbing in the butter.

Serves 8-12

 Pastry

225g (8oz) butter

40g (1 1/2oz) castor sugar

2 eggs, preferably free range

350g (12ozs) white flour, preferably unbleached

 Filling

675g (1 1/2 lbs) white peaches

 225g (½lb) blackcurrants

150g (5oz) sugar

egg wash-made with one beaten egg and a dash of milk

castor sugar for sprinkling

To Serve

softly whipped cream

Barbados sugar

tin, 18cm (7 inches) x 30.5cm (12 inches x 2.5cm (1 inch) deep

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4.

First make the pastry. Cream the butter and sugar together by hand or in a food mixer (no need to over cream). Add the eggs and beat for several minutes. Reduce speed and mix in the flour. Turn out onto a piece of floured greaseproof paper, flatten into a round wrap and chill. This pastry needs to be chilled for at least 2 hours otherwise it is difficult to handle.

 To make the tart

Roll out the pastry 3mm (1/8 inch) thick approx., and use about 2/3 of it to line a suitable tin. Peel, stone and dice the peaches into the tart, sprinkle with sugar and blackcurrants. Cover with a lid of pastry, seal edges, decorate with pastry leaves, egg wash and bake in the preheated oven until the apples are tender, approx. 45 minutes to 1 hour. When cooked cut into squares, sprinkle lightly with castor sugar and serve with softly whipped cream and Barbados sugar.

Blackcurrant Fool

 

Serves 6

350g (12oz) fresh or frozen blackcurrants

200ml (7fl ozp) stock syrup (see recipe)

600ml (1 pints) very softly whipped cream

 

Cover the blackcurrants with stock syrup. Bring to the boil and cook for about 4–5 minutes until the fruit bursts. Liquidize and sieve or purée the fruit and syrup and measure it. When the purée has cooled, add the softly whipped cream. Serve with

shortbread biscuits.

An alternative presentation is to layer the purée and softly whipped cream in tall sundae glasses, ending with a drizzle of thin purée over the top.

Note

Frozen blackcurrants tend to be less sweet. Taste – you may need

to add extra sugar. A little stiffly beaten egg white may be added to lighten the fool. The fool should not be very stiff, more like the texture of softly whipped cream. If it is too stiff, stir in a little milk rather than more cream.

 

Stock Syrup

Makes 825ml (20fl oz)

450g (16oz) sugar

600ml (1 pint) water

Dissolve the sugar in the water and bring to the boil. Boil for 2 minutes, and then leave it to cool. Store in the fridge until needed.

 

Variation

Blackcurrant Ice-Cream/Parfait

Leftover fool may be frozen to make delicious ice cream. Serve with coulis made by thinning the blackcurrant purée with a little more water or stock syrup.

Blackcurrant Popsicles

Add a little more syrup.  It needs to taste sweeter than you would like because the freezing dulls the sweetness.  Pour into popsicle moulds, cover, insert a stick and freeze until needed.  Best eaten within a few days.

 

The introduction to Robin Gill’s book, Larder enraged me and brought me close to tears. Robin’s graphic description of his long and tortuous journey through many kitchens both in Ireland and the UK to become a chef, makes harrowing reading and speaks volumes about the reason why there is now a proper chef crisis in so many restaurants, What Robin, who comes from Malahide in Dublin, and many others have had to endure is NOT OK, the verbal and physical abuse, sadism and downright cruelty is unconscionable and in any other walk of life would land the perpetrators in jail. How come, degrees of this behaviour have been acceptable for so long…

We’re all guilty; we need to ask questions about what’s going on in the kitchen to put the food on our plate. Get a grip, it’s only food after all and it is absolutely not necessary to have a toxic atmosphere to produce delectable morsels on a plate.

 

In fact quite the opposite, a happy team ooze energy and creativity Myrtle Allen herself was a wonderful example to all of us. In all the years I worked in Ballymaloe House kitchen, I never, ever, heard anyone shout or swear, despite all the pressure of a busy kitchen and Myrtle’s unwavering commitment to quality.

It’s a long road that doesn’t have a turn. Robin eventually chanced upon a 2 star Michelin; family run restaurant in Italy with a farm overlooking Capri called Don Alfonso 1890. There he learned the true meaning of ‘farm to table’.

Robin wrote “It was my first exposure to true cooking with the seasons, when something was in such abundance and at its best and had to be put to use. It was a revelation to me. Whatever couldn’t be used was preserved and kept for a season less generous. It was natural (and beautiful) in every way” He learned how to hold back and let the produce speak for itself. For the first time he truly understood what it means to be seasonal, how to walk the walk, not just talk the talk as sadly so many restaurants do. He spent several years with Raymond Blanc at Le Manoir Aux Quat’ Saisons in Oxford, of which he speaks highly as a teaching kitchen. In 2013 he and his wife Sarah were ready to open their own place on a on a prayer and a shoestring in an old building on Clapham Common. It’s called The Dairy, has a herb and vegetable garden in crates on the roof and is the first of three restaurants Robin and Sarah now own. Finally back to Robin’s book aptly called Larder published by Absolute Press.

 

This is an interesting and unusual book , a combination of exquisite but seriously time consuming ‘cheffy’ recipes at the back of the book and a whole amazing section on pickling, preserving, smoking, fermenting, making miso, brewing, infusions  and curing  recipes at the beginning of the book that make up the basics of his larder. Many of the recipes are super simple, fun to make and will transform your food as well as get you addicted to stacking your larder shelves.

 

 

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Robin Gill’s Beetroot Gin

 

makes 750ml (1 pint7fl oz)

 

4 raw beetroots, peeled and diced

750ml (1 pint7fl oz) gin

 

Add the diced beetroot to the gin in a large sterilised jar seal and leave to infuse in a cool, dark place for 3–4 days.

Strain through a fine sieve.

Store the gin in a sealed jar or bottle in a cool, dark place.

From Larder by Robin Gill (Absolute Press)  Photography © Paul Winch-Furness

 

 

Robin Gill’s Charred Mackerel, Cucumber, Dashi, Sea Purslane

 

Generally speaking, mackerel must be at its absolute freshest – I detest mackerel once it has been more than two days out of the deep blue – so when buying your fish, make sure the flesh is firm, the gills are bright red and the eyes are bright and glistening. We use salt to season and firm up the fish, and I like to serve it medium-rare. This is a really fresh and vibrant dish to serve in late summer.

 

serves 4–6

 

dill-pickled cucumber

2 small cucumbers or ½ regular-sized cucumbers

75g (3oz) ice

75g (3oz) caster sugar

75ml (3fl oz) Chardonnay vinegar

a bunch of dill, fronds picked a large pinch of fine table salt

 

dill oil

150g (5oz) picked dill fronds

150ml (5fl oz) rapeseed oil

 

charred mackerel

3 medium mackerel, filleted

fresh lemon juice

 

assembly

4–6 teaspoons Roast Garlic Miso Purée (see recipe below), at room temperature, 1 teaspoon per serving purslane leaves

sea purslane, blanched for 30 seconds

Wild Garlic Capers with some of the pickling liquor or capers

160–240ml (6-9fl oz) Dashi (see recipe), warmed – 40ml (1 ½fl oz) per serving

Maldon sea salt

 

Peel the cucumbers and set aside; reserve the skin. Blend together the ice, caster sugar, vinegar, dill, the cucumber skin and salt in a blender or food processor. Strain through a fine sieve and pour this liquid over the peeled cucumbers. Leave to marinate for 1 hour

 

Blend together the dill and oil in a blender or food processor for 1 minute. Transfer to a pan, bring to the boil and boil rapidly for 2 minutes. Strain through a fine sieve into a bowl set over ice to cool.

 

Blowtorch, barbecue or grill (on a hot ridged grill pan) the skin side of the mackerel fillets –you are just looking to scorch the skin and lightly cook the fish to medium-rare. Season the fillets with lemon juice and salt to taste.

 

Drain the pickled cucumbers and slice into rounds. Spread a teaspoon of miso purée in each bowl, then add the mackerel. Top the fish with the cucumber slices (fanned). Place the fresh purslane, sea purslane and wild garlic capers to the side. Drizzle over some dill oil. In a jug, season the warm dashi with a little of the pickling liquor from the wild garlic capers. The dashi should be poured over each dish at the table

 

 

 

Robyn Gill’s Roast Garlic Miso Purée

 

Makes about 650g

 

350g (12oz) garlic cloves (peeled)

a drizzle of vegetable oil

demerara sugar

175g (6oz) unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

150ml (5fl oz) sherry vinegar

175g (6oz) sweet white miso

175g (6oz) malt extract

 

 

Preheat the oven to 180°C fan/2oo°C/Gas Mark 6. Toss the garlic cloves in the oil and coat them in demerara sugar. Wrap the cloves loosely in foil to create a parcel. Roast for 25 minutes. Open the parcel and return to the oven to roast for a further 5 minutes. Tip the garlic into a food processor and blend the cloves to a smooth puree.

 

Put the butter into a pan set over a high heat and cook until the butter starts to foam, brown and take on a nutty aroma. Immediately remove from the heat and cool quickly to stop the butter from burning.

 

Boil the vinegar in another pan until reduced to 75ml.

 

Add the brown butter, vinegar, miso and malt extract to the garlic purée and blend until smooth. Cool. The puree can be stored in the fridge in an airtight container for up to 1 month.

 

 

Robin Gill’s Dashi

makes about 1 litre (1¾ pints)

 

25g (1oz) dried kombu

1 litre distilled water, boiled and cooled (or use filtered water or still mineral water)

1 sheet of dried nori (about 3g)

15g (½ oz) bonito flakes

2 teaspoons white soy sauce

10 wild garlic leaves (if unavailable use 2 sliced garlic cloves)

Maldon sea salt

 

Add the kombu to the water in a pan and bring to a very gentle simmer (do not boil). Simmer for 1 hour.

Strain the liquid through a fine sieve into a jug.

Season with the nori, bonito flakes, soy sauce, wild garlic leaves and a pinch of salt. Allow to infuse for 5 minutes. Taste to check the seasoning and adjust as required: the dashi should be salty and savoury with umami. Strain the dashi through the fine sieve.

Once cooled, it can be stored in a sealed container in the fridge for 2-3 days

From Larder by Robin Gill (Absolute Press)  Photography © Paul Winch-Furness

 

 

Robyn Gill’s Pickled Radishes

 

Makes 1.5kg (3lb 5oz)

 

300ml (10fl oz) water

300ml (10fl oz) white wine vinegar

300g (10 oz) caster sugar

1.5kg (3lb 5oz) radishes

 

 

Combine the water, vinegar and sugar in a pan and bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Pour this boiling pickling liquor over the radishes in a bowl. Allow to cool, then decant into sterilised jars and seal. The radishes are ready to use straight away or can be stored in the fridge for up to 2 months.

