Tempting tipples...

Several of my work colleagues, it seems, are off the jar for January (meaning, for those unfamiliar with that particular turn of phrase, that they are giving alcohol a miss for the month). One did confess, though, to having fallen off the wagon the other day by way of a mid-week glass of wine and, like any forbidden fruit, it was all the sweeter for that. Now, several days later, I can’t say if that conversation was what prompted me to (a) buy a bottle of white wine or (b) add a glass of same to these potatoes, but it might just have been a factor. What I can tell you is that the potatoes are, without doubt, all the better for the addition.

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Potatoes with Leeks and White Wine

This is an utterly simple preparation – potatoes cooked in a pan with some leeks, garlic, thyme, olives and of course that white wine. If you’re like me, you’ll just eat these on their own for lunch, or they would make a nice accompaniment to a plain omelette, some baked mushrooms or a piece of grilled white fish, along with a glass of that white wine you had to open…

You’ll need:

• olive oil for frying
• butter for frying
• one large leek, white and light green parts finely sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 3 medium-sized potatoes (about 600g total), peeled and cut into approx. 2cm cubes
• 0.5 tsp dijon mustard
• 0.5 tsp salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• 150ml dry white wine (one you’d like to drink yourself)
• 150ml hot water
• 3-4 sprigs fresh thyme
• 3-4 tblsp green olives, sliced
• 1 tblsp brine from the olives (optional)

You’ll also need:

• A good-sized frying pan – mine was around 26cm diameter – with a lid

The Steps:

• Place your frying pan over a medium heat and, when hot, add about 0.5 tblsp butter and 0.5 tblsp olive oil. When the butter has melted, add the leeks. Stir and fry for 3-4 minutes or until softened. Add the garlic and stir for about a minute more.
• Add the chunks of potato, mustard, salt and pepper and stir briefly, then add the white wine, hot water, thyme, olives and, if the olives have been stored in brine, add about a tblsp of the olive brine. Stir again and bring the potatoes to the boil, then cover the pan, lower the heat and simmer gently until the potatoes are cooked through and the liquid had reduced considerably – this will take around 30 minutes or so.
• Enjoy these potatoes on their or with eggs or fish or whatever else you fancy.

The Variations:

• You could certainly add some parsley to good effect here or some parmesan cheese if you felt like it. A few capers wouldn’t go astray either.

The Results:

• Makes 2-3 servings

]]> http://www.thedailyspud.com/2012/01/22/potatoes-leeks-white-wine/feed/ 12 http://www.thedailyspud.com/2011/11/06/guilbauds-salmon-tandoori-gnocchi-sorrel-sauce/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=guilbauds-salmon-tandoori-gnocchi-sorrel-sauce http://www.thedailyspud.com/2011/11/06/guilbauds-salmon-tandoori-gnocchi-sorrel-sauce/#comments Sun, 06 Nov 2011 23:45:16 +0000 Daily Spud http://www.thedailyspud.com/?p=31922

Stéphane Robin smiled enthusiastically: “You must let us know if you try any of the recipes.”

I was sitting in a reception room at Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud at an early hour perusing a copy of “Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud: The First Thirty Years” while around me, preparations were getting underway for the official launch of the book later that day. Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud is Ireland’s only two star Michelin establishment, an honour that it has held for almost 16 years, and Stéphane, the longtime manager of the restaurant, and founder Patrick Guilbaud had paused to chat informally about the book in between attending to the various tasks that comprised the business of, what was for them, a very special day.

“I’d love to try something from the book,” I had said in reply to Stéphane and – while I meant it, I really did – I also found myself wondering if the book might contain anything recipe-wise that could be classed as easy. Fat chance. Easy is not a term one one should expect to apply to cooking at two Michelin star level, and the 40 or so recipes in this book are the real deal. You won’t find recipes that have been dumbed down for home use but, rather, a genuine attempt to commit to paper instructions for accurately recreating some of the restaurant’s signature dishes. That’s just how Patrick wanted it.

As with the restaurant itself, attention to detail guided the production of this book, and much like the food at Guilbaud’s, the volume is a beauty to behold, in addition to having a rich and colourful story to tell. From the early days of the restaurant, when customers were famously aghast at the lack of salt and pepper on the tables and (worse still) at the fact that potatoes were not served with every meal, through to its establishment as a Dublin institution, the story is also one of changing Irish tastes and expanding Irish palates. It’s well worth acquiring for anyone with space on their coffee tables for a slice of Irish restaurant history, as well as for those who might aspire to reproduce a bit of Michelin-starred magic at home.

