I’m wandering along a narrow hilly boreen close to Lough Ine in West Cork. I’m making very slow progress because the tangled brambles in the hedgerows and along the stone walls are covered with blackberries, so tempting – looks like we’re going to have a bumper crop this year. There are also tons of rosehips and the promise of an abundant elderberry crop in a few weeks’ time.

Blackbirds and thrushes are eating so many blackberries at the moment that as I’ve just discovered, their droppings can actually stain clothes on a laundry line…a small price to pay for so much delicious free fruit, packed with antioxidants, vitamins and minerals and dietary fibres that are essential for optimum health. Blackberries are particularly rich in Vitamin C with adequate amounts of A, E and K and some B complex vitamins and for those who are concerned about these matters it’s good to know that they are low cal and considered by many to be a super food.

Altogether, enough good things to warrant arranging a blackberry picking expedition. Given half a chance they grow everywhere and anywhere in both urban and rural areas, from city parks and back gardens to country lane and mountain tops.

The sweet succulent berries are super versatile. Don’t just think jam and pies, use them in salads and sauces, autumn puddings, muffins, scones and cobblers, trifles, ice-creams, sorbets, scatter over breakfast cereals, add them to fools, crumbles and crisps. Make some wine, ratafias and cordials. Few fruits offer so many options. Blackberries also freeze brilliantly, if you have time and space, tray freeze first, spread them out on a tray in a single layer, when frozen solid toss into a plastic box or stout bag, cover and freeze immediately in usable quantities – just enough of a batch of jam, a pie, etc…when they are frozen and loose, it’s easy to take out a fistful at a time for a breakfast smoothie.

Cultivated blackberries also are big business with large quantities being flown in daily from North America and other temperate regions. They tend to be larger than the wild ones and unquestionably taste very good but I have to say it makes no kind of sense to me to pile your supermarket trolley high with imported blackberries during the Irish season.

Ironically, I overhead an extraordinary conversation in a supermarket queue just a few days ago. Although there are Irish commercial blackberries available, some customers were bemoaning the price of food and there in one of their trollies were two punnets of blackberries from North America, plus several other items that I seriously would be questioning the need for – none of my business and you’ll be glad to hear that I kept my thoughts severely to myself…..

Hot Tips
Celebrate the Autumn Harvest
Brooklodge and Macreddin Village are celebrating the Autumn Harvest. A delicious 9-course Autumn Harvest Tasting Menu in Ireland’s first certified Organic Restaurant – The Strawberry Tree in Brooklodge. www.brooklodge.com, Tel: 0402 36444

Taste of West Cork Food Festival Event
Dianne Curtin will host the round table ‘show and tell’ The Rare Cookery Books Workshop with a particular focus on Keith Floyd as part of the Taste of West Cork Food Festival.
Saturday 10th September at 4.30pm at Urru Culinary Store, Bandon. Booking is advised. €6 including light refreshment.
Phone: 023 885 4731

Sweet Woodruff
Also called wild baby’s breath can be found lying flat on the ground with strongly scented white petals. The scent increases on wilting and then persists on drying, and the dried plant is used in pot-pourri and as a moth deterrent. It is used mainly to flavour May wine (called “Maibowle” or “Maitrank” in German), sweet juice punch, syrup for beer, jam, ice cream, and herbal tea. Also very popular are flavoured jellies, with and without alcohol.

Meadowsweet
Not to be confused with dropwort, meadowsweet has a heavy fragrance and can be found along marshes, woods and meadows. The plant can be used to flavour wine, beer, and many vinegars. The flowers can be added to stewed fruit and jams, giving them a subtle almond flavor.

Blackberry Ice Cubes
Pop a fat juicy blackberry into each section of an ice cube tray, add a tiny sweet geranium or mint leaf if you have them to hand. Fill with cold water – freeze. Pop into a glass of dry white wine, homemade lemonade or champagne.

Blackberry or Raspberry and Sweet Geranium Sugar Squares

Another delicious way to use sweet geranium

Makes 24

175g soft butter
150g castor sugar
2 eggs, preferably free range
175g self-raising flour
2 tablespoons freshly chopped sweet or rose geranium
225g blackberries or raspberries

50g castor sugar
1 tablespoon of freshly chopped rose geranium

25.5 x 18 cm Swiss roll tin, well-greased

Preheat the oven to 180°C/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 blackberries or raspberries 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 rose geranium. Serve in squares.

Crème de Mure (Blackberry Liquer)

Makes 2 litres (4 1/2 pints)

This recipe can also be made using blackcurrants in which case the name would change to ‘Crème de Cassis’.

Drink within 6 weeks.

1 1/2kg (3lb 5oz) ripe blackberries
2 litres (3 1/2 pints/8 3/4 cups) red wine
800g (1 3/4lbs/3 1/4 cups) granulated sugar, possibly more to taste
70cl (700ml/1 1/4 pints/generous 3 cups) brandy or vodka (unflavoured)

Pick over the blackberries, carefully removing bits of leaf or twig. Put into a stainless steel bowl.

Crush the fruit well with a potato masher. Pour on the red wine and stir well. Cover and leave to macerate for 48 hours, stirring from time to time.

Strain through a muslin bag into a stainless steel preserving pan. Squeeze the bag well to get the last of the liquid out.

Add the sugar and heat up gently, stirring until the sugar has dissolved and the liquid is almost boiling. Simmer uncovered for about an hour until the liquid thickens and turns slightly syrupy. Stir occasionally.

Taste, and add a little more sugar if necessary. Allow to cool.

Add the spirit, stir well and pour into sterilised bottles. Seal and store in a cool place.

Serve well chilled in small glasses or with sparkling water and lots of ice.

Myrtle Allen’s Blackberry and Kirsch Soufflé Omelette

Ballymaloe guests loved this soufflé omelette which Myrtle put on the menu just a few times each year, during the blackberry season.

Serves 4

4 egg yolks
450g-680g caster sugar
Vanilla extract
6 egg whites
½ teaspoon butter
170 g soft fruit, blackberries
½ tablespoon kirsch
120 ml whipped cream
23cm non-stick pan

Whisk the egg yolks with 2 tablespoons of the sugar and a few drops of vanilla extract. Beat the egg whites until they are stiff and fold into the yolks (although I find it easier to fold the yolks into the whites). Heat the butter in a very clean non-stick pan. Pour in the egg mixture and cook over a low heat for 3 minutes. Do not stir. Finish cooking by putting the pan in a hot oven, 200°C/gas mark 6, for a further 3 minutes.
Meanwhile, cook the fruit and 225 g sugar in a saucepan until just boiling. Remove from the heat and add the kirsch. Turn the omelette out onto parchment paper generously sprinkled with caster sugar. Spread with warm fruit and whipped cream. Quickly fold in two and slide onto a warm dish. Sprinkle with caster sugar. Rush to the table, it can deflate somewhat within a couple of minutes but still tastes wonderful.

Blackberry (Rubus fruticosus)
When to Pick: late summer
All over the countryside every year, blackberries rot on the hedgerows. Think of all the wonderful jam that could be made – so full of vitamin C! This year, why not organise a blackberry-picking expedition and take a picnic. You’ll find it’s the greatest fun, and when you come home, one person could make a few scones while someone else is making the jam. The children could be kept out of mischief and gainfully employed drawing and painting homemade jam labels, with personal messages like ‘Amelia Peggy’s Jam – keep off!’, or ‘Grandma’s Blackberry Jam’. Then you can enjoy the results of your labours with a well-earned cup of tea.

Make sure you check the berries before you pop them into your mouth – if the core is discoloured rather than pale and unblemished, it usually means that the little crawly beasties have got there first, so it’s best to discard those. If you have the time and space, it’s really worth ‘tray freezing’ some of your harvest – that way all those little berries stay separate. A few small cartons close to the top of the freezer will come in handy to add to a sauce or gravy to partner a pheasant or a grouse later in the year.

Wild Blackberry, Apple and Rose Geranium Jam

Blackberries are famously low in pectin, so the tart apples help it to set and add extra flavour. Go foraging for blackberries in the early autumn before they’re over-ripe. Cultivated blackberries tend to be sweeter so you may need to reduce the sugar.

Makes about 10 x 450g (1lb) jars

900g (2lb) cooking apples (Bramley, or Grenadier in season) or crab apples
2.25kg (5lb) blackberries
1.8kg (4lb/8 cups) granulated sugar – since Ireland has gone over to cane sugar which appears to be more intensely sweet we reduced the sugar to 1.6kg/3 1/2lb. The intensity of sugar varies in different countries.
8 or more rose geranium leaves (Pelargonium graveolens)

Wash, peel, core and slice the apples. Stew them until soft in 225ml (8fl oz/1 cup) of water in a stainless-steel saucepan, then beat to a pulp.

Pick over the blackberries and put into a wide, stainless-steel saucepan or preserving pan and cook until soft, stirring occasionally. Add the apple pulp and the heated sugar. Destalk and chop the geranium leaves and add. Stir over a gentle heat until the sugar is dissolved. Then bring to the boil and cook steadily for about 15 minutes. Skim the jam, test it for a set and pot into warm, spotlessly clean jars. Cover and store in a cool, dry place.

All the little dotes are back at school by now. Parents are breathing a sigh of relief, relishing a few peaceful hours to relax or to get on with a job that has been put on the long finger for several months but now instead there’s the daily school lunch challenge.

How to fill that box with exciting yet nourishing wholesome food that will be ‘acceptable’ to the kids themselves and not be ridiculed by their peers. Such a minefield – how can food have reached this stage? One ‘catty’ remark from an opionated friend can banish the raw carrots or crunchy radishes from the lunch box for ever.
90 plus % of kids want sandwiches, easy to pack, easy to eat but the quality of the daily bread is crucially important. The quality of most shop bought sliced bread both brown and white is worrying, squishy, doughy, fermented and in some cases under cooked with an interesting list of ingredients that one will certainly not find in the cupboard of any home baker. Believe me, bread is easy to make and it’s so important that the lunch box staple is nourishing of course. It’s best if it’s wholemeal loaf and this one, the recipe I’ve included here is a simple mix, pour and bake job.

However some kids simply won’t eat brown bread so here’s a white yeast bread loaf that’s mixed in minutes, allowed to rise for another quarter hour or so in a loaf tin and then baked in your oven for ? .

It doesn’t rise as high or feel as fluffy as the well-known brands but the flavour and texture will ‘blow your socks off’. It’s real bread made with just four ingredients, flour, salt, yeast and water, rather than a possible 15 that can be included in a commercial sliced pan.

Which brings me to Derval O’Rourke, our very own Cork World Champion. Derval not only knows a thing or two about keeping fit but also knows that winning is all about food. Our energy, vitality, ability to concentrate and perform depends so much on the food we choose to eat. Derval believes that the secret to being your healthiest happiest self is to eat well and keep moving. Derval discovered the importance of nutrition as an elite athlete. After a poor performance in the 2004 Olympics she learned about food, fell in love with cooking – and then won a world title in her sport, hurdling. She believes eating well made all the difference to her form. Now that Derval is retired from athletics and is a busy young mum, her focus is on fitting exercise and healthy, pleasurable eating into a hectic schedule. Derval’s second book, The Fit Foodie, the sequel to her bestselling Food in the Fast Lane has recently been published by Penguin to more critical acclaim.

It’s packed with simple, family recipes, the sort of food you’ll really want to cook and share with your family and friends like Five Minute Muesli, Quinoa Salad with toasted walnuts and blue cheese, Laid back lamb tagine, Fit foodie noodle pots….Trish Deseine’s chocolate fondant cake…I also love Derval’s sweet and chatty style, little nuggets of info and sage advice about everything from how to make a brilliant cup of coffee to her favourite workout or cooking, play lists – well now there’s a new one for a cook book and why not.

The Fit Foodie’s fundamentals at the end of the book is worth the price of the book alone – check it out and thank you Derval – I suspect this book will become a favourite on many people’s kitchen shelf and there are many other great suggestions suitable for lunch boxes.

HOT TIPS

Entertaining with Darina and Rory, Monday 5th September
Darina and her brother Rory O’ Connell will teach a 2½ day cookery course at the Ballymaloe Cookery School starting on Monday 5th September. Their ‘Simply Delicious Christmas’ shows which aired on RTE 1 in 2014 and 2015 were a huge success, and are a flavour of what can be expected on this course. We guarantee plenty of fun and, of course, a little sibling rivalry for good measure!

Long Table Dinner 2016
Ballymaloe Cookery School’s ‘Dinner in the Glasshouse’ is now an annual event, held under the canopy of our extensive glasshouses. Our culinary team dream up an inspiring menu based on seasonal, local, organic ingredients. One of the main purposes of this annual event is to give recognition and exposure to our own growers and also the many Irish artisan food producers, suppliers and chefs who are striving to provide us with the finest quality organic food products. Proceeds from the Glasshouse Dinner goes to Slow Food which helps with the East Cork Slow Food Educational Project.
Friday 9th September. www.cookingisfun.ie

Feel Good Food, Let’s Cook with Debbie Shaw
Debbie Shaw is a nutritionist and teacher here at the Ballymaloe Cookery School. Debbie believes that whole, natural foods have the power to heal, boost energy, vitality, keep us youthful, healthy and happy….. In this 1½ day cookery course, Debbie will teach a wide range of recipes inspired from the Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, Irish and Asian influences for long term health including raw food, fermentation….www.cookingisfun.ie
Midleton Food Festival, Summer Supper Club at Ballymaloe House
Louise Bannon, ex NOMA chef, will cook a pop up dinner at Ballymaloe House on Monday 5th September.
Cocktails in the Garden at 7pm followed by 3 course dinner with wine at 8pm. Tickets are €65.00, booking essential 021 4652 53.

A Taste of West Cork Food Festival
www.atasteofwestcork.com
Foraging at Turk Head with Madeline McKeever and April Danann on Saturday 10th September at 2pm.
Meet the Producer: – Roaring Water Sea Vegetable Farm on Monday 12th September at 12pm. Peppermint Farm at 2pm.