From Larder by Robin Gill (Absolute Press)  Photography © Paul Winch-Furness

 

 

 

Robin Gill’s Carrot and Caraway Pickle

makes about 1kg (2¼lbs)

 

40g (1½ oz) caraway seeds 1kg mixed heritage

carrots 200ml (7fl oz) cider

vinegar 200ml (7fl oz) water

200g (7oz) caster sugar

 

 

Toast the caraway seeds in a dry pan until they smell aromatic. Set aside.

 

Peel the carrots, and then slice into thin rounds on a mandolin.

 

Combine the vinegar, water, sugar and caraway seeds in a suitable-sized pot. Bring to the boil, then add the carrot slices and remove from the heat immediately. Decant into a sterilised 2-litre jar and seal.

The pickle can be stored for 1 year in a cool, dark place. Once opened, keep in the fridge for up to 3 months.

From Larder by Robin Gill (Absolute Press)  Photography © Paul Winch-Furness

 

 

 Robin Gill’s Apricot and Lemon Thyme Jam

 

makes 6 x 228ml jars

 

1kg (2 ¼ lbs) fresh apricots

50ml (2floz) water

50ml (2fl oz) fresh lemon juice

600g (1¼lb) jam sugar

100g (3½ oz) unsalted butter, cut into cubes

100g (3½ oz) honey

3 sprigs of lemon thyme, leaves picked

1 teaspoon Maldon sea salt

 

Before you begin making the jam, put three or four small plates in the freezer. Cut the apricots in half and remove the stones, then cut each half into quarters. Place the apricots and water in a large pot and cook over a medium heat for 10 minutes to soften. Stir in the lemon juice and sugar and bring the mixture up to 104°C/225°F

 

Reduce the heat and allow to simmer, stirring now and again, for
a further 20 minutes or until the jam has reached soft setting point – use the wrinkle test to check. To do this, take the pan off the heat and carefully spoon a little jam on to one of the cold plates. Let it stand for a minute, then push the blob of jam with your finger. If the surface of the jam wrinkles then it has reached setting point; if it is still quite liquid, then put the pan back on the heat and boil the jam for another couple of minutes before testing again, using different plates from the freezer.

 

Meanwhile, make a brown butter by melting and heating the butter cubes in a pan over a high heat until the butter starts to foam and brown and gives off a nutty aroma. Once this occurs, remove from the heat immediately and cool quickly by setting the base of the pan in cold water, to stop the butter from burning.

 

Put the honey in another pan and cook over a medium heat to a dark caramel colour. Remove from the heat and stir in the brown butter. Add to the apricot jam while still warm. Stir through the lemon thyme leaves and salt. Ladle the warm jam into sterilised jars and seal.

 

The jam can be stored in a cool, dark place for up to 6 months. Once opened, keep in the fridge and use within 6 weeks.

From Larder by Robin Gill (Absolute Press)  Photography © Paul Winch-Furness

 

 

The Summer 12 week Certificate Course students had a special treat last week, when Merlin Lebron Johnston from Portland Restaurant in London came as guest chef to The Ballymaloe Cookery School. This gentle young man is the youngest Michelin starred chef in the UK

 

His back story is intriguing. Merlin had a distinctly, rocky relationship with school, eventually he was fortunate to be sent to Ashbourne, a progressive school in Devon, where the students in conjunction with the teachers made the decision that going to lessons was not compulsory on the assumption that if they did turn up to class, they would be interested and give it their all. This worked brilliantly for 95% of the students, but Merlin was not interested in any class so he hung around for a bit…The secretary, a lady called Joanna doubled up as a cook and produced school dinner every day. Three courses – vegetarian, organic and delicious. The students could either have packed lunches or school dinners but the latter was expensive so Merlin would plead with Joanna to give him some food, “She made rice pudding and crumbles, crème brûlée, great salads, pasta. I would beg her for some. We made a deal. If you want to cook you need to wash up, fine with me and seeing how I wasn’t that busy I started helping her cook and after a bit she got busier and eventually I started to cook for my school at 15….” When exam time came the teachers said, “Well you seem to love cooking, we think you should be a chef”, so Merlin left and got a job. “Once I found cooking I became pretty obsessed and became totally focused on working in the best restaurants”.

For the next five years Merlin worked in top restaurants in the UK, Switzerland, France and Belgium, both classic and experimental, including In De Wulf in Belgium where there was a big focus on foraging and fermentation. At 23 he became sous chef there. Meanwhile in London, Will Lander and Will Morganstern were looking out for a head chef for a new restaurant they planned to open in Great Portland Street, so at 24 he became head chef at Portland and was awarded a Michelin Star within 9 months of opening, the youngest chef in England to be awarded that accolade.

 

Here are some of the delicious dishes he showed us how to cook.

Merlin Labron-Johnson’s Smoked Cod’s Roe with Grelot Onions or Leek Greens and Chervil

We used spring onion greens instead of grelot tops.

 

Serves 10-12

 

Taramasalata

1.5pcs smoked cods roe (good quality!) (1kg/2 1/4lb approx.)

3 slices white bread, crusts removed and soaked in milk

2 peeled and crushed garlic cloves

lemon juice of 2 lemons

lemon zest of 1 lemon

100ml (3 1/2fl oz) olive oil

250ml (9fl oz) sunflower oil

 

Grelot top green oil

400g (14oz) grelot tops or leek greens

650ml (1 pint 2fl oz) sunflower oil

 

Mustard Seeds

600g (1 1/4lb) white wine vinegar

400g (14oz) water

200g (7oz) sugar

400g (14oz) yellow mustard seeds

 

 

 

 

First make the mustard seeds pickle:  Pour boiling pickle over mustard seeds and leave for 12 hours

 

Remove the roe from the sacks and discard the sacks. Using a food processor blend the roe with the garlic, bread and the lemon zest. Slowly incorporate the oil bit by bit to make a smooth thick mayonnaise like emulsion. If it becomes too thick let down with a little of the milk used to soak the bread. Season with salt and lemon juice. Pass through a drum sieve if not completely smooth and put in piping bags. It should be thick and velvety.

 

Grelot onions or leek greens

Separate the onion bulbs from the green tops. Reserve the green tops and set aside. Place the onion bottoms in parchment or tin foil envelopes with a pinch of salt and a glug of olive oil and close ‘en papillote’ bake at 180C for 12-15 minutes until cooked but not soft. If the onions are different sizes divide them into 3 different ‘grades’ and cook them all separately in batches (i.e. longer for the larger ones) so that they are all perfect.

 

 

Roughly chop the green tops and blend with the oil in a food processor on full speed for 4 minutes then strain through cheesecloth and leave to hang in the fridge. Freeze the strained oil. Once frozen scrape the frozen oil (gel) into a new container leaving behind the frozen leek/water residue. This will give you a perfectly clear green oil

 

To Serve

To serve, pipe large blobs (equivalent of 3 tablespoons) into a bowl, use a spoon to create a well in the centre of the cod’s roe. Put 2 tablespoons of onion oil in the well. Dress the onion petals in the white wine vinegar and place around the edge of the cod’s roe. Place a generous amount of chervil over the onion petals and serve.

 

Merlin Labron-Johnson’s Crudo of Wild Sea Bass, Smoked Cream and Heritage Radishes

If you are unable to get wild sea bass you could substitute it with brill, turbot, halibut, large plaice or sea bream.

 

Serves 6-8

 

300g (10oz) thick sea bass fillet, skinned and pin boned

100g (3 1/2oz) salt

100g (3 1/2oz) sugar

1 bunch heritage radishes

200g (7oz) best quality crème fraiche

1 large shallot, finely diced

1 lemon

salt

raspberry powder

 

Mix the salt with the sugar and sprinkle a layer on a tray place the sea bass fillet on top and sprinkle with the rest of the cure. Leave for 30 minutes then wash thoroughly in cold water. Dry in a towel.

 

Cold smoke the cream using a commercial smoker or big green egg. Mix with the chopped shallot, the juice and zest of the lemon and a little sea salt.

 

Thinly slice the radishes on a mandolin. Slice the fish as thinly as possible using a very sharp knife. Lay the slices on a cold plate in a circle. Cover the fish with the smoked cream. Cover the layer of cream completely with the sliced radishes, then dust with raspberry powder.

 

 

Merlin Labron-Johnson’s Lightly Cured Wild Trout with Elderflowers, Unripe Peach and Watercress

Serves 8-10

1kg (2 1/4lb) wild trout fillet, skinned and pin boned

15g (1/2oz) salt

10g (1/3oz) sugar

2 lemons

elderflowers

elderflower vinegar (white wine vinegar infused with lots of elderflowers and elderflower branches)

100g (3 1/2oz) homemade yoghurt, hung overnight it muslin cloth to remove excess whey.

2 unripe peaches

150g (5oz) small watercress

good quality extra virgin olive oil

sea salt

 

Mix the 15g salt, 10g sugar and zest of 1 lemon together and sprinkle over and underneath the trout fillet/s. Use your hands to rub the cure into the fish to make sure it is evenly distributed. Leave for 10-12 hours in a fridge. Use a clean cloth or kitchen towel to wipe the fish fillets dry and remove any remaining cure. Taste a few slices of the fish to check for seasoning. Wrap the fish in a clean cloth.

 

Season the yoghurt with salt and a little lemon juice.

 

To serve, cut the fish into slices (a little thicker than sashimi or carpaccio but not too much!) and place on a cold, flat plate. Put a few dollops of the seasoned yoghurt onto the plates. Slice the peaches on a sharp mandolin and arrange on and around the trout slices. Dress the watercress with elderflower vinegar and olive oil and add to the plate. Sprinkle with lots of fresh elderflowers, grated lemon zest, sea salt and generous amounts of good olive oil.

 

 

Merlin Labron-Johnson’s  Ricotta Gnudi with Courgettes, Walnut and Nasturtium

 Serves 6-8

350g (12oz) smooth, thick Ricotta cheese (Galbani can work) left to hang in muslin cloth overnight

30g (1 1/4oz) parmesan, finely grated using a microplane

1 egg yolk

grated nutmeg

1kg (2 1/4lb) semolina

4 x green courgettes

1 large yellow courgettes, sliced into thin rounds using a mandolin

100g (3 1/2oz) spinach leaves

1 onion

olive oil

nasturtium leaves and flowers

30g (1 1/4oz) walnuts, toasted and roughly chopped

 

Put the ricotta in a mixing bowl. Add the egg yolk, grated cheese and season with a little grated nutmeg. Mix well using a wooden spoon.