The team behind Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud tell their stories:
Founder Patrick Guilbaud, Executive Chef Guillaume Lebrun and Restaurant Manager Stéphane Robin

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Salmon With Tandoori Gnocchi And Sorrel Sauce

With the intention of making good my expressed desire to recreate a dish from the Guilbaud’s book, I had earmarked a recipe for fillet of salmon with tandoori gnocchi and sorrel sauce on the basis that (a) I rather fancied I could cook a piece of salmon and (b) gnocchi were at least somewhat familiar territory. I soon figured out that my attempted re-creation would be nowhere near exact.

The thing is, of course, that recipes for restaurant use are, by their very nature, different to recipes for home use in terms of quantities, equipment, ingredients and the skills they may expect or assume the reader to have. The biggest case in point in this instance was when I re-read my chosen recipe and finally registered the fact that it called for the fish to be cooked in a water bath – and not, I might add, the kind that I have in my bathroom. Still, I persevered and, though I knew the texture of the fish would be different, I made do with my oven. I wouldn’t be reaching any dizzying Michelin-starred heights this time ’round, that was clear (the presentation alone would need work, not to mind everything else) but I figured I could still learn a lot by trying.

You’ll need:

• gnocchi (see recipe below)
• sorrel sauce (see recipe below)
• 125g salmon fillet, per person
• butter
• fine salt
• Maldon salt (or another coarse salt)
• tandoori spice (see gnocchi recipe below)
• soft fresh herbs to garnish (e.g. dill, parsley, …)

You’ll also need:

• A water bath to cook the salmon, if you should have such a thing, otherwise I reckon your oven will do, plus a hand blender or whisk for the sorrel sauce.

The Steps:

• Prepare the gnocchi and the sorrel sauce (recipes below).
• If you have access to a water bath for cooking purposes, then preheat it to 56C, seal each piece of salmon in a vacuum bag with some fine salt and a small knob of butter and cook in the water bath for 12 minutes. Rest for 3 minutes, then carefully remove the skin, season the top side with Maldon salt and keep warm.
• Alternatively, preheat your oven to 150C. Place the salmon fillets on a baking tray, sprinkle with some salt and a small knob of butter. Bake until just cooked through, 15-20 minutes depending on thickness. Remove the skin (or not as you prefer) and sprinkle with some Maldon salt.
• To serve: warm the gnocchi in a pan with a pinch of the tandoori spice and some butter emulsion (which is water or stock which has been heated, and to which a knob of butter has been added and whisked through).
• Place the salmon on a plate, top each fillet with 3-4 gnocchi (and, though it’s not the Guilbaud way, you could serve more gnocchi on the side). Give the sorrel sauce a whizz with a hand blender and spoon over the top. Garnish with fresh herbs.

The Variations:

• What I have cooked is already, inevitably, a variation of the real thing – I’d be inclined, in this case, to try to get the original right (or as close to right as possible) before going on any (other) major tangents.

The Results:

• Each thusly prepared salmon fillet serves one.

So why, exactly, do we buy cookbooks?

The simplistic answer, of course, is that we buy them for the recipes, but in reality, it’s almost never that simple.

We may buy a cookbook because we’ve seen the corresponding series on TV. We may have come to like or, even better, to trust the chef-author based on past cookbooks, through a blog or by way of an associated food business. We may want to try our hand at a particular cuisine or we may want to learn the basics. We may be dedicated followers of foodie fashion or we may just like the pictures, and there’s no doubt but that good photography and styling helps to sell.

Increasingly, photography in cookbooks is used, not only to show what the food should, in theory, look like but also to convey a representation of the lifestyle associated with eating that food. Whether we are subsequently disappointed when our dishes (or our lifestyle) do not turn out “like in the pictures” is another matter entirely. And while it can be helpful to see what a dish may look like at the end of our endeavours, some of my most trusted and well-used cookbooks (take a bow, Madhur Jaffrey) have little in the way of glossy pictures and are no less loved by me for that.

In the end, while the pictures are nice, it is the words that count. My favourite cookbooks are the ones that are worth reading not just for the recipes. Give me Elizabeth David’s English Bread and Yeast Cookery and an armchair and I will curl up happily. Nigella Lawson and Nigel Slater I like as much for their writing as for the style of their recipes. It’s important too, though, that the recipes work.