Our Farms, Our Food, Our Future Forum …discussing the interdependence between modern farming, food production, practices and health…Monday 12th September 3pm at West Cork Hotel, Skibbereen

Mix and Bake Brown Loaf

Even if you never made a loaf in your life, you can make this , just mix and pour into a well-greased tin. This bread keeps very well for several days and is also great toasted.

Makes 1 loaf or 3 small loaves

400g (14ozs/2 1/2 cups) Macroom stone ground wholemeal flour or a wholemeal flour of your choice
75g (3ozs/3/4 cup) white flour, preferably unbleached
1 teaspoon salt
1 level teaspoon (1/2 American teaspoon) bread soda, sieved (Bicarbonate of Soda/Baking Soda)
1 egg, preferably free range
1 tablespoon (1 American tablespoon + 1 teaspoon) arachide or sunflower oil, unscented
1 teaspoon honey or treacle
425ml (15fl ozs/scant 2 cups) buttermilk or sourmilk approx.

sunflower or sesame seeds (optional)

Loaf tin 23×12.5x5cm (9x5x2in)

Preheat oven to 200ºC/400ºF/Gas Mark 6.

Put all the dry ingredients including the sieved bread soda into a large bowl, mix well. Whisk the egg, add the oil and honey and buttermilk. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in all the liquid, mix well and add more buttermilk if necessary. The mixture should be soft and slightly sloppy, pour into an oiled tin or tins. Sprinkle some sunflower or sesame seeds on the top. Bake for 60 minutes approximately, or until the bread is nice and crusty and sounds hollow when tapped. Cool on a wire rack.

Seedy Bread
Add 1 tablespoon (1 American tablespoon + 1 teaspoon) of sunflower seeds, 1 tablespoon (1 American tablespoon + 1 teaspoon) of sesame seeds, 1 tablespoon (1 American tablespoon + 1 teaspoon) of pumpkin seeds, 1 tablespoon (1 American tablespoon + 1 teaspoon) of kibbled wheat to the dry ingredients. Keep a mixture to scatter over the top.

Note
The quantity of buttermilk can vary depending on thickness. Add 1-2 tablespoons of cream to low-fat buttermilk (optional).

Ballymaloe Simple White Yeast Bread (One Rising)

There is no kneading involved in this recipe and only one rising so it is a brilliant introduction to using yeast.

When making yeast bread, remember that yeast is a living organism. In order to grow, it requires warmth, moisture and nourishment. The yeast feeds on the sugar and produces bubbles of carbon dioxide which expand in the heat oven the oven and rise the dough.

Have the ingredients and equipment at blood heat. Heat of over 50ËšC will kill yeast.

White or brown sugar, honey, golden syrup, treacle or molasses may be used. Each will give a slightly different flavour to the bread. At Ballymaloe we use treacle for Brown Yeast Bread and honey for this easy White Yeast Bread. The dough rises more rapidly with 15g (1/2oz) fresh yeast.

Different flours produce breads of different textures and flavour. The amount of natural moisture in the flour varies according to atmospheric conditions. The quantity of water should be altered accordingly. The dough should be just too wet to knead – in fact it does not require kneading.

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.

Makes 1 loaf

450g (1lb) strong white flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon honey
15g (1/2oz) fresh non-GM yeast
300ml (10fl oz/1 1/4 cups) water at blood heat

sesame seeds – optional

1 x 2lb (900g) loaf tin – well brushed with sunflower oil

In a wide, roomy bowl, mix the flour with the salt. The ingredients should all be at room temperature. In a small bowl or Pyrex jug, mix the honey with the water, and crumble in the yeast.

Sit the bowl for a few minutes in a warm place, (kitchen temperature fine) to allow the yeast to start to work. Meanwhile check to see if the yeast is rising. After about 3-4 minutes it will have a creamy and slightly frothy appearance on top.

When ready, stir and pour it, into the flour to make a loose-wet dough. The mixture should be just too wet to knead.

Meanwhile, brush the base and sides of the bread tin with a good quality 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.

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

Just as the bread comes almost to the top of the tin, about 15-20 minutes, (time varies depending on room temperature). 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.
Cool on a wire rack.

Note
This bread doesn’t look like a pan-loaf, it will be relatively flat on top.

Derval O’ Rourke’s Five Minute Muesli

Shop bought muesli can be full of sugar and other additives, as well as being overpriced. Take five minutes to make a batch of this muesli instead. It’s delicious served with milk or as a topping for fruit and yoghurt. I love to eat it with whatever fresh berries are in season. When it’s winter, frozen berries are great – just remember to defrost from the night before. The chia seeds and goji berries are super foods that will help to support your immune system. And the oats will keep you full all morning. This muesli stores well in an airtight container for about a week.

Makes 7 big portions

350 g jumbo porridge oats
150 g chia seeds
150 g mixed seeds (pumpkin and sunflower work well)
90 g whole dried goji berries
90 g ground linseed

Mix all of the ingredients together in a large bowl. Transfer the muesli to an airtight container.

Derval O’ Rourke’s Quinoa Salad with Toasted Nuts and Blue Cheese

Since my fridge is never without a big batch of cooked quinoa, I tend to eat quinoa based salads. I usually have a good stash of toasted nuts in the cupboard too. This means that I always have the basics at hand for interesting and nutritious lunches. Don’t be put off by the blue cheese in this recipe. Even if you think you don’t like it, you might be surprised at how well it complements the other flavours in this superfood salad.

Serves 2

125 g cooked quinoa
Handful of baby spinach
2 tablespoons toasted nuts (almonds, pinenuts, cashews work well)
2 tablespoons seeds (pumpkin and sunflower work well)
25 g blue cheese, crumbled
Handful of blueberries
½ pomegranate, seed only
Handful of mint leaves, chopped

For the dressing
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon natural yoghurt
Juice of ½ lime
Pinch of sea salt

Place the quinoa, spinach, nuts and seeds in a serving bowl and mix well.
Place all the ingredients for the dressing in a jar with a lid and shake to combine. Pour this dressing over the quinoa salad and toss well. Crumble over the blue cheese. Scatter over the blueberries, pomegranate seeds and mint. The salad is ready to serve.

Derval O’ Rourke’s Posh Nuts

Posh Nuts are one of my favourite evening treats. Their fiery and delicious and it takes less than 20 minutes to make a batch. You can leave these nuts to cool completely – but if you eat them when they’re still warm from the oven, they really hit the spot!

Serves 2

1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 tablespoon agave syrup
150 g mixed nuts (Brazil, hazelnuts and pecans work well)
1 tablespoon chopped rosemary (or 1 teaspoon dried rosemary)
1 teaspoon chili flakes
½ teaspoon sea salt

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4.

Melt the coconut oil in a large pot over a medium heat. Stir in the agave syrup. Take the pan off the heat and toss in the nuts. Stir well to coat the nuts evenly. Sprinkle over the rosemary, chilli, salt and stir well. Spread the nuts on a baking tray. Roast for about 12 minutes, turning once. Leave the nuts to cool on the tray or serve them hot straightaway.

Derval O’ Rourke’s Booster Bars

Whether you go for a brisk walk, a jog or full on session at the gym, there’s nothing as tasty as a post workout treat that you’ve made yourself. These bars are particularly good for giving you a boost. The oats are full of fibre rich complex carbohydrates and the nuts are full of protein. These elements combine to keep you fuller for longer. These bars are far more economical than shop bought energy bars and they keep for several days in an airtight container in the fridge. If you want to be really organised, you can bake a big batch and then wrap and freeze individual bars. Then just grab a bar from the freezer and bring it in your bag so that you have a health treat for later in the day.

Makes 12 bars

6 ripe bananas, mashed
120 ml agave syrup
2 tablespoons coconut oil, melted
240 g porridge oats
100 g dried fruit (dates and apricots work well)
60 g ground flaxseed
60 g hazelnuts, chopped
60 g pecans, chopped
60 g pumpkin seeds
60 g sunflower seeds

Line a 33cm x 23 cm metal baking tin with parchment paper so that the paper overlaps the sides. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4. Use a food processor or whisk to mix the bananas, agave syrup and coconut oil. Combine the remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Add the banana mixture to the dry ingredients and stir well. Scrape the mixture into the prepared baking tin and spread out evenly, pressing down with the back of a spoon.

Bake for 20 minutes, until the top is golden brown and firm. Remove from the oven and leave to cook for about 30 minutes. To remove from the tin, take hold of the parchment paper and simply lift out the slab. Cut the slab into bars and store in the fridge or freezer.

Any new finds in London? – a regular question from readers and friends. How lucky are we to live close to what may well be the most exciting food capital in the world, cosmopolitan and totally multi ethnic, it’s certainly up there with the best, so whether you feel like classic French or Ethiopian, Turkish or Sicilian, Basque, Lebanese, Tunisian, Moroccan, Burmese, Vietnamese, Thai, Uzbekistani, Russian, Roman, Scandinavian, Romanian…..Texas, BBQ or great modern British – it’s all there. Never enough meal slots to get to all the places on my ‘must try’ list.

On a recent visit I got to Palomar in Rupert Street in the heart of Theatreland. I’ve been wanting to go for ages but could never get a table. This time I just chipped up and scored a seat at the zinc counter with a brilliant view of the cocktail bar and the open kitchen.

Palomar serves the food of modern day Jerusalem, the menu is influence by the rich cultures of southern Spain, North Africa and the Levant but it’s not just the food that excites. The atmosphere is joyous and exhilarating. The chefs are really having fun and seem to be enjoying themselves hugely as they cook to the beat of the funky playlist. It’s loud, bustling and audacious and the enthusiasm is utterly infectious. Not the sort of place I might normally gravitate towards but I loved it.

Lots of small plates of irresistible food to choose from. Even though the portions are small, perfect for me, there’s a limit to what one can eat and there are many more tempting dishes to choose from.

I loved the Kubaneh – soft tender Yemeni bread served in a tin with tahini and a tomato, cumin and chilli dip.
Fattoush salad was made with challah croutons, tomato, cucumber, red onion, za’atar, sumac and brazil nuts on a bed of creamy labneh.

The chefs use a Josper grill and plancha for many of their dishes. Don’t miss the polenta Jerusalem style with mushroom ragu, parmesan and truffle oil. Shakshurkit, turned out to be a deconstructed kebab with super tasting mincemeat, yoghurt, tahini, several toppings and Yaeli’s pitta and I also fitted in roast octopus with chickpea msabacha and cherry tomato confit. Sounds like a lot of food but fortunately the dishes were small.
More unbearable choices for dessert, Malabi – rose scented milk pudding with fresh raspberry sauce, coconut meringue batons and kataifi.
Doesn’t that sound super delicious, well it was but so too was the orange blossom ice cream with the pistachio and crispy kataifi.

The Dairy in Clapham was also on my wish list for some time. Here Irish chef, Robin Gill has covered the roof of the old Victorian Dairy with a plastic crate garden that produces fresh herbs, vegetables and edible flowers for the kitchen. Gill’s wife Sarah looks after the front of the house. Robin worked with Raymond Blanc at Le Manoir aux Quate Saisons in Oxford and also did a stint at Noma. He was head chef at Almeida in Islington and Sauterelle in the city.

Again, many small plates of deliciousness from the Gardens, Sea and Land. We lunched outside overlooking Clapham Common and tasted over a dozen delicious little bites, starting with those gorgeous plump Nocellara del belice green olives, house cured meats and crusty sourdough bread. There was Cornish crab with potato crisps and wakame, bone marrow agnolotti, peas, girolles, and summer truffle, charred mackerel with wild garlic dashi, pickled cucumber and oyster leaves. Lady Hamilton’s Pollock, marsh samphire and brandade was also memorable. And there was much much more.

Robin is a seriously accomplished chef with a passion for flavour, the seasons, wild foods and roof top herbs. The Dairy is also definitely worth a detour.
Another two of my favourite London restaurants, Duck Soup in Soho and Raw Duck in Hackney have recently published a cookbook of their simple eminently do-able recipes. The sort of food that you just love to eat, cook and serve to your family and friends.

Some of the lively fresh tasting dishes don’t even need to be cooked…..a triumph of good ingredients judiciously combined. It’s called The Wisdom of Simple Cooking – Ducksoup Cookbook by Clare Lattin and Tom Hill -here’s a taste

Cucumber, Pomegranate, Tomato and Za’atar Fattoush with Labneh and Tahini

Can be served as a starter or main course. A delicious combination, but toss gently, otherwise the feta will break up, and the end result will look far from appetizing. I sprinkle blue cornflower petals over this salad in season, red, yellow and orange nasturtium flowers are also lovely.
This recipe is not carved in stone, add a few fresh radishes and some purslane if available. Many countries have a version of this salad, an ingenious way to use up stale bread – Tortilla salad in Mexico, Panzanella in Tuscany.

Serves 4

1 pitta bread, split in half – 100g approx. or 2 slices of challah
extra virgin olive oil
1 Little Gem lettuce
1 small or ½ large cucumber, split lengthwise and cut at an angle – 140g
3 ripe tomatoes, 150g different varieties
½ red onion, sliced
150g feta or bocconini
2 tablespoons chopped annual marjoram
2 tablespoons flat parsley, roughly chopped
2 teaspoon za’atar
1 teaspoon sumac
Pomegranate seeds, 4 tablespoons (about ½)

Dressing
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon honey
Good pinch sea salt and freshly ground pepper
1 clove garlic, crushed

Labneh

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4

Brush the rounds of pitta or challah with extra virgin olive oil and toast until slightly golden, 10-12 minutes, break into bite-sized bits, 5-7mm- not too small.
Wash and dry the Little Gem leaves and slice into long strips. Split the cucumber lengthwise, scoop out the seeds and cut across the grain at an angle. Cut the tomatoes into different bite-sized shapes, wedges, chunks, slices, dice. Crumble the feta into largish pieces.
To serve:
Choose a wide bowl, put the pitta, lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes and sliced red onion into the bowl, sprinkle with the marjoram, parsley and za’atar, Whisk the dressing and pour over, toss gently, add a few cubes of feta. Taste and correct seasoning.
Spoon a generous tablespoon of soft labneh onto each shallow plate, top with a helping of Fattoush. Sprinkle with pomegranate seeds and remaining cubes of feta.
Alternatively serve on a large platter family style

Clare Lattin and Tom Hill’s Crab Fettucine Tomato and Bush Basil

Serves 2

150 g datterini, cherry or plum tomatoes on the vine
2 tablespoons extra virgin oil plus extra for drizzling
1 clove garlic
80 g brown crab meat
Pinch of dried chilli flakes
160 g fresh fettucine, or used dreed
80 g white crab meat
Juice of half a lemon
Few bush basil sprigs (or regular basil torn)
Slat

Bring a large of salted water to the boil. Heat a frying pan until smoking, then add the tomatoes, drop of olive oil and pinch of salt.
Give the pan a little shake here and there and fry for about 5 minutes or until the tomatoes start to blister and burn slightly.