 

Put some 1/3 of the semolina in a large plastic container ensuring there is an even layer on the bottom. Using your hands, roll the Ricotta mix into ping pong sized balls and place directly onto the layer of semolina ensuring there is a distance of at least 1cm between each one. Cover the Gnudi with the remainder of the semolina ensuring that they are completely buried with semolina in between and on top of each ball. Place in the fridge for a minimum of 16-24 hours.

 

Peel the green courgettes and reserve the peel. Cut the flesh into cubes, 1cm approx.., and sweat slowly in olive oil until soft taking care not to add ANY COLOUR! Leave to cool. Boil the Courgettes skins in salted for 1 minute and refresh in iced water. Boil the spinach in the same water for 30 seconds and refresh in iced water. Drain the spinach and courgette skins and place in a blender with the courgette flesh. Blend on full speed with 4 ice cubes until very smooth and very green. It should have the consistency of a thin puree/thick soup. Loosen with a little water if necessary and season with salt.

 

To serve, boil the Gnudi in boiling water for 3-4 minutes and dress with a little olive oil. Warm the yellow courgettes slices in a small pan with a little water, olive oil and lemon juice until they start to go translucent (just cooked) and season with salt. Warm the courgette puree and place in the bottom of a warm bowl. Place the Gnudi on top of the puree and top some chopped walnuts. Cover the Gnudi in the slices of yellow courgette and decorate with lots of nasturtium leaves and nasturtium flowers.

 

 

Merlin Labron-Johnson’s Buttermilk Ice-Cream with Meringue, Raw Honey and Wild Flowers

 Serves 8-10

150g (5oz) cream

142g (scant 5oz) sugar

75g (3oz) glucose powder

120g (scant 4 1/2oz) milk powder

4g (scant 1/5oz) salt

750ml buttermilk

170g (scant 6oz) icing sugar

160g (5 1/2oz) egg white

1 tablespoon dried or fresh lavender flowers

80g (3 1/4oz) raw fresh honey

35ml (scant 1 1/2fl oz) elderflower vinegar

5g (1/5oz) fresh elderflowers

selection of edible flowers

 

To make the ice cream, boil the sugar with the cream. Leave to cool. Using a hand blender add the glucose powder, milk powder and salt. Add the mixture to the buttermilk, mix well again using a hand blender. Pass through a sieve and churn in an ice cream maker. (This makes just under 1 litre. The recipe can be multiplied according to the size of ice cream machine)

 

To make the meringue put the egg white in the bowl of a kitchen aid with a squeeze of lemon juice, using the whisk attachment, whisk slowly until the meringue starts to form very soft peaks. Start to add the icing sugar, one spoon at a time until you have a thick glossy meringue. Using a spatula spread the meringue over non-stick parchment paper so that it is flat and evenly spread. It should be the thickness of a £1 coin. Sprinkle with the lavender flowers. Place in an oven at 70 degrees with low fan and leave to dry until crisp and easy to remove from the paper in large shards. Place the shards in an airtight container.

 

Warm the honey and add the elderflower vinegar and fresh elderflowers. Season with a squeeze of lemon juice depending on the sweetness of the honey.

 

To serve, put a few scoops of ice cream into very cold bowls (preferably stored in the freezer for 30 mins before serving) and decorate with shards of meringue, add lots of wild flowers and drizzle over the warm dressing of honey and elderflower vinegar.

Recently I went all the way to China … The impetus for the trip was the news that my last book Grow Cook Nourish had been shortlisted for a World Gourmand Cookbook award. It was up against stiff competition including Stephanie Alexander’s ‘Kitchen Garden Companion’ and Oprah Winfrey’s ‘Food, Health and Happiness’… I reckoned that my tome urging people to take back control over their food, grow some of their own and cook it, wouldn’t have a chance. Nonetheless it was an excuse to spend a few days doing some edible research in China and surprise, surprise, Grow Cook Nourish WON a special award and my publisher Kyle Cathie received the Publisher of the Year Award so that was definitely the ‘icing on the cake’ …..

On this trip we took in Beijing, Datong, Pingyao and Yantai where the awards were hosted.

Yes, I walked on the Great Wall of China, visited the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, The Summer Garden and the totally awesome Hanging Temples near Mount Hengshan in the Shanxi Province but in this piece, I’ll concentrate on the food and the many good things we tasted.

The pace of change, in virtually all Chinese cities is just jaw dropping, most of the traditional single or double storey houses have been demolished to make way for gigantic skyscrapers 28-30 stories tall, the horizon is dotted with the tallest cranes I’ve ever seen.

 

Peking duck is the great speciality of Beijing. Of course there are a myriad of restaurants who serve it, Mongolian hot pot too, but if you have a craving for McDonald’s or KFC they are there aplenty, however I’m always on a mission to taste the local street foods and so far, they are still a part of everyday life, even in Beijing where it seems there is a huge push towards all things Western. A wander through a local vegetable market is also an illuminating window into local culture and eating habits. One of Beijing’s most fascinating is the Sanyvanli Market, opens at 6am and has stall after stall of beautiful super fresh vegetables and exotic fruit, mangosteen,  durian, lychees, pomelo, also ripe mangoes and huge hard scary grapes, some round, others pointy. All the fruit and vegetables were beautifully presented and packed including, boxes of spanking fresh waxberries (myrica rubra) also called Chinese bayberry, all juicy and delicious.

Stalls were piled high with fish and shellfish, scallops, sea urchins, crabs, lobsters, crayfish, much of it still alive.

 

Butcher shops selling freshly slaughtered meat, black and white skinned poultry and tons of offal. A wild mushroom stall with a mind-blowing selection of fungi including cauliflower mushrooms the size of a baby’s head.  Two little bakeries, making Chinese flat breads, were nestled among the stalls. I loved watching them rolling huge rounds of dough – 2 feet in diameter and cooking it on a hot griddle, sometimes plain but often with chopped scallions or garlic chives incorporated. I took a little video so I can experiment, it was so delicious, I hope I can manage to recreate this popular breakfast bread at home.

The night markets are also a must, there are many but we visited the one just off Wangfujing Street, Beijing’s posh shopping street where all the luxury brand shops cluster. This area really comes to life after sun down.

Here I ate scorpion kebabs and crispy silk worms, surprisingly delicious once you grit your teeth and decide to be adventurous. Lots of offal, squid and dumplings, chicken feet and gizzards and tiny toffee apples- a Beijing speciality. Lamb kebabs were also delicious but a roast goat (kid) leg with cumin and chilli was the best of all. This market was fun but a bit touristy.

Street food vendors are still a vital part of everyday life in China. Dough stacks, youtiao, snacks like scallion pancakes, Jianbing . Sweet potatoes roasted in old cooking oil drums are also delectable.

Don’t leave China without attending a tea ceremony, a wonderful ritual after which tea will never be the same again. We tasted ginseng, jasmine and gunpowder tea and puer, exquisite but sadly the teas I bought having been assured that they were identical quality were anything but – sadly a frequent occurrence in China, from taxis to restaurants. Follow the guidebooks advice, insist on using the taxi meter and check your bill meticulously…..otherwise a brilliant and delicious experience.

Fuchsia Dunlop’s Fisherman’s Prawns with Chinese Chives

This is based in a dish I enjoyed eating in Yueyang, where it is made with small river shrimp, cooked in their shells. I’ve adapted the recipe to be made with shelled prawns, which have a different texture, but are still delicious (prawns and Chinese chives are a particularly happy combination). If you want a glossy, restaurant – style sauce, add a little stock at the end of cooking and thicken with a mixture of potato flour and water.

 

500g (1lb 2oz) fresh or frozen raw prawns, thawed if frozen

100g (3½ oz) Chinese chives

2 teaspoons finely chopped garlic

1 tablespoon shopped salted chillies or 1 teaspoon dries chilli flakes

1 teaspoon Chinkiang vinegar

1 fresh red chilli de-seeded and thinly sliced.

Salt

1 teaspoon sesame oil

200ml (7fl oz) groundnut oil for cooking

 

For the marinade:

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon potato flour

1 small egg white

 

Shell and de-vein the prawns, removing and discarding the heads and legs, if necessary, then rinse and shake dry. Put them in a bowl; add the marinade an ingredients and mix well; set aside.

 

Trim the chives, discarding any tougher or wilted leaves (they should be pert and fresh) and cut into 3cm / 1¼ pieces.

 

Heat the oil in a wok over a high flame until it reaches 150°C/300°F. Discard any excess egg white from the prawns, then add them to the wok and fry briefly until pinkish but not fully cooked. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.

 

Drain off all but 3 tablespoons of the oil. Add the garlic and chopped salted chillies and stir fry briefly until fragrant. Add the prawns, stirring well, followed by the vinegar.

 

When all is sizzling and delicious, add the chives and fresh chilli and stir-fry until they are barely cooked. Season with salt to taste, then remove from the heat, stir in the sesame oil and serve.

 

Variation

A similar recipe uses finely chopped garlic stems instead of Chinese chives; the method is the same except that you stir fry the garlic stems with the ginger and chopped salted chillies until fragrant before adding the prawns.

From Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook by Fuchsia Dunlop

 

Scrambled Eggs with Shrimps and Coriander

In Beijing this was served with rice but I enjoy it with hot buttered toast or fresh soda bread.

 

Serves 4

8 organic eggs

175g to 225g (6oz to 8oz) cooked small shrimps

 

good pinch of chilli flakes (optional)

a  knob of lard or butter

2 tablespoons full cream milk

salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon fresh coriander, coarsely chopped or Chinese (garlic) chives

 

Break the eggs into a bowl, add the milk and season with salt and pepper. Whisk well until the whites and yolks are mixed well. Over a low heat, put a blob of lard or butter into a cold saucepan, add the chilli flakes (if using), pour in the egg mixture and stir continuously, preferably with a flat-bottomed wooden spoon, until the eggs have scrambled into soft creamy curds. Add in the cooked shrimp, coriander or chopped Chinese (garlic) chives.

Serve immediately on warm plates with lots of hot buttered toast or fresh soda bread.

 

 

 

 

Fuchsia Dunlop’s Quick Fried Lamb

 

The city of Liuyang lies on the banks of the Liuyang River, amid gentle, wooded hills to the east of the Hunanese capital. There ‘the mountains are beautiful, the water is beautiful and the people are even more beautiful’ (shan mei, shui mei, ren geng mei), so they say. Although the two cities are no more than 50 miles apart, Liuyang has its own distinctive character and its people speak a dialect that is incomprehensible to the inhabitants of Changsha. Liuyang is a world centre of firework production, and is known poetically in Chinese as ‘the home of smoke-flowers’ (yan hua zhi xiang)

 

A meal in Liuyang, like its most famous product, is an explosion of glittering colours; the lovely green of fresh soybeans, the brilliant red of fresh or pickled chilies, the warm sunset of a pumpkin soup. I remember one day, when grey mist had reclaimed the hills, sitting around a table laden with dishes as torrential rain rattled on the rooftops outside and thunder cracked the sky. This is one of the dishes we ate, a colourful stir-fry traditionally make with one of Liuyang’s famous products, the black goat (hei shan yang), but which works equally well with lamb.

 

300g (10½ oz) lamb, lean and boneless

1 tablespoon of Shaoxing wine

1 teaspoon 0light soy sauce

½ teaspoon dark soy sauce

¼ teaspoon salt, plus extra to taste

2 fresh red chilies or ½ red pepper

75g (2 ½ oz) fresh coriander or Chinese celery

2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh ginger

2 teaspoons finely chopped garlic

1 teaspoon dried chilli flakes (optional)

1 tablespoon finely chopped Chinese Angelica Root (optional)

1 teaspoon sesame oil

3 tablespoons groundnut oil for cooking

 

Cut the lamb across the grain into thin slices. Place the slices in a bowl; add the Shaoxing wine, soy sauces and salt and mix well; set aside.

 

Cut the red chilies into thins slices (if using red pepper, cut into small squares.) Cut the coriander stalks or celery into 5cm (2 in) sections. Reserve some leaves for a garnish and set the other leaves for other uses.

 

Heat the wok over a high flame until smokes rises, then add the ground nut oil and swirl around. Add the ginger, garlic, fresh chilli or pepper, chilli flakes and angelica root, if using and stir fry briefly until fragrant.

 

Add the lamb and continue to stir fry adding salt to taste, if necessary. When the lamb is almost cooked, add the coriander or celery and stir a few times until barely cooked. Turn off the heat, stir in the sesame oil and serve with coriander leaf garnish if desired.

 

Variation

The same method can also be used to cook beef.

From Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook by Fuchsia Dunlop

 

Kei Lum’s and Diora Fong Chan’s Pork with Beijing Scallions a quick dish from China: The Cookbook.

This one comes from the Shanding region

Serves 4

 

300g (11oz) pork belly, sliced into lardons

1 tablespoon cornflour

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

3 Beijing scallions or 6 scallions (Spring onions) cut into 3cm (1/4 inch) lengths

1 tablespoons Tianmianjiang (sweet bean sauce)

1 teaspoon light soy sauce

1 tablespoon rice wine

½ teaspoon salt, plus extra to taste

steamed rice

 

Combine the pork with cornflour in a bowl, and then stir in 1 tablespoon oil.

 

Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons oil in a wok or large skillet/frying pan. Add the pork and stir-fry over a medium-low heat for 4-6 minutes until cooked and crisp. Transfer the pork to a plate and set aside.

 

Put the scallions into the wok and stir-fry over medium-high heat for 1-2 minutes until fragrant. Add the Tianmianjiang, soy sauce, wine, salt and the pork, stir-fry over high heat for another minute. Season with salt and taste. Serve with steamed rice.

From China: The Cookbook by Kei Lum and Diora Fong Chan published by Phaidon

 Congee with Chicken, Shrimps, Mushroom and lots of Coriander

Congee is a rice porridge – a staple breakfast food often eaten with dough sticks to dunk, in China and Hong Kong.  I also love it as a soup – vary the additions or add some extra tasty titbits at the table.

 

Serves 4-6

 

250g jasmine rice (well-washed and drained)

2 litres water

100g raw or cooked shrimps

100g shredded raw chicken breast

1 teaspoon ginger

1 chilli, thinly sliced, optional

100g thinly sliced mushrooms (cooked)

Vegetable oil for frying

1-2 tablespoons sesame oil

2 tablespoons spring onion, sliced thinly at an angle

2 tablespoons coriander leaves

Salt and freshly ground pepper

 

 

Put the rice into a saucepan, cover with water, bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 30-40 minutes or until the rice is cooked and slightly soupy.  Add the finely shredded chicken and shrimps, ginger and chilli to the rice, cook for 4-5 minutes.

Meanwhile, sauté the mushrooms on a hot pan in a very little vegetable oil.  Season with salt and freshly ground pepper.   Add to the soup, drizzle with sesame oil and sprinkle with spring onion and coriander leaves.   Taste and correct the seasoning if necessary.  Serve this comforting nourishing soup as soon as possible.

From Grow, Cook, Nourish by Darina Allen, published by Kyle Books.

 

 

 

 

 

Kitty Travers, La Grotta Ices book has arrived just in time for us to catch some of the early Summer flavours that the undisputed ice-cream queen has captured in recipes that you and I can make right now. Forget the hackneyed flavours and scary colours we’ve become accustomed to,  think rhubarb and raspberry, rhubarb and angelica, blackcurrant leaf water ice, strawberry and elderflower, amalfi lemon jelly ice…

I first came across Kitty selling ice-cream from her little ice-cream cart in Maltby Street Market in 2009 You could choose either a cone or a little tub with a timber scoop. The flavours sang of Summer, the combinations original and the texture deliciously silky.

Kitty came to the Ballymaloe Cookery School in 2012 to share her magic and the story of how an ice-cream obsessed teenager eventually got to follow her dream. (It’s all in the introduction of La Grotta Ices). She brought her pacojet all the way from London by plane so she could show us how she achieved this enticingly smooth texture. A pacojet gives sublime results but you don’t need an expensive machine to make home-made ice-creams and sorbets and granitas. A freezer is of course essential, one can just freeze the mix in a bowl but you’ll need to whisk the icy granules every 30 to 40 minutes. Possible, but definitely a bit laboursome, so next step up is one of those ice-cream machines where you store the ‘churn’ in the freezer overnight before use. Many of the ‘small appliance’ electrical companies make them. They are inexpensive and certainly worth the expense if you enjoy making ice creams and sorbets.

An ice cream machine like Gaggia is more expensive and ever ready but difficult to justify the expense unless you do a lot of entertaining or have a small restaurant or café. Whichever option you choose you’ll need some superb recipes and beautiful ingredients.

The very best rich milk and cream, Jersey, Kerry or Guernsey are beautiful. Super ripe fruit, in season, vanilla extract – nothing fake.  No milk powder to make the texture creamier and more dense. No dextrose or trimoline to allow the ice-cream (or gelato, the Italian word for ice cream) to be more scoopable.

In Kitty’s opinion dry milk powder has a cooked taste that interrupts the sweet pure flavour of fresh cream and milk. It contains roughly 50% lactose compared with fresh milk which is 4.8%.

Skimmed milk powder is a prevalent ingredient in many processed foods even yoghurt, consequently many of us are consuming lactose in much higher quantities than we used to. Kitty wonders if that could be connected to the growing incidence of lactose intolerance – an interesting question…

 

Many of Kitty’s ice creams are made on custard flavoured bases, cooked to no higher than 82°C and then ‘aged’ overnight in a refrigerator at 4°C for at least four hours or better still overnight. Others are made just from milk with maybe a little cream and some tapioca or corn flour. All can be easily reproduced in a home kitchen.

 

Kitty is forever on the lookout for new flavours and flavour combinations. Carrot seed or green walnut apparently make a delicious ice-cream as do pea pods. Sounds unlikely but cucumber and sour cream is one of her customer’s favourite Summer ices – I love it too…

Kitty started in her own kitchen; she now has an Ice-Cream Shed in a converted greengrocers in a charming square in south London. She sells her ice-cream in just three shops in London, Leilas in Calvert Avenue, The General Store in Peckham and and E5 Bakehouse in Hackney. Kitty teaches ice cream classes at School of Artisan Foods in Nottinghamshire  www.schoolofartisanfood.org, but meanwhile rush out and buy Kitty’s book La Grotta Ices so you can enjoy all the flavours of Summer but there are many more delicious flavour combinations for every season – mare than just chocolate

 

www.cookingisfun.ie

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La Grotta Cucumber and Sour Cream

Novelty ice creams are fun to try the first time but unless you want to lick the bowl clean they don’t get added to my list of favourites. Nobody needs to have uneaten ice cream languishing in the freezer getting fish finger-y and frosty. Freezer space is important – you need some room for peas and ice cubes too!

I promise, though, that this recipe is no fad. It’s the most refreshing and pacifying of all ice cream flavours – what could be cooler? It has become a summer tradition, looked forward to – and not just by me.

Salting the cucumber first draws out excess water, concentrates the flavour and improves the texture of the ice cream. The salt should be barely discernable in the end result though. Incredible combined with Strawberry Salad and Dill Seed ice creams or on its own on a really sweaty day.

 

1 cucumber (about 500 g), home-grown or from a farmers’ market if possible (less watery)

1 teaspoon coarse sea salt

325 ml whole milk

2 whole eggs

150 g sugar

300 ml sour cream

 

To prepare the ice cream: first peel your cucumber – use a vegetable peeler to remove all of the tough green skin. Cut the cucumber in half lengthways and use a teaspoon to scrape out and discard the watery seeds. Dice the cucumber halves then toss them in a bowl with the sea salt. Tip into a colander in the sink to drip. After 20 minutes, rinse the cucumbers briefly in a bowl of cold water and set on a clean tea towel to drain. Chill in the fridge in a lidded container overnight.

 

Heat the milk in a non-reactive pan. Stir often using a whisk or silicone spatula to prevent it catching. Once the milk is steaming, whisk the whole eggs and sugar together in a separate bowl until combined.

 

Pour the hot milk over the eggs in a thin stream, whisking continuously. Return all the mix to the pan and cook over a low heat until it reaches 82°C, stirring all the time to avoid curdling the eggs, and keeping a close eye on it so as not to let it boil. As soon as your digital thermometer says 82°C, place the pan into a sink of iced water to cool. Add the sour cream to the custard and whisk it in – you can speed up the cooling process by stirring the mix every so often. Once the custard is at room temperature, scrape it into a clean container, cover with cling film and chill in the fridge.

 

To make the ice cream: the following day the cucumber will have expelled more water; pour this away then blitz the cucumber and custard together in a blender. Blitz for 2 – 3 minutes until very, very smooth – you don’t want any frozen lumps of cucumber in this ice cream. Use a small ladle to push the cucumber custard through a finemesh sieve or chinois into a clean container.

 

Pour the custard into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions, usually 20 – 25 minutes, or until frozen and the texture of stiff whipped cream.

 

Scrape the ice cream into a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of waxed paper to limit exposure to air. Cover and freeze until ready to serve. Best eaten within a week.