Once amply blistered, pour onto the plate and set aside.

Gently heat the remaining oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Meanwhile thinly slice the garlic using mandolin slicer – using the guard – and add to the pan (or if you prefer you can slice the garlic by hand but as thinly as possible).

As soon as the garlic starts to turn golden, add the tomatoes and all the juice. Give them a quick stir and then add the brown crab meat and chilli flakes.

Stir together and cook over a low heat for 5 minutes.

While this is cooking add the fresh pasta to the pan of boiling water and cook for 2 minutes (if using dried pasta, check the instruction on the packet) Drain the pasta, keeping a couple of tablespoons of pasta water, and add to the tomatoes and crab pasta with a little pasta water.

Season with salt, you don’t need pepper because of the chilli flakes). Add the white crab meat and use tongs to mound the pasta up towards you so that you thoroughly coat the pasta with the sauce. Squeeze in the lemon juice and divide between two plates.

To serve, sprinkle over the basil leaves and drizzle with olive oil.

Ducksoup Cookbook Clare Lattin and Tom Hill

Clare Lattin and Tom Hill’s Flat White Peach, Goat’s Curd and Purple Basil

This is sunshine on a plate! As long as you use the best ingredients you’ll immediately find yourself transported to summer sunshine – this is a dish that requires perfectly ripe peaches. Serve this dish with crusty bread to mop up the juices – you could even have a plate of prosciutto alongside to help it on its way. If you can’t find purple basil (which has a more interesting flavour) try bush basil or regular basil.

Serves 2

4 white peaches (we use flat variety also known as sauterne peaches)
Juice of half lemon
Extra virgin olive oil
120 g goat’s curd
8-10 basil leaves
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Over a bowl, so that you can catch all the juices, tear the peaches in half and remove the stones, then roughly tear each half in two (or leave some whole if you want). Drop them into the bowl, add lemon juice, olive oil and a little pinch of salt and toss everything together.
Let it fall out of the bowl onto two plates, along with all the dressing. Add a spoon of goat’s curd to each plate and tear over the basil leaves. Finish with a few grinds of black pepper and a dash of olive oil.
Ducksoup Cookbook by Clare Lattin and Tom Hill

Robin Gill’s Garden Courgette with Smoked Buffalo Milk Curd and Roof Top Honey

Serves 4

Ingredients

4 courgettes with flowers
1 bunch fresh basil
1 clove garlic
20g aged Parmesan
10 g extra virgin olive oil
Fresh black pepper
10g toasted pumpkin seeds
5 Nocellara Del Belice olives
4 tablespoons of good quality honey

Smoked buffalo curd
500ml buffalo milk
25g double cream
10g buttermilk
Pinch of salt
Zest of one lemon

2g vegetable rennet
A hand full of dried hay

The first step is to make the curd, first place all ingredients apart from the hay and rennet into a container. Next toast the hay in a pre-heated oven at 180C/350F/gas mark 4 until it is an amber colour all over and has started to smoke, carefully remove the smoking hay from the oven and pour the mixed milk mix over the smoking hay and leave to infuse for 30 minutes, next strain the mix through a fine mix into a clean pot and add the rennet. Best place it over a low heat and bring the mix up to 36oC. (The mix should be just warm on the finger tip) transfer the mix into a suitable sized container and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Courgette and basil purée
Take 2 of the courgettes, cut into quarters and then slice across into thin fine pieces. Pick half a bunch of basil and reserve the best leaves for garnish later. Take a medium sized pan and add a good drissle of olive oil, add the garlic and follow quickly with the sliced courgette, stir and add a spoon of water and place a lid over the pan to help create steam, after 2 minutes add the basil and finally the grated Parmesan, place the mix into a blender and blend until smooth, place the mix in a bowl over iced water to cool quickly to keep the bright green colour.

Assembly
Slice the remaining courgettes thinly lengthways, place in a bowl with the flowers torn into quarters season with salt, black pepper, lemon juice and olive oil to taste, spoon the courgette purée generously around each plate, scatter the courgettes and flowers alternatively around each plate, add a couple of olive pieces, a couple of spoons of the smoked curd, finish with fresh basil and a good spoon of your favourite honey.

Hot Tips
Taste of West Cork Food Festival runs from 9th-18th September and brings a unique mix of food markets, demonstrations, competitions, dinners, brunches and banquets, food-tastings, talks, exhibitions, children’s events….don’t miss Foraging at Glebe Gardens, Carmel Somers’ demonstration and much more….

Date for the Diary
Feast in the East Midleton Food and Drinks Festival, 4th 10th September 2016 – lots of exciting events planned. Details to follow on the web http://midletonfoodfestival.ie/

It’s surely a decade and a half since we came over to the UK to visit organic growers, beautiful gardens, farm shops, Farmers Markets, farmhouse cheese makers…. Last time there was a tremendous air of optimism, demand for organic produce was growing, prices were more or less viable but now, 15 years later, in the wake of Brexit, there is quite a different mood tethering between despair and resignation.

There seems to be huge confusion amongst farmers about what on earth to grow or produce to actually manage to ‘earn a crust’

Helen Browning of Eastbook Farm in Wiltshire is the biggest organic pig farmer in the UK with 200 sows and their happy piglets chasing each other gleefully around the fields on her beautiful farm near Bishopstone close to Swindon.

Most of the pork goes into her range of juicy organic sausages and hotdogs and is also served on the menu at The Royal Oak, the pub she and her partner Tim Finney bought partly to revitalize the local village. This really resonated with me because for three days we’d been wending our way through beautiful Cotswold villages, all hollyhocks and roses with honey coloured granite houses and Farrow and Ball colours but often not a shop, pub or even a post office in sight.

Here in Ireland the decision to cap the size of retail outlets and not to allow large supermarkets to be built in green field sites, has, I wouldn’t quite say saved but at least protected the livelihood of many of our smaller shop keepers and kept many of our villages alive.

In Southrop, I stayed at Thyme, a beautiful country house with an excellent cooking school near the tiny village of Lechade. www.thyme.co.uk. It too has a pub with excellent food, even plates of hand cut pasta negra. Not all pubs in the UK have good food but many have and occasionally a comfy, couple of reasonably priced rooms.

We also loved The Plough in Kingham where Emily Watkins’s food draws people from far and wide to yet another beautiful village with no shop. For breakfast, as well as homemade jams, marmalades and a generous fry of local bacon, handmade sausages, home grown tomatoes and good eggs, they serve sweet little drop scones. www.thekinghamplough.co.uk

In the UK baked beans are a favourite part of a breakfast fry. At Thyme they made their own with fat Judion beans cooked in tomato sauce served with a thick slice of their own hand cut ham and a fried egg. Another tasty brunch dish. I also enjoyed little dill crumpets with smoked salmon, crème fraiche and dill sprigs, a light and delicious start to the day.

Another cool idea for an ice cream combination, raspberry and beetroot, came from the ice cream booth at the super cool Jolly Nice Farm Shop not far from Stroud. Here two young chaps bought a disused gas station and built a covered Farm shop underneath the canopy selling fresh herbs, organic meat, spanking vegetables, fruit, local cheeses and a whole range of carefully chosen deli products as well as craft beers and natural wines. There was a takeout café with fresh edgy food to eat at picnic tables in the meadow behind the shop or in one of two super cool yurts with stoves in case it got chilly. What a super idea. Another of my favourites was the Roth Bar and Grill at Hauser & Wirth in Bruton for both art, sculpture and food lovers. This is definitely a place to add to your ‘must do’ list check out. http://www.hauserwirthsomerset.com/

Among many good things, I particularly remember a lemon curd muffin that I enjoyed with a superb cup of coffee. There’s a Martin Creed exhibition on there at present as well as several spectacular sculptures by Subodh Gupta.
This is Somerset, deep in Cheddar country, iconic cheese makers like Montgomery and Keen’s are close by.
If you are in the area check out Westcombe Cheddar where I saw the world’s first Cheddar cheese turning robot in action, see timanddarina on Instagram.
You will also be close to the village Alhampton so vegetable, fruit and herb growers or wannabe growers may want to check whether Charles Dowding of ‘No Dig’ Gardening fame is giving a course. www.charlesdowding.com

Hot Tips

Date for your Diary
Don’t miss the fun at the fourth annual Ballymaloe Garden Festival which takes place on Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 of September 2016 on the grounds of Ballymaloe House. The weekend will bloom with talks, walks, workshops, demonstrations, food and fun designed to stimulate and excite rookie and veteran gardeners alike. All events are included in the €8 admission, children under 16 go free. www.gardenfestival.ballymaloe.ie.

The attributes of raw milk become increasingly evident as a growing body of research indicates the enhanced health benefits.
It can be difficult to find but the good news is Dan and Ann Aherne from Ballysimon utside Midleton now sell their beautiful organic raw cow’s milk in glass bottles from their stall at both Midleton Farmers Market, Saturdays 9am-2pm and Mahon Point Farmers Market on Thursday from 10am-3pm – get there early it sells out fast. Tel: 086 165 9258 ahernsorganicfarm@gmail.com

Dill Pancakes with Smoked Salmon and Crème Fraiche

Serves 8

Savoury Pancake

Makes 12 pancakes

110g (4ozs/1 cup) self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
25g (1oz/1/8 cup) caster sugar
pinch of salt
1 egg
110ml (4fl ozs/1/2 cup) milk
drop of sunflower oil, for greasing

2 tablespoons chopped dill
8 slices of smoked salmon
Crème fraiche
Dill sprigs

28cm (11in) frying pan

Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl, add the sugar and salt and stir to mix. Make a well in the centre, crack in the egg and whisk, gradually drawing in the flour from the edge. Add the milk gradually, whisking all the time, to form a smooth batter.

Lightly grease a frying pan and warm it over a moderate heat. Drop 3 tablespoons of the batter into the pan, keeping well apart so they don’t stick together. Cook for about 2 minutes or until bubbles appear on the surface and begin to burst and the drop scones are golden underneath, then flip them over and cook on the other side for a minute or until golden on this side as well.

Remove from the pan and serve warm on a hot plate with a ruffle of thin slices of smoked salmon, a dollop of crème fraiche and a few sprigs of dill.

Roth Bar and Grill Lemon Curd Muffins

Makes 12

170 g (6 oz) unsalted butter

310 g (11 oz) castor sugar

4 organic eggs

600 g (1¼ lb) self raising flour

300 ml (½ pint) whole milk

a pinch of fine salt

Lemon Curd

Tangy delicious lemon curd can be made in a twinkling, smear it over a sponge or onto fresh bread, buttery scones or meringues. It is best eaten within a fortnight.

Makes 2 x 200ml (7fl oz/scant 1 cup) jars

2oz (50g/1/2 stick) butter
3 1/2oz (100g/scant 1/2 cup) caster sugar
grated zest and juice of 2 lemons
2 organic eggs and 1 organic egg yolk whisked (keep white aside for meringue)

Grease and line a 12 muffin tin with greaseproof paper cups

Preheat the oven to 175ËšC/325ËšF/gas mark 3.

First make the muffins. Cream the butter and sugar together. Add a beaten egg, one a time until well incorporated into the butter/sugar mix. Gently mix in the flour and salt. Then add the milk, mix well.

Bake for 25-28 minutes in a fan oven. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.

Next make the lemon curd. Melt the butter on a very low heat. Add the caster sugar, lemon zest and juice and then add the whisked eggs. Stir carefully over a gentle heat with a straight ended wooden spatula until the mixture coats the back it. Remove from the heat and pour into a bowl or sterilized jar (it will thicken further as it cools.)

Cut a hole on the top of each cooled muffin. Use a piping bag to pipe the lemon curd into each muffin until oozing out of the top. Delicious with a cup of good coffee!

Emily Watkin’s Dark Chocolate and Cherry Arctic Roll

Serves 6

Flourless Chocolate Sponge
5 egg yolks
85g caster sugar
10g cocoa powder
45g melted dark chocolate
3 egg whites

Cherry ice-cream
650g fresh cherry fruit puree
225g caster sugar
125ml double cream

For the flourless chocolate sponge
Pre heat the oven to 190C.

Line a large flat baking tray with baking parchment. Whisk the yolks and sugar to make a sabayon (pale and volumised). Sift the cocoa into the yolks and sugar. Add the chocolate. Whisk the egg whites until they form peaks. Take a large spoon of the whites and mix into the chocolate base. Fold the whisked egg whites into the other ingredients. Pour onto the baking tray and bake for 6 minutes. Leave to cool.

For the Cherry Ice cream
First pit the cherries, blitz, then pass through a sieve.
Bring the sugar and cream to a simmer and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Pour into the cherry puree. Churn in an ice cream maker or freeze in a bowl, stirring every half hour. (or you can freeze in ice cubes and then place in a food processor to blend into an ice cream).

To make the arctic roll
Place a roll of cling film on a chopping board. Carefully turn the chocolate sponge onto the cling film. Place the ice cream onto the cling film. Use the cling film to help roll the sponge and ice cream into a log. Tie the cling film at the ends. Place back in the freezer until needed.

To serve:
Cut the log into individual portions and dust with a little cocoa powder. Serve with fresh cherries.

Beetroot and Raspberry Ice-Cream

Serves 6

225g (8oz) fresh raspberries
225g (8oz) cooked ruby beetroot
175g (6oz / 3/4 cup) sugar
150ml (5fl oz/generous 1/2 cup) water
1 teaspoon gelatine
600ml (1 pint/2 1/2 cups) whipped cream

Garnish
fresh raspberries and fresh mint leaves

Puree and sieve the raspberries. Dissolve the sugar in the water and boil for 2 minutes, sponge the gelatine in 1 tablespoon (1 American tablespoon + 1 teaspoon) water and dissolve in a saucepan of simmering water. Puree the cooked beetroot with the syrup, allow to cool. Then add the raspberry purée, add a little to the gelatine and then mix the two together. Fold in whipped cream and freeze in a covered container.