From La Grotta Ices by Kitty Travers, published by Penguin Random House. Photography by Grant Cornett

 

La Grotta Rhubarb and Raspberry Ripple

This ice cream is prettiest when made with the slim stalks of forced rhubarb from Yorkshire’s magic “Rhubarb Triangle”. The candy-pink sticks transform into clouds of ice cream the colour of bubble-gum.

There’s more to this ice-cream than just retro appeal. The light earthy flavour of the rhubarb is set off with a tart twist of raspberry syrup.

 

150g frozen strawberries

220g sugar

500g forced rhubarb

zest and juice of 1 orange

175ml whole milk

175ml double cream

pinch of sea salt

3 egg yolks

 

To make the raspberry syrup: If you have a microwave, put the berries into a heatproof bowl with 60g of the sugar and simply blast them for a minute or two, until the fruit is very lightly cooked. Other-wise put into a pan with a tablespoon of water and simmer just until the raspberries soften and collapse and the sugar dissolves.

 

Once cooked, leave the berries to cool, and then blitz them with a stick blender. Push the purée through a sieve to remove the pips, squeezing hard to extract as much fruit as possible. Save the pips for pip juice, let the syrup cool and then chill it in the fridge overnight. (A night in the fridge will thicken the syrup considerably).

 

To make the rhubarb: rinse the rhubarb, top and tail the stalks, then slice into 3cm long pieces and place these into a non-reactive pan or heatproof bowl and add the orange zest and juice. Cook very gently until the fruit collapses, either on the hob or in a microwave. If using a pan keep a lid on and shake the pan every so often to prevent sticking. It should take about 10-15 minutes or 2-3 minutes covered in clingfilm in a microwave. Try to avoid boiling the rhubarb as with a sudden ‘ploof!’ it will quickly become stewed and pale mush. Leave to cool completely and then chill in the fridge.

 

To prepare the ice-cream: heat the milk, cream and salt together in a non-reactive pan. Stir often using a whisk or silicone spatula to prevent it catching. When the milk is hot, whisk the egg yolks and 160g sugar together until combined.

 

As the milk reaches simmering point, pour it in a thin stream over the yolks, whisking all the time. Return all the mix to the pan and cook over a low heat until it reaches 82°C, stirring constantly to avoid curdling the eggs; keep a close eye on it so as not to let it boil. As soon as your digital thermometer says 82°C, remove the pan from the heat and place into a sink of iced water to cool – you can speed up the cooling process by stirring it every so often. Once the custard is at room temperature, cover with cling film and chill in fridge.

 

To make the ice-cream; add the chilled rhubarb to the cold custard and liquidise for 2-3 minutes until absolutely smooth. Push the rhubarb custard through a fine-mesh sieve of chinois into a clean container, discarding any leftover fibres.

 

Pour into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions, about 20-25 minutes, or until frozen and the texture of whipped cream.

 

Working quickly, transfer the ice-cream into a suitable lidded container. Do this in layers, adding a generous layer of chilled raspberry syrup at each go then swirling with a spoon for a marbled effect. Top with a piece of waxed paper to limit exposure to air, cover and freeze until ready to serve.

 

Note- cooked rhubarb always benefits form sitting in the fridge overnight…it seems to intensify and draw out the beautiful pink juice.

From La Grotta Ices by Kitty Travers, published by Penguin Random House. Photography by Grant Cornett

 

La Grotta Pea Pod Ice-cream

In 2009 I was asked to make an ice cream to sell at the Art Car Boot Fair in London’s Bethnal Green, the theme that year was “recession special”. There were a lot of “credit crunchy” kind of flavours going on among cake bakers, but I wanted to try and make a cheap milk ice out of pea pods (pods are popping with sweet fresh flavour but are usually thrown away, and that seems a shame to waste.) I billed it as 100p ice cream and sold scoops for a pound a pop. It went down a storm and I still make it now in the summer – albeit a slightly more costly custard version. It’s delightful served with fresh strawberries or Garriguette Strawberry ice-cream on the side and a sprinkle of sea salt flakes.

 

400g very fresh peas in their pods

400ml whole milk

150ml double cream

small pinch of sea salt

4 egg yolks

130g sugar

 

To prepare the ice cream: wash the peas in their pods and then pod them, reserving the pods. Blanch the fresh podded peas in boiling water for 30 seconds and then refresh them in iced water to preserve their colour; drain and put them in the fridge, covered.

 

Heat the milk, cream and salt together, stirring occasionally. As soon as the liquid reaches simmering point, add the pea pods and simmer them for 3 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and blitz the pods and liquidize them with a stick blender for a minute. Strain the mixture through a sieve, squeezing hard on the pods to extract as much flavour from them as possible. Discard the blitzed pea pods.

 

Wash the pan and pour the fragrant milk and cream mixture back into it. Bring it to a simmer. Stir often using a whisk or silicone spatula to prevent it catching. Once the liquid is hot and steaming, whisk the egg yolks and the sugar together in a separate bowl until combined.

 

Pour the hot liquid over the yolks in a thin stream, whisking continuously. Return all the mix to the pan and cook over a low heat until it reaches 82°C. Stir constantly to avoid curdling the eggs, and keep a close eye on it so as not to let it boil. As soon as your digital thermometer says 82°C, place the pan into a sink of iced water to cool. Speed up the cooling process by stirring the mix every so often. Once the custard is a room temperature, scrape it into a clean container, cover with cling film and chill in the fridge overnight.

 

To make the ice cream: the following day, add the blanched peas to the custard and liquidise with a stick blender for 2 minutes, or until it turns froggy green. Use a small ladle to push the mixture through a fine mesh sieve to ensure it is perfectly smooth.

 

Pout the custard into an ice cream machine. Churn according to the machine’s instructions, usually about 20-25 minutes, or until frozen and the texture of whipped cream.

 

Scrape the ice cream into a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of waxed paper to limit exposure to air, cover and freeze until ready to serve. Eat within a week.

From La Grotta Ices by Kitty Travers, published by Penguin Random House. Photography by Grant Cornett

 

La Grotta Sea Salt, Rosemary and Pine Nut

Sadly I can’t make this ice cream that often, because it annoys me too much the way people see the words ‘sea salt’ and literally screech to a halt in front of my ice cream van when it’s on the menu. What is it with sea salt? Sprinkle it on strawberry yoghurt if you love it that much – I’ll be just fine here with all the fresh peach ice cream which no one pays any attention to. Pine nuts though, I can get excited about. I’ve joined Facebook groups for them! Fatty and addictive, with a smokiness that pairs well with sweet and savoury flavours.

In this recipe, liberally salted pine nut brittle is stirred into freshly churned, rosemary scented caramel custard ice cream. I accept it’s utterly delicious. Try it served alongside Roast Chestnut Cremolata

 

120 g sugar

250 ml double cream

350 ml whole milk

Large pinch of sea salt 6 egg yolks 20 – 25 fresh rosemary leaves

For the pine nut and rosemary brittle

100 g pine nuts

100 g sugar

1 heaped teaspoon glucose syrup (makes caramel easier to manage)

20 g butter

15 g rosemary leaves

¼ teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon sea salt

 

To make the pine nut and rosemary brittle: toast the pine nuts over a very low heat in a pan for 10 minutes, until warmed and just coloured, then pour them into a bowl and cover with a clean tea towel to keep them warm.

 

Heat the sugar, glucose and a tablespoon of water together slowly in a pan until the grains of sugar have dissolved. Swirl the pan to mix; do not stir. Add the butter, bring the mix to the boil and boil steadily until it reaches 150°C on your digital thermometer.

Meanwhile, pick the rosemary leaves, adding them to the bowl of pine nuts along with the baking powder and sea salt, then mix well, ensuring there are no lumps of baking powder. Have a whisk or heat – proof spatula to hand.

 

As soon as the sugar reaches 150°C, or a dark caramel colour, tip the pine nut mix in and whisk well to combine. The mixture will bubble up because of the baking powder so use a long heatproof spatula or whisk to keep your hands safe from burns. Allow the nuts to toast to a pale gold colour in the caramel, then remove from the heat.

 

Pour the hot brittle evenly onto a silicone baking mat. Cover with another non-stick baking mat or a double sheet of buttered baking paper, and roll quickly and firmly with a wooden rolling pin to evenly spread the brittle into a half-centimetre layer. Leave to cool.

 

Break the brittle into large pieces and store between sheets of waxed paper in an airtight container, or roughly smash into chunks ready to add to the freshly churned rosemary-caramel ice cream.

 

To prepare the ice cream: sprinkle the bottom of a heavy-based pan (ideally stainless steel) with 100 g of the sugar in even layer. Place it over a medium heat and cook slowly and without stirring until it begins to melt and caramelise. Swirl the pan to achieve even caramelisation.

 

Cook the caramel to a dark colour until just smoking, then pour in the cream and milk to stop the cooking process. Add the sea salt and warm the liquids over a medium heat to dissolve the caramel, this may take 10 minutes. Stir but do not boil as you don’t want to evaporate the liquid too much. Once the caramel has dissolved, whisk the remaining 20 g sugar with the egg yolks until combined.

 

Pour the hot liquid over the yolks in a thin stream, whisking continuously. Return all the mix to the pan and cook over a low heat until it reaches 82°C, stirring all the time to avoid curdling the eggs and keeping a close eye on it so as not to let it boil. As soon as your digital thermometer says 82°C, remove from the heat, add the fresh rosemary leaves and stir them in, then place the pan into a sink of iced water to cool. Speed up the cooling process by stirring the mix every so often. Once the custard is at room temperature, transfer it into a clean container, cover with cling film and chill.

 

To make the ice cream: the following day, use a small ladle to push the custard through a fine-mesh sieve or chinois into a clean container. Discard the rosemary leaves then liquidise the cold custard with a stick blender for a minute.

 

Pour the custard into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions until frozen and the texture of whipped cream, about 20 – 25 minutes.

 

Transfer the ice cream to a suitable lidded container, sprinkling in generous handfuls of crushed pine nut brittle as you go (you will need about half the amount you made). Top with a piece of waxed paper to limit exposure to air, cover and freeze until ready to serve.

 

Note – just in case you have any left, you can store any extra brittle between sheets of waxed paper in an airtight container. I always save silica gel sachets and slip one of these in too for good measure (to help keep the brittle crisp ).

From La Grotta Ices by Kitty Travers, published by Penguin Random House. Photography by Grant Cornett

 

La Grotta Blackcurrant Leaf Water Ice

Trying the flavour of blackcurrant leaves for the first time is almost like finding out that a new colour exists. It’s a singular perfume…a bit like white acid drops…a bit like green leaves…reminiscent of exciting chemicals.

 

If this sounds weird, don’t let it put you off. It’s delicious enough to be up there as a fourth flavour, strawberry, chocolate and vanilla pale in comparison.

 

200g sugar

420ml water

30g blackcurrant leaf tips, freshly picked and rinsed

4 lemons, ideally unwaxed Amalfi

 

To prepare the water ice: gently heat the sugar and water together in a small pan to make a syrup, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Bring this syrup to a simmer, then remove it from the heat and add the blackcurrant leaves. Cover the pan with cling film and leave the syrup to cool in an iced water bath for about half an hour.

 

Zest and juice the lemons. Measure out 250ml of the juice (I’m sure you’ll find something to do with any that’s left over) then add this and the zest to the cool syrup. Stir then strain through a fine-mesh sieve, squeezing to extract as much liquid as possible form the blackcurrant leaves. Chill in the fridge.

 

To make the water ice: once the mix is chilled, give it a good stir and then pour into an ice cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions until frozen and the texture of slushy snow, usually about 20-25 minutes.

 

Scrape the water ice into a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of waxed paper to limit exposure to air, cover and freeze until ready to serve.

 

Note – this is a water ice rather than a sorbet as it doesn’t have the “body” provided by a fruit purée. It will naturally be icy and a little ‘melty’ but intensely refreshing.

 

Variation – make a delicious refreshing Bunch of Fresh Herbs sorbet by replacing the blackcurrant leaves with 30g fresh soft green herbs or blossoms of your choice. I like to experiment with dill, parsley, basil, chervil, mint or anise hyssop. Even a few honeysuckle, calendula or sweet pea blossoms make a nice addition (maybe not chives). Chop them up finely and add to the hot sugar syrup, then steep for 20 minutes in an ice bath before straining out and proceeding as above.

 

Alternatively, omit the blackcurrant leaves entirely and follow the method above to make a classic Lemon sorbet. It’s nice to add the fresh zest of 1 lemon to the mix before churning for visual appeal – otherwise real lemon sorbet has the misfortune to look like mashed potatoes.

From La Grotta Ices by Kitty Travers, published by Penguin Random House. Photography by Grant Cornett

 

La Grotta Peach Leaf Milk Ice

 

Like a magic trick, peach leaves appear to be completely flavourless until they are scalded in hot milk for a very specific amount of time (see note). At this point they deliver their extraordinary characteristic– the flavour of crisp toasted almond biscuits. Wow your party guests by live demo-ing this ice cream for them. Wow yourself every time you make it at home!

 

Getting hold of the leaves may prove tricky – I buy bags of them from a stall at Brixton Farmer’s Market, where amazingly a few small knobbly (and slightly green) Sussex-grown peaches are sold each Summer. Or find your own tree: peach trees are notoriously difficult to bear fruit but if you find someone who has a tree they are unlikely to miss a dozen or so leaves if you ask nicely.

 

This recipe employs the use of a simple milk base, thickened with a natural vegetable starch so as not to interfere with the pure taste of peach leaf. A surprising and refreshing ice, delicious with a side of lightly sugared, sliced stone fruit.

 

160g sugar

15g tapioca starch or cornflour

550ml while milk

100ml double cream

15-20 fresh peach leaves

 

To prepare the milk ice: prepare a sink full of iced water, and a timer set to time 3 minutes. Have a clean bowl ready with a fine mesh sieve set over it. In a bowl, whisk 2 tablespoons of the sugar into the tapioca starch or cornflour.

 

Heat the remaining sugar with the milk and cream in a pan over a low heat, stirring often with a whisk or silicone spatula to prevent it catching. Once the liquid is hot and steaming, pour it into the bowl containing the starch. Whisk constantly to combine it well without lumps forming.

 

Return all the mix to the pan and cook over a low heat, whisking constantly just until it starts to simmer. Remove the pan from the heat, stir in the peach leaves then cover the pan tightly with cling film and place in a sink full of iced water to cool. Start the timer.

 

After exactly 3 minutes remove the pan and pour the mix through the sieve. Squeeze hard to extract as much flavour as possible from the peach leaves. You should see a tint of pale acid green seep into the mix with the last squeezes. Discard the remaining leaves.

 

Return the pan to the sink to cool completely before covering and chilling in the fridge overnight.

 

To make the milk ice: the following day, liquidise the peach leaf mixture with a stick blender for 1 minute; this will help liquefy the mix.

 

Pour the mix into an ice cream machine. Churn according to the machine’s instructions, about 20-25 minutes, or until frozen and the texture of whipped cream.

 

Scrape the milk ice into a suitable lidded container. Top with a piece of waxed paper to limit exposure to air, cover and freeze until ready to serve. This ice will keep for a few days but is best eaten straight away – as the recipe contains no egg yolk and very little cream it freezes quite hard and can become icy otherwise.

 

Note- it’s vital that you use a timer for this so that the peach leaves are steeped for no more than 3 minutes precisely – any longer and the flavour changes completely, to one of over ripe compost.

 

Variations – make a clean and pure tasting Fig Leaf Milk Ice by following the recipe above and replacing the peach leaves with 2 large or 3 small fresh fig leaves.

 

Make Pea Pod Milk Ice by simmering 350g shelled pea pods for 3-4 minutes in the milk and cream mixture (before you add the starch), then blitz with a stick blender and strain before returning the mix to a clean pan. Bring to steaming point and then pour over the starch in the bowl and continue as above.

From La Grotta Ices by Kitty Travers, published by Penguin Random House. Photography by Grant Cornett

 

By the time you read this column on Saturday, the news of Myrtle Allen’s passing will be well known. She was 94 and up to very recently was ‘hale and hearty’ although age had dimmed her brilliant intellect in recent years. What a legacy my beautiful mother-in-law has left us all. Loved by her extended family and staff, her six children and spouses, twenty two grandchildren and thirty six great-grandchildren, virtually all of whom live within forty five minutes of Ballymaloe.

What an inspiration, this gentle woman who couldn’t cook a thing when she got married at the age of nineteen to Ivan Allen, a handsome young farmer from East Cork has been to all of us. They used to joke that they learned ‘a lot’ about each other on their honeymoon, she realised that he played a bridge a lot and he discovered she couldn’t cook at all, so the story goes that he taught her how to scramble eggs when they arrived home to Shanagarry from their honeymoon on Caragh Lake in Co. Kerry.

From then on she was determined to teach herself how to cook, convinced of the importance of delicious wholesome nourishing food for the health and happiness of her family and to delight her husband who loved and appreciated every delicious morsel and encouraged her attempts to master each new recipe.

I love this quote from the Ballymaloe Cookbook which she wrote in 1977, still in print after 41 years. “I was many years married before I first triumphantly put a really good brown soda bread loaf on the tea tables. Of course, this brought me no prose, only a few disillusioned grunts about the pity it was I had taken so long to learn the art!

 

In 1964 when all of her children except her youngest daughter Fern were boarding in Newtown School in Waterford, she decided to open a restaurant in the dining room of the family home in Ballymaloe House in the midst of a farm in East Cork, an extraordinary thing to do at that time when it was unheard of to open a restaurant outside a town of city. At that time it was called The Yeats Room, because it contained Ivan’s collection of Jack Yeats paintings.  From the beginning, she wrote the menu every day depending on what produce was in season in the garden and on the farm and what lovely fresh fish was landed by the boats in Ballycotton. She cooked and served the food simply so the beautiful fresh flavours of the produce shone through.

She was much loved too by the huge network of farmers and artisan producers, local butchers, cheese makers, fish-smokers, greengrocers and foragers from whom she sourced for Ballymaloe and always made sure they were paid well for producing top quality produce.

Myrtle served children’s tea at Ballymaloe House for all the guest children with home-made lemonade and delicious fresh fish and crispy hand-cut chips and many other really good things that children loved. Before supper she organised for the little ones to collect the freshly laid warm eggs from the nests for their, very own boiled egg with soldiers – many  now ‘grown up’ Ballymaloe Guests have happy memories ….

I’ve just realised the date, June 16^th 2018…By sheer coincidence, 50 years ago today, I arrived at Ballymaloe House to work with Myrtle Allen …how fortunate am I that our paths crossed in life. I’ve chosen a few quintessential recipes that will always remind me of Myrtle.

Ballymaloe Chicken Liver Pâté

 

Serves 10-12 depending on how it is served.

 

This recipe has certainly stood the test of time, it has been the Pâté Maison at Ballymaloe House since the opening of the restaurant in 1965 but Myrtle also made it for family and guests for many years previous to the opening of The Yeats Room

 

225g (8oz) fresh organic chicken livers

2 tablespoons) brandy

200-300g (8-12oz) butter (depending on how strong the chicken livers are)

1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves

1 large clove garlic, crushed

freshly ground pepper

 

Clarified Butter to seal the top

 

Wash the livers in cold water and remove any membrane or green tinged bits. Dry on kitchen paper.

Melt a little butter in a frying pan; when the butter foams add in the livers and cook over a gentle heat.  Be careful not to overcook them or the outsides will get crusty; all trace of pink should be gone.   Add the crushed garlic and thyme leaves to the pan, stir and then de-glaze the pan with brandy, allow to flame or reduce for 2-3 minutes. Scrape everything with a spatula into a food processor.  Purée for a few seconds.  Allow to cool.

 

Add 225g (8oz) butter. Purée until smooth.  Season carefully, taste and add more butter, cut into cubes if necessary.

 

This pâté should taste fairly mild and be quite smooth in texture. Put into pots or into one large terrine.   Tap on the worktop to knock out any air bubbles.

 

Clarify some butter and spoon a LITTLE over the top of the pâté to seal.

Serve with melba toast or hot white bread.   This pate will keep for 4 or 5 days in a refrigerator.

 

Watchpoint: It is essential to cover chicken liver Pâté with a layer of clarified or even just melted butter, otherwise the pâté will oxidize and become bitter in taste and grey in colour.

 

Ballymaloe Brown Yeast Bread

Many guests will recognise this bread, now synonymous with Ballymaloe House. Myrtle loved to pass on the recipe and techniques of this nourishing loaf that involved no kneading and only one rising and has been a staple on Ballymaloe tables since the 1950’s, well before the start of the restaurant.

 

Makes 1 loaf

 

400g (14oz) strong (stone-ground) wholemeal flour plus 50g (2oz) strong white flour

425ml (15floz) water at blood heat

1 teaspoon black treacle or molasses

1 teaspoon salt

20g – 30g (3/4oz – 1oz) fresh non-GM yeast

 

sesame seeds – optional

 

1 loaf tin 13x20cm (5x8inch) approx.

sunflower oil

 

Preheat the oven to 230C/450F/Gas Mark 8.

 

Mix the flour with the salt. The ingredients should all be at room temperature. In a small bowl or Pyrex jug, mix the treacle with some of the water, 150ml (5floz/generous 1/2 cup) for 1 loaf and crumble in the yeast.