To Serve
Scoop out the ice-cream, serve on chilled plates. Decorate with fresh raspberries and mint leaves.

I spent a few days recently on a nostalgic trip down memory lane, I taught a course here at the Cookery School entitled ‘A Taste of Istanbul’. Ironically it coincided with the coup and subsequent unrest in Turkey so for me it was a bitter sweet experience. The course was inspired by the delicious food we ate on our trip to Istanbul last year.
I longed to share my experience and favourite recipes and stories of the places we visited and the Turkish people we met. Everywhere I went people heard I was interested in the food they cooked for me and shared family recipes.

One guide in Cappadocia brought us home and cooked a delicious goat stew from his village and a bulgur pilaff from cracked wheat milled in the local water mill.
Another family brought out Granny to give me cooking classes, the flavour of the food still lingers in my memory as does the warmth and kindness of the Turkish people everywhere we went. I remember a gentle potter who made beautiful utilitarian pots including a vase like pot in which a mutton stew is traditionally cooked in the embers of a wood burning oven. The stew was brought to the dining room in the sealed pot by the cook who knocked the top off neatly with a hammer at the table and poured the intensely flavoured stew onto the plate. He also made unglazed pots specially for yoghurt, I bought one home and the yoghurt we make in this clay pot is quite exceptional.

The street food in Istanbul was intriguing, some like doner kebab, kokerec, barbequed sheep’s intestines is not easy to reproduce but we make a delicious lahmacun, a Turkish lamb pizza eaten with lots of flat parsley and lemon that everyone loves.
I brought back several bags of urfa biber, the red Turkish pepper that’s virtually an essential seasoning and that immediately gives a dish an authentic taste.
Istanbul on the Bosphorus straddles two continents so its food is a fascinating and delicious mix of European and Asian flavours and techniques.

I particularly remember the fishermen in anoraks and woolly hats with their long rods fishing over the Galata bridge and the delicious fresh fish sandwiches balik ekmek, literally ‘fish bread’ from the stalls the Karaköy edge of fish market on the Bosphorous.

We made a delicious variation with fresh Ballycotton mackerel that everyone loved. They also enjoyed the comforting mercimek, a simple rice and lentil soup that’s put together in minutes, kids love it too.

The markets in Istanbul are packed with spices, dried fruit, vegetables and herbs, candies, Turkish delight, halva, wild honey and baklava in very shape and form.
We cooked several sweet and savoury dishes with filo pastry and the related künefe a shredded filo pastry that cooks to a golden crunch.

Here’s a recipe for a terrific dinner party and a welcome change from Pavlova.

Hot Tips
Date for the Diary
Don’t miss the Taste of Donegal Food Festival which runs from August 26th for three days. Lots of cookery demonstrations, wine and beer tastings, meet local food producers and taste their produce….

Mehmet’s Cappadocian Goat or Lamb Stew

The goat meat s from Mehmet’s village was butchered by himself – the flavour was intense and delicious. Shoulder of lamb or mutton can be used if goat is not available.

Serves 4-6

800g (1 3/4lbs) goat’s meat or lamb, with lots of fat, cut into 2cm (¾ inch) cubes
350g (12oz) onions, finely chopped
5-7 whole cloves of garlic, peeled
a pinch of chilli powder, biber chilli
4 ripe tomatoes cut in segments
1 Hungarian red pepper, 2cm (3/4 inch) dice
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon of Kekik – a Cappadocian mountain herb, perhaps we could use thyme leaves

Accompaniment
bulgar pilaf (see recipe)
a bowl of natural yoghurt

Cut the goat meat into 2cm (3/4 inch) cubes.

Heat a saute pan or shallow wok (satita) over a medium heat.

First cook a few pieces of fat until it starts to render. Add the meat and cook, stirring occasionally for 10 minutes or so. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Add the diced pepper, cook for a further 5 minutes.

Add the chopped onions and garlic cloves. Cook for another 4-5 minutes. Reduce the heat, add the tomatoes and a little chilli powder. Add a little kekik or maybe substitute thyme leaves (3 teaspoons).

Add 200ml (7floz/1 scant cup) hot water, to about half way up, cover the pan or wok and continue to cook for 30-40 minutes. Taste and correct seasoning.

Serve with bulgur pilaf and a bowl of natural yoghurt.

Bulgur pilaf
The bulgur that Mehmet used was home-grown and ground in a water powered mill.
Serves 4-6
45g (1½ oz) butter
450g (1lb) bulgur wheat
salt
freshly ground black pepper

Melt the butter in a saucepan, add bulgur and stir to coat. Then add salt and enough cold water to barely cover the top. Cover the saucepan and cook for five minutes or until all the liquid is absorbed. Transfer into a hot serving dish.
Melt some butter in a separate pan, allow to brown. Pour over the bulgur and serve with goat stew.

Balik Ekmek (Mackerel Fish Bread)
At the Eminou end of the Galata bridge over the Bosphorus in Istanbul, you’ll find the Karaköy Fish Market and boats selling balik ekmek. The name literally means ‘fish bread’, a simple sandwich of freshly grilled fish seasoned with salt and Turkish red pepper, served with sliced onion, lettuce, maybe some tomato and or pepper salad and a wedge of lemon. The Turks love mackerel but other fresh fish can also be used.

Different vendors do variations on the theme, the secret is spanking fresh fish, freshly grilled.

Serves 6

6 fillets of super fresh mackerel
extra virgin olive oil
Turkish biber pepper or sumac
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Turkish Tomato Salad

Serves 6

1 small red onion
1-2 teaspoons sumac
6 very ripe tomatoes
flat parsley, coarsely chopped
1-2 tablespoons (1 1/4 – 2 1/2 American tablespoons) lemon juice
3 tablespoons (4 American tablespoons) extra virgin olive oil
flaky salt and freshly ground black pepper

little Gem lettuce

Parsley, Caper and Spring Onion Mayonnaise (see recipe)

4 x 6 rolls or 4 x 15cm (6 inch) pieces of small baguette.

First make the mayonnaise (see recipe).

Season the fish with salt and sprinkle with biber pepper or sumac.

Next make the tomato salad.
Half the red onion,slice, sprinkle with salt and sumac and work well into the onion slices with your hands. Allow to sit while you chop the tomatoes coarsely. Add to the bowl with the roughly chopped parsley. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, freshly ground black pepper, lemon juice. Toss, taste and correct the seasoning – you may need a pinch of sugar.

To serve
Heat the pan-grill on a high flame.

Split the bread in half and pan-grill on the crumb side.

Pan-grill the mackerel first, flesh-side down, turn over when nicely marked and golden and then cook on the skin-side until crisp.

Spread a little herb mayonnaise on the cut sides of the bread. Top with a piece of pan-grilled fish and a portion of tomato salad. Add a leaf or two of lettuce, either Little Gem or Lollo Rossa. Serve immediately on a little tray or a piece of brown or greaseproof paper.

Basic Mayonnaise

Mayonnaise is what we call a ‘mother sauce’ in culinary jargon. In fact it is the ‘mother’ of all the cold emulsion sauces, so once you can make a Mayonnaise you can make any of the daughter sauces by just adding some extra ingredients.
I know it is very tempting to reach for the jar of ‘well-known brand’ but most people don’t seem to be aware that Mayonnaise can be made even with a hand whisk, in under five minutes, and if you use a food processor the technique is still the same but it is made in just a couple of minutes. The great secret is to have all your ingredients at room temperature and to drip the oil very slowly into the egg yolks at the beginning. The quality of your Mayonnaise will depend totally on the quality of your egg yolks, oil and vinegar and it’s perfectly possible to make a bland Mayonnaise if you use poor quality ingredients.

2 egg yolks, preferably free range
1/4 teaspoon salt
pinch of English mustard or 1/4 teaspoon French mustard
1 dessertspoon (2 American teaspoons) white wine vinegar
225ml (8fl oz/1 cup) oil (sunflower or olive oil or a mixture) – We use 175ml (6fl oz3/4 cup) sunflower oil and 50ml (2fl oz1/4 cup) olive oil, alternatively use 7/1

Serve with cold cooked meats, fowl, fish, eggs and vegetables.

Put the egg yolks into a bowl with the mustard, salt and the white wine vinegar (keep the whites to make meringues). Put the oil into a measure. Take a whisk in one hand and the oil in the other and drip the oil onto the egg yolks, drop by drop whisking at the same time. Within a minute you will notice that the mixture is beginning to thicken. When this happens you can add the oil a little faster, but don’t get too cheeky or it will suddenly curdle because the egg yolks can only absorb the oil at a certain pace. Taste and add a little more seasoning and vinegar if necessary.

If the Mayonnaise curdles it will suddenly become quite thin, and if left sitting the oil will start to float to the top of the sauce. If this happens you can quite easily rectify the situation by putting another egg yolk or 1-2 tablespoons of boiling water into a clean bowl, then whisk in the curdled Mayonnaise, a half teaspoon at a time until it emulsifies again.

Variation
Parsley and Caper Spring Onion Mayonnaise
Add 1 tablespoon each of chopped parsley, spring onions and 1 teaspoon of chopped tiny capers and add to the basic homemade mayonnaise.

Note
Sumac (Rhus corioria) – the sour berries of a shrub that grows wild throughout Anatolia. They may be steeped in water and the juice expressed, or ground and used to give a sour note to meat and vegetable dishes. Sumac can be bought in Middle Eastern shops, or use lemon juice as a substitute.

Red pepper (Biber) – an essential item in Turkish cooking. It is available powdered or coarsely ground and the taste is not as hot as cayenne nor as mild as paprika. A combination of the two may be used as a substitute. Red pepper appears on the table as a condiment instead of black or white pepper.

Merjemec Chorba

(rice, lentil and lemon soup)

Serves 4-6

1 medium onion.
1 tablespoon (1 American tablespoon + 1 teaspoon) olive oil.
1 cup red lentils
4oz (100g/1/2 cup) long grain rice.
salt
2 1/2 – 3 1/4 pints (6-8 cups) cold water (vegetable or chicken stock)
1-2 lemons

Sweat the onion in the olive oil until soft.
Add lentils, rice, salt and water.

Simmer with a lid on for about 15 minutes until the rice and lentils are fully cooked. Add lemon juice to taste.

Note – we like to add a little biber pepper and some fresh herbs (1 heaped teaspoon each of marjoram and thyme leaves, chopped) but the basic soup is comforting and homely.
May require a little more chicken stock at the end.

Lahmacun

These round, flatbread pizzas are much thinner and crispier than Pide. They become addictive, one never seems to be enough…….

Makes 4

7g (1/4oz) dry yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
300ml (10fl oz/1 1/4 cups) warm water
500g (18oz/generous 4 cups) plain flour
2 teaspoons sea salt
a little extra virgin olive oil
polenta, for dusting
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Topping
2 tablespoons (2 1/2 American tablespoons) extra virgin olive oil
110g (4oz) onion, peeled and finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tablespoon (1 1/4 American tablespoons) marjoram, chopped
310g (10 1/2oz) finely minced lamb
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 – 1 teaspoon Kırmızı biber flakes
1 tablespoon (1 1/4 American tablespoons) flat leaf parsley, finely chopped

To serve
4 ripe tomatoes, freshly chopped
fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves
Kırmızı biber pepper flakes
lemon wedges

Put the yeast, sugar and half the warm water in a small bowl, stir well and leave for 5-8 minutes or until it becomes creamy. Sieve the flour and salt into another bowl, mix. Make a well in the centre, add in the yeast and the remaining warm water. Mix to a dough with your hands. Turn out onto a lightly floured work surface. Knead for 8-10 minutes or for 5 minutes in a food mixer with a dough hook. Put into a lightly oiled bowl, cover and allow to rise at room temperature until double in size – about 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 240ËšC/Gas Mark 9.

Meanwhile make the topping, heat the olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat, sauté the chopped onion, garlic and oregano for about 3–4 minutes or until the onion has softened. Transfer the mixture to a bowl – allow to cool. Add the lamb, paprika, biber pepper and parsley. Season generously with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Mix well and chill until ready to use.

When the dough has risen, knock back lightly. Shape into a roll – 4 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a ball, press it down with your hand. Roll into a round thin flatbread about 30cm wide, or as thin as you possibly can, turning the dough as you roll and pulling it with your hands.

Transfer to a pizza paddle sprinkled with polenta. Sprinkle the topping evenly over the base of the first lahmacun. Drizzle with a little olive oil and slide onto a preheated metal baking tray in the oven. Bake for 10–12 minutes or until the lahmacun is crispy and golden brown. Repeat the process with the remaining lahmacun.

Serve with a couple of lemon wedges, fresh tomato dice, lots of sprigs of flat parsley and if you like more Kırmızı biber flakes scattered over the top.

Claudia Roden’s Konafa with a Cream Filling

It is my mother’s recipe. In Lebanon it is called Osmaliyah. It is meant to be served hot but it is also good cold. You can buy the soft white vermicelli-like dough frozen in Lebanese, Turkish and Greek stores. In Lebanon, it is called knafe but in the UK it is sold by its Greek name kataifi in 400g packets; it should be defrosted for 3 hours. The quantities below will make one large pastry to serve 10 but you can also make two, half the size, one to serve fewer people and one to put in the freezer to bake at a later date. It freezes well uncooked.