 

Sit the bowl for a few minutes in a warm place to allow the yeast to start to work. Meanwhile check to see if the yeast is rising. After about 4 or 5 minutes it will have a creamy and slightly frothy appearance on top.

 

When ready, stir and pour it, with all the remaining water (9fl oz/275ml), into the flour to make a loose-wet dough. The mixture should be too wet to knead.   Allow to sit in the bowl for 7-10 minutes (time varies depending on room temperature).   Meanwhile, brush the base and sides of the bread tin with a good sunflower oil.  Scoop the mixture into the greased tin. Sprinkle the top of the loaves with sesame seeds if you like. Put the tin in a warm place somewhere close to the cooker or near a radiator perhaps. Cover the tin with a tea towel to prevent a skin from forming. Just as the bread comes to the top of the tin, remove the tea towel and pop the loaves in the oven 230C/450F/Gas Mark 8 for 20 minutes, then turn the oven down to 200ºC/400ºF/Gas Mark 6 for another 40-50 minutes or until it looks nicely browned and sound hollow when tapped. The bread will rise a little further in the oven. This is called “oven spring”. If however the bread rises to the top of the tin before it goes into the oven it will continue to rise and flow over the edges.

 

We usually remove the loaf from the tin about 10 minutes before the end of cooking and put them back into the oven to crisp all round, but if you like a softer crust there’s no need to do this.

 

Note: Dried yeast may be used instead of baker’s yeast. Follow the same method but use only half the weight given for fresh yeast. Allow longer to rise. Fast acting yeast may also be used, follow the instructions on the packet.

Baked Plaice, Dover Sole with Herb Butter

Myrtle devised this recipe for cooking the Summer plaice from Ballycotton on the bone for maximum flavour. It could be served with or without a herb butter or a rich sauce.

This is a very simple but inspired ‘master recipe’ for plaice and sole but also for all very fresh flat fish, e.g. brill, turbot, dabs, flounder and lemon sole.   Depending on the size of the fish, it can a starter or a main course. Needless to say it is also delicious with Hollandaise Sauce.

 

Serves 4

 

4 very fresh plaice or sole on the bone

Herb Butter

2-4 ozs (50-110g/1/2 – 1 stick) butter

4 teaspoons mixed finely-chopped fresh parsley, chives, fennel and thyme leaves

salt and freshly ground pepper

 

Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/regulo 5.

 

Turn the fish on its side and remove the head.  Wash the fish and clean the slit very thoroughly.  With a sharp knife, cut through the skin right round the fish, just where the ‘fringe’ meets the flesh.  Be careful to cut neatly and to cross the side cuts at the tail or it will be difficult to remove the skin later on.

 

Sprinkle the fish with salt and freshly-ground pepper and lay them in 1cm (1/2 inch) of water in a shallow baking tin.   Bake in a moderately hot oven for 20-30 minutes according to the size of the fish.  The water should have just evaporated as the fish is cooked.  Check to see whether the fish is cooked by lifting the flesh from the bone at the head; it should lift off the bone easily and be quite white with no trace of pink.

 

Meanwhile, melt the butter and stir in the freshly-chopped herbs.  Just before serving catch the skin down near the tail and pull it off gently (the skin will tear badly if not properly cut).  Lift the fish onto hot plates and spoon the herb butter over them.  Serve immediately.

 

 

 

Balloons

My mother-in-law, Myrtle Allen, made these for her children, and has passed on the recipe to her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They’ve also been a favourite at children’s tea at Ballymaloe for over 50 years. They cook into funny little shapes, uneven in texture, and can look like little monsters which amuses the children and create lots of fun.

 

Makes about 10 balloons

 

150g (5oz/generous 1 cup) white flour

2 teaspoons caster sugar

pinch of salt

1 level teaspoon baking powder

200ml (7fl oz/scant 1 cup) or more full-cream milk

extra caster sugar or cinnamon sugar (granulated sugar mixed with a little ground cinnamon) to coat

 

Sieve the dry ingredients into a bowl. Mix to a thick batter (dropping consistency) with milk.

 

Preheat a deep-fryer to 190°C (385°F).

 

Take a heaped teaspoonful of the mixture and push it gently off with your finger so that it drops in a round ball into the fat. Fry until puffed and golden. Remove and drain. Repeat the process until you have used up all the batter.

 

Roll the balloons in caster sugar or cinnamon sugar and serve at once.

 

Delicious with sweet apple sauce flavoured with a little cinnamon, and a bowl of pastry cream for dipping.

 

 

Ballymaloe Ice Bowl

I remember how thrilled Myrtle was when her attempts to make an ice bowl to keep the ice cream chilled on their famous sweet trolley at Ballymaloe House was finally successful.

“It took me twelve years to find the solution to keeping ice cream cold on the sweet trolley in my restaurant.   At first we used to unmould and decorate our ices on to a plate.  This was alright on a busy night when they got eaten before melting.  On quieter occasions the waitresses performed relay races from the dining-room to the deep freeze.  I dreamed about 19th Century ice boxes filled from ice houses, to my husband’s increasing scorn, and then I thought I had a solution.   A young Irish glass blower produced beautiful hand-blown glass cylinders which I filled with ice-cream and fitted into beautiful tulip shaped glass bowls.  These I filled with ice cubes.  Six months later, however, due to either the stress of the ice or the stress of the waitresses, my bowls were gone and so was my money.

 

In desperation I produced an ice bowl.  It turned out to be a stunning and practical presentation for a restaurant trolley or a party buffet”

 

To make a Ballymaloe Ice Bowl

Take two bowls, one about double the capacity of the other.   Half fill the big bowl with cold water.   Float the second bowl inside the first.   Weight it down with water or ice cubes until the rims are level.  Place a square of fabric on top and secure it with a strong rubber band or string under the rim of the lower bowl, as one would tie on a jam pot cover.   Adjust the small bowl to a central position.   The cloth holds it in place.   Put the bowls on a Swiss roll tin and place in a deep freeze, if necessary re-adjusting the position of the small bowl as you put it in.   After 24 hours or more take it out of the deep freeze.

 

Remove the cloth and leaves for 15-20 minutes, by which time the small bowl should lift out easily.   Then try to lift out the ice-bowl.  It should be starting to melt slightly from the outside bowl, in which case it will slip out easily.  If it isn’t, then just leave for 5 or 10 minutes more, don’t attempt to run it under the hot or even cold tap, or it may crack.  If you are in a great rush, the best solution is to wring out a tea-towel in hot water and wrap that around the large bowl for a few minutes.   Altogether the best course of action is to perform this operation early in the day and then fill the ice bowl with scoops of ice-cream, so that all you have to do when it comes to serving the ice-cream is to pick up the ice bowl from the freezer and place it on the serving dish.   Put a folded serviette under the ice bowl on the serving dish to catch any drips.

 

At Ballymaloe, Myrtle Allen surrounds the ice bowl with vine leaves in Summer, scarlet Virginia creeper in Autumn and red-berried holly at Christmas.  However, as you can see I’m a bit less restrained and I can’t resist surrounding it with flowers!

 

However you present it, ice-cream served in a bowl of ice like this usually draws gasps of admiration when you bring it to the table.

 

In the restaurant we make a new ice-bowl every night, but at home when the dessert would be on the table for barely half an hour, it should be possible to use the ice bowl several times.  As soon as you have finished serving, give the bowl a quick wash under the cold tap and get it back into the freezer again.  This way you can often get 2 or 3 turns from a single ice bowl.

 

Note

Don’t leave a serving spoon resting against the side of the bowl or it will melt a notch in the rim.

 

Carrageen Moss Pudding

 

Myrtle’s recipe for Carrageen Moss pudding is the very best… Light delicate and super nutritious. It is still served in Ballymaloe every evening with a seasonal fruit compote and softly whipped cream.

Serves 6

 

7g (1⁄4oz) cleaned, well-dried carrageen moss (1 semi-closed fistful)

900ml (1 1⁄2 pints/3 3/4 pints) whole milk

1 vanilla pod or 1⁄2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 organic egg

1 tablespoon caster sugar

 

To Serve

soft brown sugar and softly whipped cream or a compote of fruit in season

 

Soak the carrageen in a little bowl of tepid water for 10 minutes. It will swell and increase in size. Strain off the water and put the carrageen into a saucepan with the milk and the vanilla pod, if using. Bring to the boil and simmer very gently, covered, for 20 minutes. At that point and not before, separate the egg, put the yolk into a bowl, add the sugar and vanilla extract, if using, and whisk together for a few seconds, then pour the milk and carrageen moss through a strainer onto the egg yolk mixture, whisking all the time. By now the carrageen remaining in the strainer will be

swollen and exuding jelly. You need as much of this as possible through the strainer and whisk it into the egg and milk mixture. Test for a set in a saucer as one would with gelatine.

 

Whisk the egg white stiffly and fold or fluff it in gently; it will rise to make a fluffy top. Serve chilled with soft brown sugar and cream, or with a compote of fruit in season.

 

 

www.cookingisfun.ie

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Shaved fennel, celery and apple salad with pomegranates and hazelnuts;

Onglet with roast beets and horseradish cream;

Blood oranges and aperol jelly;

Rhubarb, marmalade and rosemary cake….

How tempting and lip-smackingly good does that sound. Well it all comes from Diana’s Henry’s latest book “How To Eat a Peach…” Diana is fast shaping up to be many peoples favourite cookery writer. Not only has she a particularly wonderful way with words but she has a natural gift for creating beautiful balanced menus that delight rather than merely ‘stuff’ the diner.

 

Diana has been intrigued by menus since she was in her mid-teens. At sixteen she bought an ‘exercise copy book’, covered it carefully with brown paper and began to transcribe menu ideas – she still has the book.

 

I loved the stories in her introduction to “How To Eat a Peach…” Her parents didn’t have dinner parties but regularly had people in for “good food and craic”, dancing to Nancy Sinatra and a shot or two of Bushmills or Vat 69.

Diana threw her first ‘dinner party’ in her late teens, she planned carefully the menu, invited her school friends who were intrigued by the candlelight in the room “Are we going to celebrate Mass” and thought she was going well over the top when she served pineapple ice.

 

Diana continued to pour over food magazines and books, cook, travel and put lots of effort into edible research, even pouring longingly over the menu displayed in the glass cases outside restaurants when she couldn’t afford to eat there.

I particularly loved the story about “Sally Clarke’s restaurant – “I used to get the tube on a Monday night to go and see what Sally had planned for the week. I’d stand there, sometimes in the rain, with a little torch, writing down her menus in a notebook. I rarely ate at Clarke’s (I was in my first job and it was expensive), but I felt as if I ate there all the time.