Serves 10

For the syrup
12oz (350g/1 1/2 cups) sugar
9fl oz (250ml/generous 1 cup) water
1 tablespoon (1 American tablespoon + 1 teaspoon) lemon juice
2 tablespoons (2 1/2 American tablespoons) orange blossom water

For the cream filling
4 1/2oz (125g) ground rice
950ml (approx. 1 3/4 pints/scant 4 1/2 cups) milk
4fl oz (110ml/1/2 cup) double cream
4 tablespoons (5 American tablespoons) sugar

For the pastry
14oz (400g) kataifi (knafe) pastry, defrosted
7oz (200g/1 3/4 sticks) unsalted butter, melted

Garnish
3 1/2oz (100g) pistachios, chopped finely

Make the syrup first. Boil the sugar with the water and the lemon juice over a low heat for 510 minutes, until it is just thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Another way to test it is to pour a drop onto a cold plate and if it does not spread out like water, it is ready. Stir in the orange blossom water and cook a moment more. Let it cool then chill in the refrigerator. (If you have overcooked the syrup and it becomes too thick to pour when it is cold, you can rescue it by adding a little water and bringing it to the boil again.)

For the filling, mix the ground rice with enough of the cold milk to make a smooth creamy paste. Bring the rest of the milk with the cream to the boil. Add the ground rice paste, stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon. Leave it on a very low heat and continue to stir constantly for 1520 minutes until the mixture thickens, being careful not to let it burn at the bottom. Then add the sugar and stir well.

Put the kataifi pastry in a large bowl. With your fingers, pull out and separate the strands as much as possible. Melt the butter and when it has cooled slightly, pour it over the pastry and work it in very thoroughly with your fingers, pulling out and separating the strands and turning them over so that they do not stick together, and are entirely coated with butter.

Spread half the pastry at the bottom of a large round pie pan, measuring 2830cm (11-12 inches) in diameter. Spread the cream filling over it evenly and cover with the rest of the pastry. Press down firmly and flatten it with the palm of your hand. Bake in an oven pre-heated to 180°C/350°F/Gas 4 for about 45 minutes. Some like to brown the bottom  which comes out on top when the pastry is turned out  by running it over heat on a hob for a brief moment only. Others prefer the pastry to remain pale.

Just before serving, run a sharp knife round the edges of the osmaliyah to loosen the sides, then turn it out onto a large serving dish. Pour the cold syrup all over the hot pastry and sprinkle the top lavishly with the chopped pistachios.

Alternatively, you can pour only half the syrup over the pastry and pass the rest around in a jug for everyone to help themselves to more if they wish.

Osmaliya with Cheese Filling
This is another wonderful dessert that I strongly recommend. It is quicker and easier to make than the previous one with cream. Make the pastry as above but instead of the cream filling, use 18oz (500g) mozzarella cheese CHOPPED OR GRATED in the food processor, mix with 9oz (250g) RICOTTA, 2 tablespoons (2 1/2 American tablespoons) sugar and 2 tablespoons (2 1/2 American tablespoons) orange blossom water. Bake as above and pour the cold syrup over the hot pastry as it comes out of the oven, just before serving. Serve hot or at least warm while the cheese is soft.

Just said ‘au revoir’ to another group of 12 Week Certificate students who have truly put 110% into 12 full-on busy weeks here at the Ballymaloe Cookery School. They came from all over the world, 12 nationalities this time. Some had never held a wooden spoon in their hands before, a few were chefs, others had a little experience in a café or restaurant kitchen, perhaps not even in the kitchen but in front of house or waiting on tables – all were united by a longing and determination to learn to cook. That’s all we need, passion, energy and curiosity.

Twelve weeks later, they leave us looking forward to their new adventure, go straight into restaurant kitchen either at home or abroad from London to San Francisco, to Copenhagen. They use their newly acquired skills in a myriad of ways – travelling, cooking on yachts, ski chalets in Winter, teaching, writing, food trucks, Farmers Markets….. Some will return to their former jobs having taken 12 short weeks off to learn a vital life skill. One girl wants to be a butcher, others will use their skills to smoke food, make cheese, forage, ferment even grow herbs and vegetables. On the summer certificate course which starts in May the students have the opportunity to have a raised bed on the farm, to sow seeds and grow vegetables. It’s one of many extra circular activities.

Several took up the option. It’s magic to plant seeds at this time of the year, everything grows so fast… They grew radishes, white turnips, carrots, onions and beetroot from seed and transplanted fennel, cabbage, marigolds, tomatoes, broad beans, lettuce, peas and sunflowers….

Can you imagine, they were beyond excited and I think we may just have given them a gift for life – a love for growing some of their own food.

On the very first day when they arrived they learned how to sow a seed and then planted a sweet corn plant, tucking a lollipop stick with their name on it into the ground so they can identify their very own plant. I know of no better way to give my students an understanding of how food is produced and how long it takes to grow and how much care it needs, than to plant it into the ground themselves and then wait for it to grow for a full three months.

Further more, it gives them a huge appreciation of those whose labor to grow nourishing wholesome food to keep us healthy and sated plus an understanding of the time and attention it takes – they will never complain about the price of organic vegetables and herbs again.

Each batch of students enrich our lives in so many ways and often share a favourite recipe with us. This time Martin, an engineer from Stockholm designed a brilliant BBQ which our local blacksmith made up. Much fun was had cooking on it while they were with us and now it will remind us of Martin and the summer 2016 group every time we see it. Sarah Cremona gave us her favourite recipe for macaroons which I like much more than my original one. Martin also gave us his favourite recipe for Swedish crispbread, Lindsay spent days testing a recipe for cinnamon buns and then shared the recipe.

HOT TIPS
Thinking of starting food business?
So many ideas but nowhere to experiment or test your product. Good news – Cork County Council have a new initiative. Cork Incubator Kitchens to assist emerging and established food businesses is now available to rent in Carrigaline. For further details contact Brendan Russell 087 6233088 or Mary Daly 087 919 8168. Email Brendan@thefoodsafetycompany.ie

Martin Gustafsson’s Swedish fröknäcke (Seed Crispbread)

You will soon become addicted to this seedy crispbread – delicious with cheese or dips or just to nibble as a snack.

Makes 2 trays

80 (3 1/4oz) pumpkin seeds
80 (3 1/4oz) sesame seeds
80 (3 1/4oz) sunflower seeds
80 (3 1/4oz) linseeds
100g (3 1/2oz) polenta flour or cornmeal
350ml (12fl oz) water
50ml (2fl oz) olive oil

Pre-heat oven to 150°C/300°F/Gas Mark 2.

Line 2 baking trays with baking paper.

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Pour in the boiling water and the olive oil. Mix well to dissolve any lumps. Divide equally and spread out the wet mixture on the baking trays. Make sure the thickness is even and as thin as possible without creating holes in the mixture. Sprinkle sea salt on top.

Bake in the preheated oven for 70 minutes. Every 15 minutes open the oven door to allow the steam to escape. After 60 minutes turn the crisp bread over and bake for the remaining 10 minutes.

Allow to cool on a wire rack.

Martin Gustafsson (12 Week April 2016)

Brioche Cinnamon Butter Buns

Makes 15-20

Brioche (see recipe)

Cinnamon Butter
150g (5oz/1 1/4 sticks) butter
250g (9oz/1 1/8 cup) pale brown sugar
1 tablespoon (1 American tablespoon + 1 teaspoon) Sri Lankan ground cinnamon

Egg Wash
1 – 2 beaten eggs

muffin tins

Make the brioche in the usual way. Cover and allow to rise overnight in a fridge.

Next day.
First make the Cinnamon Butter.
Cream the butter, sugar and cinnamon together and beat until light and fluffy.

Roll out the brioche dough into 1cm (1/2 inch) thick rectangle. Spread the cinnamon butter evenly over the surface with a palate knife, roll from the long side, cut into 5cm (2 inch) pieces. Pop each one into a well-buttered muffin tin. Cover and allow to rise to double in size. Egg wash gently.

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

Bake for 20-25 minutes. Cook on a wire-rack

Variation

Brioche with Butter and Sugar

Serves 20 – 24

1 x brioche dough (see recipe)
110g (4oz/1/2 cup) granulated sugar
110g (4oz/1 stick) butter, cut into 5mm (1/4 inch dice)
Egg Wash

2 x Swiss roll tins – 33 x 20.5cm (12 x 8 inch)

Brush the Swiss roll tins with melted butter. Divide the brioche dough in half.
Roll each into a rectangle to fit the tins.
Egg wash and allow to rise for 1 1/2 hours approximately.
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4. When the dough has risen, dot with the diced butter evenly over the top, sprinkle with granulated sugar.
Cook in the preheated oven for 30-40 minutes.
Cool on a wire rack.

Best eaten when freshly baked but also delicious next day.
Brioche

Brioche is the richest of all yeast dough’s. It can often seem intimidating but this very easy version works well and we have written it so that the dough can rise overnight in the fridge and be shaped and baked the following morning.

We always serve them warm from the oven with butter and homemade strawberry jam.

Makes 15-20 individual brioches or 2 large ones

25g (1oz) yeast
50g (2oz/1/4 cup) castor sugar
65 ml (2 1/2fl oz/1/4 cup) tepid water
4 eggs
450g (1lb/4 cups) strong white flour
large pinch of salt
225g (8oz/2 sticks) soft butter

Sponge the yeast and sugar in the tepid water in the bowl of an electric mixer. Allow to stand for five minutes. Add the eggs, flour and salt and mix to a stiff dough with the dough hook.

When the mixture is smooth, beat in the soft butter in small pieces. Don’t add the next piece of butter until the previous piece has been completely absorbed. This kneading stage should take about half an hour.

The finished dough should have a silky appearance, it should come away from the sides of the bowl and when you touch the dough it should be damp but not sticky.
Place it in an oiled bowl, cover and rest it overnight in the fridge.

Sarah Cremona’s Chocolate Macaroons

Dare I say, a fool proof recipe for macaroons – one can of course vary the flavours.

Makes 30 macaroons depending on size

300g ground almonds
300g pure icing sugar
10g cocoa powder

110g egg whites

75g water
300g white sugar

Chocolate Ganache or Buttercream of your choice
Sieve the ground almonds, icing sugar and cocoa powder into a bowl.

Pass the egg whites through a spotlessly clean and dry sieve so that they are the same consistency.

Add the sieved egg whites to the dry ingredients and mix to a smooth paste.
Keep aside.
Put the remaining 110g (4oz) clarified egg whites into the a food mixer.
Put the sugar and water into a saucepan, stir to dissolve the sugar and boil until it reaches 118C/244F.

Gently pour the boiling syrup into the the bowl of the mixer. Whisk until light and fluffy to make Italian Meringue. Reduce the speed to medium and continue to whisk until the meringue is less than 35 degrees in temperature.

Gently fold the Italian meringue into the almond base.

Line a baking tray with parchment paper. Pipe into generous 2.5cm (1 inch) rounds with a round tip nozzle (size 11). Allow to rest for 10-20 min to allow a skin to form.

Meanwhile, preheat a fan oven to 150C/300F/Gas Mark 2.

Bake in the preheated oven for 10-12 minutes or until cooked, the macaroons will lift easily off the parchment easily.
Sandwich the macaroons together with chocolate ganache or butter cream of your choice.

Sarah Cremona (12 Week Summer 2016)

I’ve just tasted meringue, macaroons and brownies made from fresh pigs blood, how macabre does that sound. Is there no end to what I’ll do in the name of food research?
The chocolate meringues and macaroons tasted great, in fact there’s no way I would have known they were anything but chocolate. The brownies, I didn’t love, they tasted very peculiar indeed.

Where you might ask did I taste these bites? It was at the Oxford Food Symposium and by the way Jennifer McLagan who read a paper on “Blood, not so simple”, can buy fresh blood any day of the week at her local butcher in Toronto. I spent the weekend surrounded by food historians, scholars, anthropologists, writers, chefs, enthusiastic amateurs and lots of offal nerds. Jennifer discovered that blood has the same whipping properties as egg whites.

The Oxford Food Symposium has been in existence since 1983. It was founded by Alan Davidson and co-chaired by pre-eminent food historian and author of The Oxford Companion to Food and Dr Theodore Zeldin, the celebrated social historian of France.

Despite initial scepticism in Oxford and some outright opposition, it was eventually accepted that Davidson’s proposed field of research – “Science in the kitchen from a historical perspective”, was a suitable subject for Oxford University. Several seminars were arranged, the initial gathering were around 20 people including such luminaries as Elizabeth David, Richard Olney, Ann Willan, Paul Levy, Jane Grigson, Sri Owen, Nicholas Kurti….

The success of these seminars showed that there was a great deal of interest in food history so Davidson and Zeldin created the first full scale symposium in 1981. Thirty five years later, it continues to gather momentum with delegates coming from 28 different countries this year to explore the topic of offal and explore it they did from numerous angles.

Key note speaker Professor Timothy Lang spoke about “Sustainable Diets: an offaly good idea but what will it take to get there?”
Paul Rozin in a riveting paper entitled “Disgust and Decay as Determinants of Dining” explored the disgust phenomena. Offal engenders a huge disgust level in many people. All the cuts come from the same animal so where is the logic? We are happy to eat a steak or chicken breast or a chop but present someone with a salad of gizzards and hearts or spleen sandwiches and they’d rather starve.

Yet they are the sort of titbits that many two and three star Michelin restaurants serve and guests are prepared to pay a ton of money for the pleasure –maybe because when it is super expensive they reckon it has to be good.

From Arundhatie Kundal, we heard about the tradition of eating barbequed chicken feet in the townships of Capetown but they are not allowed to sell them in the more genteel neighbourhoods.
Laura Fan talks about fishhead stew in Kuala Lumpar, I’ve had that too and delicious it was but it’s a whole lot of work for a few tasty nibbles.
Nanna Rögnvaldardóttir from Iceland delivered one of the most interesting papers on the role of offal in the diet of her country and how horse, seal and whale are still important foods. In former years a beached whale saved many communities from starvation but it is now remembered by many as the food of desperation.

Dried fish was and still is one of the main stays of the Icelandic cuisine, hundreds of names for all parts of the fish entrails and every scrap was eaten. Then Nanna passed around tastes of smoked horse tongue – that surely sorted out the ‘men from the boys’! – a double helping of disgust, offal and horse….

Others talked of caul fat, crepine, faggots, the Cypriot sheftalia (forcemeat wrapped in caulfat) and Turkish cocorette, chargrilled lamb intestine served with onion and tomato which I enjoyed in Istanbul. Sami Zubaida waxed lyrical about tripe ‘ pacha’ in Iraq. I was longing to tell them about Cork people’s traditional love for offal dating back to the time when Cork was a hugely important provisioning port for ships crossing the Atlantic. Many of those who were employed in the abattoirs were part-paid in offal hence the extra grá Cork people are said to have for offal to this very day.

This is borne out in the superb selection of offal in Cork’s English Market.
How ‘ate it like chocolate’. Sadly Regina Sexton couldn’t make to the symposium but she was sadly missed and hugely respected among her peers.

Wander through the lanes in the English Market and you’ll find tripe and drisheen the traditional blood pudding, skirt, kidneys and bodices and tongue, pigs, trotters, tails and ears, livers, hearts, kidney and sweetbreads in season. But as impressive as that sounds it’s only a fraction of the fifth quarter, the rest ends up in both human and animal feed and here’s another one. We’ll lap up cheap sausages, cured meats and pâtes and yet we turn our noses up at liver, kidneys, not to speak of a juicy bit of pig’s snout, the preferred piece of the Metanza butchers in Spain.

Well I love offal, in our house we didn’t look down on offal, we celebrated it like any other cut of meat. In London sweetbreads are now three times the price of steaks and quite right too. Here are a few of my favourite offal recipes. Liver wrapped in caul fat, Salad of Lamb’s Kidneys, chicken or duck hearts on pan grilled bread,
and just to cheer you up my favourite brownie recipe (sorry no blood) and it’s also gluten free.

Hot Tips
Garden Workshop: Autumn Harvest and Winter Crops
On Monday August 15th, head gardener at the Ballymaloe Cookery School, Susan Turner will teach the necessary skills to develop sustainable organic growing techniques. Topics covered will include:
Harvesting & selecting varieties for next year, inter crops & filling the hungry gap, seasonal review & planning, winter soil management….www.cookingisfun.ie for more information.

Simply Delicious Food for Family and Friends
Wednesday August 17th-Friday August 19th

So many of us are ‘time-poor’ – struggling to juggle careers with running our homes, doing our best to look after the important people in our lives – that we want to make sure that the food we are cooking is delicious, nourishing and healthy, simply oozing with TLC.
You will come away from this two-and-a-half day course armed with a repertoire of fuss-free, quick and tasty dishes – good, gutsy food with masses of flavour, guaranteed to gladden the hearts of your nearest and dearest. We’ll give you invaluable time-saving tips and a list of the essential ingredients you should have in your cupboard for those fraught occasions when you haven’t had a chance to do a ‘big shop’ and have very little time available to prepare something simple but delicious.
The course will include quick and easy breads, starters, main courses, salads and some scrumptious puddings. www.cookingisfun.ie

Chicken or Duck Hearts on Chargrilled Bread

Serves 4

12-16 chicken or duck hearts
½ pint (10 fl oz) chicken stock
Extra virgin olive oil or butter
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Thyme leaves or a little snipped tarragon

4 slices of sour dough bread

Preheat a pangrill.

Wash the hearts, put into a small saucepan and cover with chicken stock. Add a little salt and bring to the boil. Simmer gently for 10-15 minutes or until just tender.
Drain, cut some in half lengthwise, others into rounds.
Just before serving, heat a little butter or extra virgin olive oil in a pan. Toss in the hearts and cook until heated through and browning at the edges. Sprinkle with a little thyme or snipped tarragon and toss. Season well with salt and freshly ground pepper. Taste and tweak if necessary.

Chargrill the slices of bread on both sides. Put a slice on each of four plates. Divide the hearts between them and scatter a few thyme flowers over the top if available.

I sometimes add a little harissa or zhoug.

Lamb’s Liver wrapped in Caul Fat with Sage

Serves 4

1 lb (450 g) lamb’s liver
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
8-16 sage leaves
Pork caul fat

Watercress sprigs

Wash and dry the liver. Cut into 8 pieces. Season well with salt and freshly cracked pepper. Lay one or two sage leaves on top, wrap each piece loosely in caul fat. Chill or cook right away on barbeque or hot pan grill. Cook for 3-4 minutes on both sides until the fat renders out and become a rich golden colour.
Serve on hot plates with a few sprigs of watercress.

A Warm Salad of Lamb Kidneys with Oyster Mushrooms and Pink Peppercorns

Serves 4

2-3 lamb kidneys
4 ozs (110g/1 cup) oyster mushrooms
1 tablespoon (1 American tablespoon + 1 teaspoon) freshly chopped annual marjoram, optional
30 pink peppercorns
2 tablespoons (2 American tablespoons + 2 teaspoons) of tomato concasse

Selection of lettuces and salads, ie. Butterhead, Iceberg, Raddichio, Chinese leaves, lambs lettuce or rocket leaves

Vinaigrette Dressing
1 tablespoon (1 American tablespoon + 1 teaspoon) of arachide or sunflower oil
2 tablespoons (2 American tablespoons + 2 teaspoons) olive oil
1 tablespoon (1 American tablespoon + 1 teaspoon) wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard
salt and pepper

Remove the skin and fatty membrane from the centre of the kidneys, and cut the kidney into small cubes (1/2 inch) 1cm approx.

Trim the stalks from the mushrooms and slice lengthways. Wash lettuces and dry carefully. Heat a little olive oil in a frying pan until it smokes, toss in the mushrooms, season and fry quickly for about 3-4 minutes, add the marjoram, remove to a hot plate add the kidneys to the pan and fry quickly for about 2 minutes. While the kidneys are cooking, toss lettuce in a little of the dressing, divide between the plates. Spoon the hot kidneys and the mushrooms over the salad immediately they are cooked and if liked, scatter salads with pink peppercorns or with tomato concasse and serve immediately.

Brownies with Bitter Chocolate Sauce

Makes 16

50g (2oz) best quality gluten – free dark chocolate
100g (3½oz) butter
200g (7oz) castor sugar
2 eggs, preferably free-range
½ teaspoon pure vanilla essence
75g (3oz) ground almonds
½ teaspoon gluten-free baking powder
Pinch of salt
125g (4oz) chopped walnuts

1 x 20cm (8in) square tin lined with silicone paper

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4.

Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl suspended over simmering water or in a low oven.
Cream the butter and sugar until pale, soft and light, then beat in the lightly whisked eggs, the vanilla essence and melted chocolate. Lastly stir in the ground almonds, gluten-free baking powder, salt and chopped nuts. Spread the mixture in the tin and bake in the preheated oven for approximately 30-35 minutes.
Cut into 5cm (2inch) squares for serving.

Serve with bitter chocolate sauce and crème fraîche. Sprinkle with chopped pistachio nuts and dried rose petals.

Bitter Chocolate Sauce

125g (4oz) best quality dark chocolate, 70% cocoa solids
25g (1oz) unsweetened chocolate
Approximately 175ml (6fl oz) stock syrup
Rum or vanilla extract, optional

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water. Gradually whisk in enough syrup to make a sauce of coating consistency. Serve hot or cold. Keeps well in a fridge. Stir before use.

Stock Syrup

Very useful to keep in the fridge as a base for homemade lemonade, sorbets, fruit salads etc. Keeps for 2-3 weeks.

125g (4oz) sugar
150ml (¼ pint) water

Dissolve the sugar in water and boil together for 2 minutes. Store in a covered jar in the refrigerator until needed.

For Irish people particularly, Rome immediately conjures up images of the Vatican and St. Peter’s square…. Been there, done that, a long time ago so this time I had a two day stop over on the way to Sicily. There are seven hills in Rome, so we prepared for lots of steps, it’s an intriguing city and around every corner you are reminded of ancient history, the Trevi fountain, the Colosseum, the Spanish steps.

In Rome you still see priests and nuns in traditional garb hurrying through the streets. If you want to make the most of your time in Rome, hop on one of those sightseeing buses, it will get you orientated. The main focus of this visit was to visit the Sustainable Food Project at the American Academy in Rome and to taste one of my favourite pasta
dishes cacio e pepe at source. The latter wasn’t a great success, I tried several versions none of which were nearly as delicious as Rita Soda’s version I ate at Soda in Manhattan.

The American Academy was established at end of the 18 Century at the top of Janiculum Hill just behind the Fontanele, in the midst of beautiful gardens with mature trees, an olive grove, vegetable beds and an orchard of peaches, plums and apricots. The Sustainable Food Project at the Academy founded in 2007 under the guidance of Alice Waters from Chez Panisse, Berkeley in California. It provides the community of fellows and artists, writers, scholars, historians, architects, astronomers…… Passionate brilliant, intelligent people with seasonal nutritious and utterly delicious food.

This is all the more remarkable because up to the point where Alice became involved, the food was famously appalling described as a “lot like airplane food crossed with an elementary school lunch”. Now guided by the spirit of the Roman table and using home grown produce from the academy’s beautiful garden as well as nearby organic farms and food producers. It is fulfilling the Academy’s aim to provide a replicable model of simple sustainable food for other likeminded institutions. We’ve had a link with the American Academy for almost a decade but I’d never been there so it was especially nice to put a face to the name of the people I’d been corresponding with for years. Laura Offeddu , the manager and Chris Behr the chef who guides a whole team of interns, two of whom are past students from the Ballymaloe Cookery School, Clementine Hain Cole and Freddie Woodruff. We had a delicious lunch at the long table under the arches in the courtyard that seats close to a hundred people.

Simple delicious food, a cold zucchini soup, a salad, a pasta and a fresh cherry compote with housemade yoghurt. We stayed in a little hotel, Hotel Donna Camilla Savelli, in Travasera, in an old convent with a church off reception and a delightful little courtyard with lots of white hydrangeas and trees to shelter from the intense sun. It’s just minutes from the centre, so worth getting in your diary. Any guide book will tell you about the awe inspiring history, architecture and iconic buildings of Rome but here’s a cook’s tour of the Italian capital.

First stop a market – Campo de’Fiori is now a tourist hot spot although there are some food stalls, you are unlikely to find anything of real interest. Real farmers and food producers can’t afford to trade there so seek out other local markets to get a glimpse of how and what real Romans eat. I went to the market in Testaccio, it’s a permanent covered market with row after row of produce, butchers, fishmongers. It’s a real joy and education to watch Italian women shop and to observe how super fussy they are, they still shop for fresh produce every day. There were no big supermarkets in evidence although I did see a few small neighbourhood ones.

If you want to make the best of a foodie trip to Rome, contact Katie Parla, www.katieparla.com. She whizzed us around to some of the very best food shops and cafes. She’s deeply knowledgeable on Roman history architecture and archaeology as well as the food scene.

La Tradizione, where I bought a superb Pecorino aged in the time honoured way in a timber box with aromatic herbs and also and tasted a variety of other Italian artisan cheeses. Then on to Pizzarium, Bonci on Via della Meloria where I tasted the very best pizza I have ever eaten anywhere in the world and that is quite a statement…..
The crust was crackly, the base crisp, the centre tender and flavourful and the topping super delicious. He does pizza by the slice and you pay by weight. At his bakery on Via Trionfale one can buy really good bread and food to go including this Roman chicken and chips which is bound to become your favourite comfort food. Bonci is a well-known TV chef in Italy who works with small producers and farmers who grow ancient cereals and grains.

We also loved the fantastic ice cream and granitas at Carapina. One can’t visit Rome without eating gelato and put Supplizio on your list also for the best suppli and arancini…I’ve ever eaten.

HOT TIPS

Transition Year Cookery Course
Doesn’t matter whether you wish to be an astronaut or a GP everyone needs to be able to cook. In response to numerous requests we plan to run two five day cookery courses for Transition Year students. Monday 25th July – Friday 29th July or Monday 1st August – Friday 5th August. Very limited numbers. www.cookingisfun.ie

Kids in the Kitchen
Kids absolutely love to sieve, knead, roll, measure and mix. It’s hugely important to teach kids at this young age to develop a life-long love of food and cooking, to develop good eating habits in a fun and engaging way.
On Monday August 8th, we will teach the students to cook a range of simply delicious food for friends and family. They will spend a busy morning cooking, before enjoying a lunch of what they’ve made. After lunch we will feed the scraps to the hens, see the vegetables growing in the glasshouses. This is an action-packed day of delicious learning and fun. www.cookingisfun.ie

The Fit Foodie
Derval O’ Rourke’s new book has just been published. Derval discovered the importance of nutrition as an elite athlete and believes eating well made all the difference to her form. The Fit Foodie is full of simple, delicious and totally doable recipes such as Laid Back Lamb Tagine, Mediterranean Salmon and Spaghetti, Butternut and Bean Stew, Chocolate Fondant Cake…..Derval also shares smart and inspiring advice on how to get organised so that good food and exercise is a seamless part of your life. Publised by Penguin Life

Date for your Diary
A Taste of West Cork Food Festival will run from 9th – 18th September 2016 in Skibbereen brings together a unique mix of food markets, demonstrations, cookery competitions, special dinners, brunches and banquets, food talks, tastings….and lots more. http://www.atasteofwestcork.com

Garden Café Pizza Dough

The beauty of this recipe is that it is so quick and easy, using this fast acting yeast does away with the first rising. By the time your tomato sauce is bubbling in the oven your pizza base will be ready for its topping!
Makes 8 x 25cm 10inch pizzas

680g (1 1/2lbs/6 cups) strong white flour or 600g (1 1/4lb/5 cups) strong white flour and 110g (4oz/1 cup) rye flour
50g (2oz/1/2 stick) butter
1 packet fast acting yeast
2 level teaspoons salt
15g (1/2oz) sugar
2-4 tablespoons (2-4 American tablespoons + 2-4 teaspoons) olive oil
450 – 500ml (16-18 floz/2 – 2 1/4 cups) lukewarm water – more if needed

In a large wide mixing bowl sieve the flour and add in the salt, sugar, rub in the butter and fast acting yeast, mix all the ingredients thoroughly.

Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients, add the oil and most of the luke warm water. Mix to a loose dough. You can add more water or flour if needed.
Turn the dough on to a lightly floured work top, cover and leave to relax for about five minutes.

Then knead the dough for about ten minutes or until smooth and springy (if kneading in a food mixer with a dough hook, 5 minutes is usually long enough).
Leave the dough to relax again for about ten minutes. Shape and measure into 8 equal balls of dough each weighing approximately 150g (5oz). Lightly brush the balls of dough with olive oil.