 

Diana and I share many influences, she too, admires and is inspired by Alice Waters and her philosophy of beautiful fresh produce simply served.

Diana’s research has taken her from Belfast to France, the Breton Coast, Bordeaux on to Manhattan, Morocco…

Her menus reflects her travels, beautiful simple food… So many things I’m tempted to cook from How to Eat a Peach, check it out but here are a few tasters to whet your appetite…

 

Diana Henry’s Elderflower Gin & Tonic

This drink is local and seasonal to me, in Britain, in early summer, so it seems a perfect way to start a meal that honours this philosophy.

 

makes 500ml (18fl oz) gin

for the elderflower gin

20 just-picked elderflower heads

500ml (18fl oz) gin

5 tablespoons caster sugar

 

to serve

tonic water, lime slices and mint sprigs

Shake the elderflowers gently to dislodge any little bugs that might be hiding in them. Pour the gin into a big preserving jar and add the flowers and the sugar. Close the jar and shake it every day for 1 week.

 

Strain the mixture through a sieve lined with some muslin or a brand new J-cloth, then bottle.

 

Put some of the elderflower gin in glasses with ice. Top up with tonic and add lime slices and mint sprigs.

How To Eat a Peach by Diana Henry is published by Mitchell Beazley

 

 

 

 

 

Diana Henry’s Salad of Fennel, Celery and Apple Salad with Pomegranates and Hazelnuts

This might seem very humble before a resplendent pasta dish, but that’s the point. It’s clean and plain and a real appetite opener. Don’t make it too far in advance, though, as the fennel and apples lose their freshness.

 

Serves 6

2 small fennel bulbs

2 small eating apples

juice of 1 lemon

2 celery sticks, with leaves if possible, washed and trimmed.

6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon white balsamic vinegar

¼ teaspoon Dijon mustard

sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper

seeds from ½ pomegranate

15g (½oz) halved hazelnuts, toasted

Quarter the fennel, trim the tops and the bases and remove any coarse outer leaves. If there are any little fronds, remove and reserve them.

 

Quarter and core the apples. Don’t leave any of this sitting around to discolour: prepare and assemble the salad quickly.

 

Using a mandolin – or a very sharp, thin bladed knife – slice the fennel very thinly and put it into a large bowl with the lemon juice. Slice the celery finely on an angle, reserving any leaves. Change the setting on your mandolin and slice the apples into slightly thicker pieces. Toss the celery and apples in the lemon juice, too. Add any fennel fronds and celery leaves you reserved.

 

Mix the extra virgin olive oil with the white balsamic vinegar, mustard and salt and pepper. Add this to the bowl, mixing it with the other contents. Taste the salad for seasoning. Just before serving, scatter the pomegranate seeds and hazelnuts on top.

How To Eat a Peach by Diana Henry is published by Mitchell Beazley

 

 

Diana Henry’s Spatchcocked Chicken with Chilli, Garlic, Parsley & Almond Pangrattato

I know, this is barely a recipe, it’s just flattened roast chicken with chopped almonds and herbs thrown on top, but I really crave this kind of food: charred, juicy meat, a contrasting crunchy texture and big, strong flavours. It’s great for one of those balmy late-summer evening meals.

serves 6

for the chicken

1.8kg (4lb) chicken

3 garlic cloves, finely grated

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper

8 red onions, cut into wedges

 

for the pangrattato

80ml (2¾fl oz) extra virgin olive oil

100g (3½oz) stale sourdough bread, made into breadcrumbs

2 tablespoons chopped blanched almonds

4 garlic cloves, chopped

1 teaspoon chilli flakes leaves from a small bunch of

flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped

finely grated zest of 1 unwaxed lemon

 

Set the bird on your work surface, breast-side down, legs towards you.

Using good kitchen scissors or poultry shears, cut through the flesh and bone along each side of the backbone. Remove the backbone and keep it for stock (freeze it until you’ve gathered other bones to cook along with it).

Open out the chicken, turn it over so it is skin side up, then, flatten it by pressing hard on the breastbone with the heel of your hand. Remove any big globules of fat and neaten any ragged bits of skin. Now you have a spatchcocked bird.

Gently lift the skin on the breast of the bird so that you can put your hand in between the skin and the flesh (try not to tear the skin). Mix the garlic with 1 tablespoon of the extra virgin olive oil and some seasoning and carefully push this under the skin. Cover with cling film and put in the fridge for a couple of hours.

 

Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas mark 6 and take the chicken out of the fridge. Put the onions into a roasting tin and pour on the remaining 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Set the chicken on top, breast side up, season the outside and roast for 1 hour.

 

Meanwhile, make the pangrattato. Heat the extra virgin olive oil in a frying pan over a medium heat and sauté the breadcrumbs for about 4 minutes. Add the almonds, garlic and chilli and cook for another minute or so. Remove from the heat and mix with the parsley and lemon zest, chopping everything together.

 

Cut the chicken into serving pieces and put it on to a warmed platter, on top of the red onions. Pour any extra cooking juices over the top, scatter on the pangrattato and serve.

How To Eat a Peach by Diana Henry is published by Mitchell Beazley

 

 

Diana Henry’s Onglet With Roast Beets & Horseradish Cream

An onglet steak – also known as hanger steak – is usually about 3cm (1¼in) thick and shaped like a small, fat snake. It is slightly chewy – but only slightly – and has a good gamey flavour. London-based chef Neil Rankin taught me how to cook steak (the instructions for all cuts are in his book, Low and Slow) and it works every time. Sautéed potatoes and watercress are good on the side.

serves 4

500g (1lb 2oz) small raw beetroots

regular olive oil

sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper

125ml (4fl oz) double cream

1 tablespoon wholegrain mustard, or to taste, 3 tablespoons freshly grated horseradish

a splash of white wine vinegar (optional)

a pinch of caster sugar (optional)

4 x 250g (9oz) onglet steaks (keep them in the fridge)

flavourless oil or beef dripping, to fry

 

Preheat the oven to 210°C/410°F/gas mark 6½.

Trim the beetroots and wrap in foil, moistening with a little regular olive oil and seasoning before you seal the packet. Don’t wrap it too tightly, you want there to be space around the beets. Place in a roasting tin and cook until tender; it should take 30–35 minutes, though the time can vary. Test with the point of a knife, it should pass through with no resistance. When the beetroots are cool enough to handle, peel, quarter and season. These can be served at room temperature.

 

Reduce the oven temperature to 140°C/275°F/gas mark 1. Put in an empty roasting tin or baking sheet large enough to hold all the steaks.

Whip the cream and add the mustard and horseradish. Taste; you may want a little more mustard. Some people add a tiny splash of white wine vinegar (or, conversely, a pinch of sugar). Add whichever of those you think you would like.

 

Onglet steaks don’t have flat surfaces, so flatten each steak a bit by bashing it with the base of a saucepan, putting baking parchment over it first. Don’t overdo it, you just need to make them a bit less round. Heat 2 frying pans, preferably cast iron, 7–10 minutes ahead of when you want to cook them, setting the heat dial about three-quarters of the way round. To check whether the pan is hot enough to cook in, add a tiny bit of flavourless oil or dripping. If it smokes, the pan is ready. Heat a little oil or beef dripping in the pan, add 2 steaks to each pan and press down with tongs to get the surfaces in touch with the base of the pan. Move the steaks around all the time, seasoning and making sure each steak is getting browned all over. Listen for the sizzle: when the steak is quiet, you need to move it. If the pan gets too hot and the meat is getting too dark (you don’t want it to be black), reduce the heat; if it’s not getting dark enough, increase the heat.

 

Transfer the steaks to the hot tin or sheet in the oven and continue to cook for about 5 minutes for medium-rare (onglet is best served medium-rare).

 

Using a really sharp knife, slice each steak against the grain. Neil Rankin (see recipe introduction) doesn’t rest his steak. Serve with the roast beets and the horseradish cream. A handful of green leaves is good on the side.

How To Eat a Peach by Diana Henry is published by Mitchell Beazley

 

Diana Henry’s Gooseberry and Almond Cake with Lemon Thyme Syrup

This is a pale pudding – soft green and cream – which seems just right for early summer. I serve it with extra gooseberries, poached (there’s a recipe for them below) but you don’t have to.

 

Serves 6-8

 

For the cake:

125g (4½ oz) unsalted butter, softened plus more for the tin

125g (4½ oz) caster sugar,

plus 5 tablespoons caster sugar

3 large eggs, at room temperature. Lightly beaten

75g (2¾ oz) plain flour, sifted

2 teaspoons chopped lemon thyme leaves

finely grated zest of 1 unwaxed lemon

75g (2¾ oz) ground almonds (preferable freshly ground)

¾ teaspoon baking powder

350g (12 oz) gooseberries, topped and tailed

For the syrup:

4 tablespoons granulated sugar

juice of 2 large lemons

2 teaspoons lemon thyme leaves

 

 

For poached gooseberries:

75g (2¾ oz) granulated sugar

2 lemon thyme sprigs

500g (1lb 2oz) gooseberries, topped and tailed

 

 

To serve:

thyme flowers, if you can find any

icing sugar, to dust (optional)

sweetened crème fraîche or whipped cream

 

 

 

Preheat the oven to 190 °C/375 °F/gas mark 5. Butter a 20cm (8in) spring-form cake tin and line with baking parchment.

 

Beat the butter and the 125g (4½ oz) of caster sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs a little at a time, beating well after each addition. If the mixture starts to curdle, add 1 tablespoon of the flour. Put the lemon thyme leaves in a mortar with the lemon zest and pound together to release the fragrance. Add to the batter and briefly mix. Fold in the rest of the flour, the almonds and the baking powder, using a large metal spoon. Scrape into the tin. Toss the gooseberries with the remaining 5 tablespoons of caster sugar and spread over the top. Bake for 30 minutes.

 

The cake is ready when a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

 

To make the syrup, quickly heat the granulated sugar, lemon juice and lemon thyme leaves in saucepan, stirring to help the sugar dissolve. Pierce the cake all over with a skewer while it is still warm and slowly pour the syrup into it. Leave cool a little, then carefully remove from the tin and put on a serving plate.

 

Meanwhile, poach the gooseberries. Heat 175ml (6fl oz) of water, the granulated sugar and lemon thyme together in a saucepan, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Add the gooseberries and cook over a medium heat for 4minutes, or until the fruit is soft but not collapsing (most of the berries should hold their shape). Leave to cool.

 

Any thyme flower you have will look lovely on top of the cake. You can leave it as is, or dust lightly with icing sugar just before serving, with sweetened crème fraîche or whipped cream and the poached gooseberries on the side.

How To Eat a Peach by Diana Henry is published by Mitchell Beazley

Imagery credit: Laura Edwards