If you have time, put the oiled balls of dough into a plastic bag and chill. The dough will be easier to handle when cold but it can be used immediately.

On a well floured work surface roll each ball in to about 25cm (10inch) disk. I find it convenient to pop a few rolled out uncooked pizza bases into the freezer. You can take one out, put the topping on and slide it straight into the oven. What could be easier!

This dough also makes delicious white yeast bread which we shape into rolls, loaves and plaits.

Gabriele Bonci’s Pizza with Squash Blossoms, Ricotta and Black Olives

10 oz (300 g) fresh sheep’s’ milk ricotta
7 oz (200 g) black olives, pitted and crushed
1 (12 oz/350g) ball white pizza dough
Extra virgin olive oil to taste
9 oz (250 g) mozzarella
15 squash blossoms
Fine sea salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Preheat the oven to 220-250C/ 450-475F

Mix the ricotta cheese and olives together to combine. Stretch out the dough and place it in a well oiled pan. Tear the mozzarella cheese into pieces and scatter about half of it over the dough. Dot the dough with the ricotta and olive mixture. Place the whole squash blossoms on top. Scatter the remaining mozzarella cheese on top of the blossoms.

Bake the pizza until golden brown and well risen, about 25 minutes. Remove the pizza from the oven, season with salt and pepper and drizzle with a little oil.

Gabriele Bonci’s Pizza with Tomato Sauce and Anchovies

1¾ lb (800 g) fresh anchovies
2 lemons
Extra virgin olive oil, to taste
500 ml (18 fl oz/2 cups) white wine vinegar
1 (12 oz/350 g) ball white pizza dough
18 oz (500 g/2 cups) canned peeled tomatoes
Fine sea salt, to taste
1 head garlic
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
¼ cup loosely packed flat leaf parsley leaves, minced

Preheat the oven to 220°C-250°C (450°F-475°F).

Clean, butterfly and bone the anchovies. Arrange them in a non-reactive pan in a single layer. Zest ½ lemon and set aside for finishing the pizza. Juice both lemons, whisk the juice with a generous amount of oil and vinegar and pour the liquid over the fish. Cover and marinate until the flesh of the anchovies has turned white, about 20 minutes.

Stretch the dough out and place in a well-oiled pan. In a small bowl, combine the tomatoes with some oil and salt. Spread the tomato mixture over the dough by hand, crushing the tomatoes between your fingers as you drop them into the dough. Break up the garlic and scatter the unpeeled cloves over the tomato sauce.

Bake the pizza until golden brown and well risen, about 25 minutes.

Remove the pizza from the oven and arrange the anchovies on top. Season with pepper, the reserved lemon zest and a drizzle of oil and the parsley. Serve hot.

Gabriele Bonci’s Spicy Pizza with Eggplant and Burrata

1 (12 oz/350g) ball white pizza dough
Extra virgin olive oil
1 lb (500 g) eggplant
Fine sea salt, to taste
10 oz (300 g) burrata, chopped
Red chilli flakes, to taste

Preheat the oven to 220°C-250°C/450°F-475°F.

Stretch out the dough and place in a well-oiled pan. Thinly slice the eggplant into rounds and toss them with a small amount of oil and salt. Arrange the eggplant rounds on top of the dough.

Bake the pizza until golden brown and well risen, about 25 minutes.

Remove the pizza from the oven and arrange the cheese on top. Sprinkle with

Gabriele Bonci’s Pizza with Squash Blossoms, Ricotta and Black Olives

10 oz (300 g) fresh sheep’s’ milk ricotta
7 oz (200 g) black olives, pitted and crushed
1 (12 oz/350g) ball white pizza dough
Extra virgin olive oil to taste
9 oz (250 g) mozzarella
15 squash blossoms
Fine sea salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Preheat the oven to 220-250C/ 450-475F

Mix the ricotta cheese and olives together to combine. Stretch out the dough and place it in a well oiled pan. Tear the mozzarella cheese into pieces and scatter about half of it over the dough. Dot the dough with the ricotta and olive mixture. Place the whole squash blossoms on top. Scatter the remaining mozzarella cheese on top of the blossoms.

Bake the pizza until golden brown and well risen, about 25 minutes. Remove the pizza from the oven, season with salt and pepper and drizzle with a little oil.

Roman Chicken and Chips

Serves 6-8

Chicken thighs, drumsticks, wings
8 large potatoes
Salt
Freshly ground pepper
Thyme
Rosemary
Onion
Extra virgin olive oil

Season the chicken heavily with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Put into a bowl and scatter with lots of thyme. Toss well.
Peel the potatoes, cut into thick chips. Dry and season well with salt and freshly ground pepper and thyme. Add to the chicken.
Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil.

Preheat the oven to 230°C/450°F/gas mark 8.

Spread out onto a roasting tin.

Drizzle with a little more extra virgin olive oil. Roast for 45 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through and the chips are crispy at the edges.

Serve with a good green salad and several vegetables of your choice.

Pistachio Honeycomb Ice-Cream

Serves 12-14

100g (4oz/1/2 cup) sugar
220ml (8fl oz/1 cup) water
4 egg yolks
1 teaspoon pure vanilla essence
1200ml (2 pints/5 cups) whipped cream
100-200g (3 1/2-7oz) Pistachio Honeycomb (see recipe)

To Serve
Pistachio nuts

Put the egg yolks into a bowl and whisk until light and fluffy (keep the whites for meringue). Combine the sugar and water in a small heavy-bottomed saucepan, stir over heat until the sugar is completely dissolved, then remove the spoon and boil the syrup until it reaches the ‘thread’ stage, 106-113°C/223-236°F. It will look thick and syrupy; when a metal spoon is dipped in, the last drops of syrup will form thin threads. Pour this boiling syrup in a steady stream onto the egg yolks, whisking all the time. Add vanilla essence and continue to whisk until it becomes a thick creamy white mousse. Fold the softly-whipped cream into the mousse, pour into a bowl, cover and freeze. After 1 hour fold roughly chopped pistachio honeycomb into the semi-frozen ice-cream. Freeze.

Serve with a little more pistachio honeycomb and coarsely chopped pistachio nuts scattered over the top.

Honeycomb

Makes about 500 g (1lb 2oz)

Serves 30-40 as a petit four

85g (3 1/4oz) Duchy (or good quality local) honey
180g (6 1/4oz) liquid glucose
400g (14oz/1 3/4 cups) castor sugar
100ml (3 1/2fl oz/scant 1/2 cup) water
15g (3/4oz) bicarbonate of soda

1 Swiss roll tin – 20 x 30cm (8 x 12 inch)
parchment paper or silpat mat

First loosen the honey and glucose syrup by dipping their containers in warm water, then weigh out into your saucepan. Then add the sugar and water and heat gently, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Gradually raise the temperature of the pan’s contents to 150°C (300°F).

Carefully sprinkle the bicarbonate of soda into the pan. The contents will fizz up like lava from the underworld, but don’t be alarmed, this is what puts the tiny air bubbles into the honeycomb. Stir the mixture to make sure all the powder is incorporated, then pour it out onto your silicone sheet (or baking tray). Leave to set for at least 30 minutes, then break the brittle mass into small pieces.

Variation
Pistachio Honeycomb/Praline
basic Honeycomb recipe (see above)
150g (5oz) pistachios, roughly chopped

Sprinkle half the pistachios over the bottom of the Swiss roll tin, pour the honeycomb over then sprinkle on the remaining pistachios. Leave to set for at least 30 minutes, then break the brittle mass into small pieces.

On our way to celebrate a very special anniversary with some friends in the foothills of Mount Etna, we snatched an extra few days to rediscover Sicily.
This time we didn’t get to see the Ballaro Street market in Pallermo but remember the vibrant, bustling, raucous, daily fruit and veg market from my last visit. It starts at 5am so get there early, gleaming fish and shellfish, don’t miss the sea urchins, sliced open and ready to eat or the raw shrimps with just a squeeze of lime juice, extra virgin olive oil and maybe a whisper of red pepper. Of course tons of fresh vegetables and perfectly ripe fruit to die for.

I also remember luscious fried artichokes and octopus and great Palermitan spleen sandwich cooked in lard and piled onto a soft bun with a sprinkling of parmesan, not everyone’s ‘must have’ but I’m a big offal fan so loved it.

We left the higgledy-piggledy sprawl of Palermo, and headed west for Regaleali, the countryside is breathtakingly beautiful, aromatic landscape, beautiful rolling countryside, huge wheat fields, olive groves, pencil thin Italian cypress, wildflower roadside verges, hilltop towns.

Overall the country roads with virtually no traffic are very good and the motorways on stilts provide a fantastic view of the countryside without disturbing farming or village life. More vineyards as we got closer to Vallelunga and Regaleali famous for vineyards.

Here Fabrizia Lanza followed in her mother Anna Tasca Lanza’s footsteps running the cookery school in the midst of her farm and organic gardens. Rachel Roddy and Luisa Weiss were facilitating a Food Writing course when we arrived. We participated in a pasta course the next day and also learned how to make a cherry and pistachio nut crostata. Fabrizia has a passion for the garden and brings seeds home from her travels to trial in the gardens.

Here for the first time I saw pistachios, capers and pink peppercorns growing but of course there were peaches, nectarines, cherry, figs and plums, almonds, walnuts….
Meals were all around the huge square in the dining room. An aperativo in the cobbled courtyard. I particularly remember the delicious rabbit cacciatori and the alarmed (actually horrified) look on an American lady’s face when she discovered she was eating rabbit…..

A soup of zucchini and the leaves was comforting and piqued my curiosity. The cucuzze variety is tender, delicious and flavourful and the leaves can also be cooked.
Pasta con sarde with sardines and wild fennel, raisins and pinenuts is one of Sicily’s best loved pastas. It’s made with the feathery wild fennel that grows throughout the countryside. We also visited a dairy sheep farmer who milks 350 sheep twice a day on his hillside farm. He made Tuma cheese and the best ricotta I have ever, ever tasted.

I’ll focus on the food – breakfast in Sicily – for most Sicilians like Italians breakfast is a cappuccino or a cup of espresso with a ubiquitous cornetto, a jam, chocolate or ricotta or almond filled croissant but I was intrigued to learn that the traditional summer breakfast is granita preferably almond or coffee and a brioche. The granita di mandorle with wild strawberries I enjoyed at Tre Contrade in Giarre was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten.

Here are just a few of the delicious foods I tasted in Sicily. Cassata, canoli and pasta sarde are all quintessentially Sicilian but not so easy to reproduce at home so try these other specialities.

HOT TIPS
Great Food, Quick
Time starved? Worn out by endless multi-tasking? Driven demented by traffic gridlock? Underwhelmed by the idea of buying convenience food? Don’t despair. In 2½ days, we’ll show you how to make delicious and nutritious everyday meals fast – heart-warming soups, simple starters, main courses, yummy desserts, homemade bread…. Super-fast actually, because in half an hour or less, from start to finish, you will be able to produce scrumptious dishes, all of which look good, taste good and are easy to prepare after even the most gruelling day.
Monday 25th July- Wednesday July 27th. www.cookingisfun.ie

Coast with Rachel Allen and Ivan Whelan
This year Rachel took a tour of the “Wild Atlantic Way” visiting food producers, chefs and restaurants along the coast. A great TV Show and a book ‘Coast’ followed. In this course Rachel and her side kick Ivan will cook some favourite recipes from their trip using the very best of ingredients from the Atlantic Coast, artisan producers and farmers. Wednesday July 27th- Friday July 29th www.cookingisfun.ie

Zucchini Blossoms with Tuma and Anchovies

Tuma is a fresh sheep’s milk cheese made by Sicilian shepherds.
Buffalo mozzarella would made a good substitute

Serves 6

12 freshly picked male zucchini blossoms
Tuma or mozzarella,
12 anchovies

Batter

175g (6 oz) Durum semolina flour.
350 ml (12 fl oz) beer
good pinch of salt
Olive oil for frying

Cut the cheese into little strips that will fit into the blossom, tuck an anchovy and a little strip of cheese into each flower,
Heat the olive oil in a deep frying pan of deep fry to 180C
Meanwhile, make a simple batter by whisking beer into the durum flour until it’s a light coating consistency. Add a good pinch of salt. When the oil is hot, dip one flower at a time into the batter twisting the ends as you slip it gently into the hot oil. Cook a few at a time turning over after a minute or two to crisp the other side, drain on kitchen paper and serve immediately.

Caponata

There are many versions of this Sicilian vegetable stew; this is one I particularly enjoy.

Serves 6-8
350g (12oz) celery, stringed and chopped in 5mm (¼in)dice
250g (9oz) onion, peeled and chopped coarsely
200ml (7fl.oz) approx.. extra virgin olive oil
1kg (2¼lb) aubergine, cut in 2.5cm (1in) chunks
1 tablespoon. capers, salted if possible (wash in cold water, drain and dry)
18 green olives, stoned
75g (3oz) homemade tomato paste
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Bring a 1.2L (2pint) saucepan of water to the boil, add 1 teaspoon salt, throw in the celery and onion. Bring back to the boil, cook for 3 minutes. Drain.
Heat 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil in a wide heavy frying pan, over a high heat, add about a quarter of the aubergines, season with salt and freshly ground pepper. Toss until brown on all sides and almost soft in the centre.
Remove and continue with the remainder of the aubergine. You’ll need to add more olive oil. Then toss back in the rest, plus the onion and celery, olives, capers, vinegar, tomato puree and sugar.
Stir gently to combine evenly. Cover and cook for about 15 minutes, taste and correct the seasoning.
Serve warm cold or at room temperature.

Fabrizia Lanza’s Zucchini Soup with Tender Greens

In Sicily this soup is made with the cucuzze squash, long tender pale green zucchini and the leaves can also be used to flavour and add extra nourishment, a comforting delicious soup.

Serves 6-8

110 ml (4 fl oz/½ cup) extra virgin olive oil
1 red onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 tomatoes, peeled and chopped or 1½ cups canned Roma tomatoes, chopped
Fine sea salt and black pepper
2 cucuzze squash or 3 medium zucchini, peeled and chopped
3 bunches tender squash greens, chopped (Tenerumi)
1 small bunch celery leaves, chopped
3 small potatoes, peeled and chopped
4 cups lukewarm water

Combine the olive oil, onion and garlic in a large, wide soup pot and cook over medium high heat until the onion is golden, about 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and cook, breaking them up with a wooden spoon, 2 to 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add the rest of the vegetables and simmer for 2 minutes. Add the water, then simmer, covered until the vegetables are tender, 20-25 minutes.

Coming Home to Sicily, Fabrizia Lanza, published by Sterling Epicure

Spaghetti with Walnuts, Anchovies and Parsley.

Serves 6
450g spaghetti
2 large cloves garlic, thinly sliced
6 anchovy fillets, coarsely
4 tablespoons chopped walnuts,
A small or large pinch of chilli flakes,
2 tablespoons coarsely chopped parsley
Flaky sea salt

Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil, add salt. (1 tablespoon to 4.8L)
Add the pasta, stir, bring back to the boil and continue to cook until al dente, drain but save a little liquid.
Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a saucepan, add the sliced garlic and cook until very pale golden, add the coarsely chopped anchovies, mash into the oil, add the walnuts , chilli and parsley, stir and pull off the heat.
Drain the pasta, add to the pan, toss, add some cooking water to loosen the sauce. Taste and tweak if necessary, serve ASAP .

Pina’s Pistachio Cake

This gorgeous cake recipe was given to me by some friends, Jon and Marco in Sicily who serve it for breakfast. Pistachio flour is widely available but one can make pistachio flour in a food processor, use unsalted pistachio nuts. Sieve, so the pistachio mixture is fine.

Serves 10-12

130 g (4¾ oz) butter, melted and cooled
300 g (11 oz) caster sugar
3 organic eggs
200 g (7 oz) ‘OO’ flour
200 g (7 oz) pistachio flour
16 g (½-¾ oz) dried yeast
200 g (7 oz) natural yoghurt

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4.

Butter and flour a 26 cm (9 inch) Bundt tin or 8 inch (20.5cm) round.

Cream the butter, add the sugar and beat well until light and fluffy. Add a beaten egg, one at a time, beating well before adding the next egg.

Next add the flour and pistachio flour, yeast and yoghurt. Mix well.

Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 30-35 minutes or until just firm to the touch.

Members of Euro-Toques, The European Association of Chefs, which include some of Ireland’s greatest chefs, came recently to Ballymaloe House to honour founder member, Myrtle Allen on the 30th anniversary of the organisation. Mrs Allen also instituted the Euro-Toques EirGrid Food Awards over 12 years ago to recognise and promote Ireland’s unique food producers. The winners of these prestigious awards are nominated by the members of Euro-Toques and are completely independent.

The Ceremony was held in the Grainstore at Ballymaloe and several award winning Eurotoque chefs cooked one delicious course to create a celebration dinner at Ballymaloe House. Canapes were prepared by Irish Michelin-starred chef and Euro-Toques member Enda McEvoy of Loam in Galway. Other delicious courses were cooked by Graham Neville from Residence and Restaurant Forty One in Dublin, Feargal O’Donnell, The Fatted Calf in and local chef Kevin Aherne Sage in Midleton, and Rory O’Connell, Ballymaloe House and Bryan McCarthy Greene’s in Cork

This year’s the Eurotoque Eirgrid Food Award awards focused on the important yet challenged categories of raw milk cheese and free range pork, both of which have been shrinking year on year in the face of regulatory and economic barriers.

• Joint award for free range pork- Fergus & Sandra Dunne, Pigs on the Green, Offaly, and Dave & Diana Milestone, Andarl Farm, Co Mayo, both of whom work tirelessly for the welfare of their 100 heritage outdoor pigs to ensure the best quality and flavour for their outstanding range of products including handmade sausages, dry cured rashers, pork loins, chops and slippers of ham. www.pigsonthegreen.com – www.andarlfarm.ie

• For excellence and innovation in dairy- Aisling and Michael Flanagan, Velvet Cloud Irish Sheep’s Milk Cheese, Co Mayo, – one of the most talked about new producers of the year and the only sheep’s milk yogurt produced in Ireland on the land that the family have farmed for generations. – www.velvetcloud.ie

For raw milk and raw milk cheese- James Gannon, Cloonconra Cheese, Co Roscommon, who faces increasing challenges in today’s heavily regulated sector. James’s beautiful cheese uses raw milk from their pedigree herd of endangered native Irish Moiled cows. This breed has been a feature of Irish agriculture for thousands of years and was traditionally famous for the quality of its milk. They are the only farmers milking the Moiled Cow for cheese in Ireland today, which is an accolade in itself. www. cloonconracheese.com

• For excellence in aquaculture- Hugh O’Malley, Achill Oysters, Co Mayo. Hugh is the fifth generation of his family to harvest oysters from the sea around Achill. The delicious briny oysters are the product of progressive sustainable aquaculture, making the most of the natural marine environment. www. achilloysters.com

• For excellence in baking and collaboration to educate- The Founders of Real Bread Ireland. A very important initiative started in January 2015 by a handful of bakers who believe in the importance of real bread. They support and learn from each other and generously share their skills. Many of them actively teach consumers to bake, believing that it is a core skill and essential to healthy eating with which I fully concur. Real Bread Ireland is now a network of over 60 bakers. The founders of this inspirational organization were bakers Patrick Ryan of Firehouse Bakery, Declan Ryan of Arbutus, Thibault Peigne of Tartine, Joe Fitzmaurice of Riot Rye and Kemal Scarpello of Scarpello & Co, spearheaded by Keith Bohanna – a man known to many in the food industry for his talent and generosity. https://realbreadireland.org

Euro-Toques presented a Special Commendation to Colin and Kevin Jephson of Ardkeen Quality Food Store in Waterford. Inspirational independent food retailers who have been tremendous supporters of Irish artisans and Irish specialty food producers, since it was founded as a small grocery store in 1967. In the early 2000’s, finding themselves literally surrounded by international retail giants like Tesco and Lidl, they took the decision to become more specialised and concentrate on supporting local Irish producers with a total commitment to quality, an appreciation of provenance and good relationships with their suppliers. In 2015 they launched ardkeen.com, bringing artisan foods to a much broader audience. The website boasts the world’s best selection of Irish artisan food with a product listing of over 1100 items, and growing. www.ardkeen.com

There are currently over 3,500 small to medium sized food businesses operating in Ireland. Euro-Toques chefs work directly with the small producers and give credit this produce that comes through their kitchen doors every day with the success of their award-winning restaurants. Furthermore, supporting small local food businesses benefits the local economy too: A study by the New Economics Foundation in London found that every €14 spent at a local food business is worth €35 for the local area, compared with just €20 when the same amount is spent in a supermarket or wholesaler. Check out these website and seek out these exceptional Irish artisan products that we are all so proud of.

HOT TIPS

Get a few hens…..

It’s win, win all the way if you have a few hens. They can even be in a mobile chicken coop on your lawn. They will gobble up all your household waste; provide you with eggs and chicken manure in return. The latter will activate your compost and when well rotted can be returned to your vegetable patch to make the soil more fertile to grow beautiful healthy vegetables. Plus you don’t have to worry about bin charges…..
Contact: Johnstons of Mountnorris Hatchery in Armagh – http://www.johnstonspoultry.com – to order day old chicks or keep an eye out a local farmers market, eg Skibbereen.
Check out the Slow Food Ireland website for local suppliers www.slowfoodireland.com

Second Nature Oils
I get lots of queries from fans of rapeseed oil who are anxious to find an organic source. My favourite comes from Drumeen Farm, in Co. Kilkenny, one of the oldest existing certified organic farms in Ireland where they grow, cold press and bottle a multi award winning 100% Irish extra virgin rapeseed oil and incidentally they have recently introduced a fresh cold pressed and unrefined freshly cold pressed organic flaxseed oil
www.secondnature.com

Dynamic Vegetarian Cooking
At last vegetables are moving to the centre of the plate . There’s a growing realization worldwide that we would be altogether healthier eating lots more fresh vegetables and less but better quality meat. The gardens and greenhouses here at the school are bursting with beautiful produce at the moment so this 1½ day course will reignite your enthusiasm for vegetables, herbs and pulses. We long to share some of our favourites with you – small plates, starters and substantial main courses. We’ll also talk about juicing and have fun making some colourful salads with the spiralizer…this course includes a special guided walk through the vegetable and herb gardens and the greenhouses at Ballymaloe Cookery School and an opportunity to accompany the gardeners as they harvest the produce for the morning’s cooking.
Thursday July 21st and Friday July 22nd, www.cookingisfun.ie for the details.

Graham Neville’s Organic Smoked Salmon, Clogherhead Crab, Granny Smith Apple

Per person
50g (2 ozs) picked crab meat
10g (½ oz) mayonnaise
5g (¼ oz) finely chopped pickled ginger
5g (¼ oz) pickled ginger juice
A squeeze of lemon
1 large slice of smoked salmon (about 40g/2¾ oz)
Garnish
1 granny smith apple – cut into thick strips & dressed with a squeeze of lemon & a spoon of olive oil
1 egg, hard boiled – 8 min., cool, peel & sieve yolk & white separately
Finely diced onion – 1 spoon
1 teaspoon salmon eggs
Large caper berries

Assembly
Lay the hardboiled egg (white and yellow), salmon eggs, diced onion, and caper berry in sequence around the perimeter of the plate.
Lay the salmon flat in the centre of the plate, positioning the crab on top of the salmon.
Lay thick strips of apple neatly on top of the crab.
Can be accompanied with brown bread or brioche

Kevin Aherne’s Blackened Carrot, Fermented Cabbage, Smoked Yolk, Lovage

4 servings

Kevin from Sage Restaurant in Midleton says this is a very simple dish to prepare, but you will have to think 2 weeks ahead to ferment your cabbage. Make a large batch so you can store it away for another day’s use. Note that carrots are only baby carrots twice a year so if out of season replace with celeriac or pumpkin!

For the cabbage
½ Dutch cabbage finely shredded
10g (½ oz) salt
500g (18 ozs) water
10g (½ oz) caraway seeds
12 sage flowers

For the carrots
8 new season baby carrots washed & peeled if necessary
10 g (½ oz) lemon thyme
10 g (½ oz) lemon verbena
50ml (2 fl oz) water
20 g (¾ oz) butter

For the yolk
4 organic eggs separated
Hay for smoking

For the emulsion
50 g (2 oz) lovage
1 egg yolk
30ml (1 fl oz) cider vinegar
100ml (3½ fl oz) rapeseed oil

For the cabbage – Mix the water, caraway & salt together. Immerse shredded cabbage in solution. Place in an airtight container and place in a warm dark area for 2 weeks. Remove from solution and place in an airtight container until needed.
For the emulsion- Place the lovage, vinegar & yolk in a food processor. Blend on high speed for 45 seconds. Then very slowly add the oil. Check for seasoning at the end if needed add a little salt. Store in a squeeze bottle
For the egg yolk- Place the egg yolks over a ban marie of hot water. Heat until 62 degrees. Then blend into a puree in a food processor. Smoke the puree in an old biscuit tin box with the hay. Store in a squeeze bottle
For the carrots – Place the carrots in a pot with the water, thyme, verbena & butter. Gently simmer for 6 minutes. Remove from the pot and char either on the BBQ or an open fire for 5-6 minutes. You might think this is a little odd but the citrus flavours from the herbs and char are magic together.

For assembly
You can serve the cabbage warm or cold your choice. Place just off centre on the plate. Place 2 charred carrots on top along with the Sage flowers. Then, a few dots of emulsion & a few dots of yolk purée.
Enjoy !

Eurotoque Celebration Lemon Cake with crystallized rose petals and lemon verbena

Head pastry chef JR Ryall, of Ballymaloe House made a large version of this cake for the Eurotoque chefs to present to Myrtle Allen in recognition of her legacy to the Irish food scene at the awards.

Cake
225 g (8 oz) caster sugar
225 g (8 oz) butter, room temperature
4 large eggs
225 g (8oz) plain white flour
1 level teaspoon baking powder
zest 1 lemon

Icing
110 g (4oz) butter (room temperature)
225 g (8oz) icing sugar
zest 1 lemon
1 tablespoon lemon juice
3 tablespoon lemon curd, see recipe

2 x 7 inch round cake tins x 3 inch deep

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4.
Line the base of the cake tin with non-stick baking parchment or a spare butter wrapper and brush the sides of the tin with melted butter and dust with flour.
Cream the butter, sugar and lemon zest until pale and light in texture. Whisk the eggs in a separate bowl and gradually add to the creamed butter and sugar, bit by bit, mixing well between each addition.
Sieve the flour with the baking powder. Gradually and gently fold the flour into the cake mixture until the mixture is an even consistency. transfer the mixture into the cake tin and smooth over the surface with a palate knife. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Allow to rest in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack and when cool carefully cut the cake in half.
To make the butter icing, cream the butter, sieved icing sugar, lemon zest and juice together until pale and light in texture. Spread on third of the icing onto the bottom half of the cake. Neatly spread the lemon curd on top of the butter icing before sandwiching with the top half of the cake. Using a palate knife spread the remaining icing over the top and down the sides of the cake and decorate with crystallised lemon verbena leaves and rose petals.

Pimentos de Padron

We love Padron peppers, but we’ve had to bring them in from Brindisa in London for our Tapas courses for many years . The good news, Padron peppers are now available in several of our top supermarkets and here in response to several requests is a recipe for the way the Spanish love to eat them.

Serves 2

Pimentos de Padron are small green peppers named after a town in Galicia where they have been grown for over 400 years. They are usually fried in olive oil, sprinkled with coarse sea salt and served as a tapa. They are so delicious and addictive. Eating them is like playing Russian roulette – once in a while you get a fiery one that tastes volcanic! Serve as a tapa or as a starter.

250g (1/2lb) fresh pimentos de Padron
2 tablespoons (2 American tablespoons + 2 teaspoons) Spanish extra virgin olive oil
coarse sea salt, to taste

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan over a high heat. Add the pimentos. Toss continually with a wooden spoon until they puff up or until lightly browned in spots. Remove with a slotted spoon, drain well and transfer to a hot plate. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and eat immediately.