The Pieminister Cookbook

All of which brings me, somewhat circuitously, to the new Pieminister cookbook. Now, I have to admit that I wasn’t especially familiar with Pieminister, it being a UK-based pie-making enterprise without any permanent outlets here in Ireland. Still, when I was asked if I’d like a review copy of their new book, I took a look at the previews online, decided I liked the look of it (I mean, who doesn’t love pies, eh?), and said yes.

It’s a nicely produced book with (yes) plenty of attractive pictures, cute illustrations and seasonally arranged pie recipes, both savoury and sweet, as well as words to the wise on pie crusts, on tipples to match your pies and other pie lore. What made me smile was the wordplay at work in the recipes, from the fish pie named ‘Pietantic’ and the crumble of mulled wine and plum called ‘Plumble’ to the triangular ‘Chilli Pie-angles’. Puns aside, though, would the recipes work? The proof of the pudding, it seems, would be in the pie.

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Potato, Cheese and Mushroom Pie

Having looked through the Pieminister book, it was almost inevitable that I would choose to make their cheese and potato pie. A simple recipe, with lots of sliced potato, flavoursome cheese, mushrooms and cream all under a puff pastry hood. In other words, there was a lot to like, in both potato and pie terms, so I got to it.

Shockingly for me, though, I found that the amount of potato in the original recipe was too much relative to the rest of the ingredients. The mixture lacked moisture and turned out to be quite a dry pie, so in my adaptation below, I have reduced the quantity of potato by a third and added more liquid. And though the original recipe recommended floury potatoes, really, I would suggest that waxy potatoes, which are not as dry and which retain their shape and bite, are better for this.

I have also reduced the amount of pastry, as I only needed around half of the original quantity specified. I added thyme, rosemary and some extra parsley simply because I felt like it, used onion instead of shallots because that’s what I had to hand and used some dried porcini mushrooms because they were lying about in the cupboard. If you don’t have dried mushrooms, you can simply use some extra fresh mushrooms and substitute vegetable stock or water for the mushroom soaking liquid. For the cheese part, there are lots of great Irish cheeses to choose from and I went with a good vintage cheddar for this. I’ve also modified the steps a little to something that made a bit more sense to me having worked through the recipe – one which, truth be told, needed a bit of work to make it work but worked out in the end.

You’ll need:

• 250g puff pastry
• 25g dried porcini mushrooms
• 500ml water
• 1kg potatoes, preferably a waxy variety
• salt
• 50g butter, divided
• 400g mixed fresh mushrooms (field, oyster, chestnut), halved or quartered if large
• 1 medium onion, about 175g, thinly sliced
• 5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
• 1 tsp finely chopped rosemary needles
• 100ml cream
• 200g cheese (fontina, gruyère, taleggio or vintage cheddar), chopped into approx. 1cm cubes
• 4 tblsp chopped flat leaf parsley
• freshly ground black pepper to taste
• squeeze of lemon juice (optional)
• beaten egg for glazing (optional)

You’ll also need:

• A large frying pan, a large saucepan and an ovenproof dish (mine was about 28cm x 21cm x 5cm deep)

The Steps:

• If you’re using frozen puff pastry, remove it from the freezer in advance, so that it has enough time to defrost properly.
• Soak the porcini mushrooms in about 500ml water and set aside.
• Preheat your oven to 180C.
• Scrub the potatoes and, leaving them unpeeled, cut into slices about 0.5cm thick and rinse well under cold water.
• Bring a pan of about 1.5l water to the boil, add 2 tsp salt and the potato slices. Return to the boil, then simmer gently, covered, for 6-8 minutes or until just fork tender. Drain well and then cover with a tea-towel to absorb excess steam.
• Meanwhile, place a large frying pan over a medium heat. Add about half of the butter and, when melted, add the fresh mushrooms. Fry, without stirring too much, until they have released their juices and have started to brown, 10-12 minutes.
• Remove the mushrooms from the pan, add the other half of the butter and, when melted, add the sliced onion. Fry for around 7 or 8 minutes or until well softened.
• Add the chopped garlic, thyme and rosemary to the onions and stir and fry for another minute or so.
• Add the porcini mushrooms and their soaking liquid to the onions. Allow this to come to the boil and then simmer for about 5 minutes. Add the cream and simmer for a minute more.
• Remove from the heat and add the fried mushrooms, cheese and parsley along with black pepper to taste. Check for salt and add more if it needs it (but remember that the cheese will add some saltiness too). Add a squeeze or two of lemon juice to taste.
• Add the cheese, onion and mushroom mix to the cooked potato slices and stir to combine. Check seasoning again before pouring the contents into your ovenproof dish.
• Top the dish with a sheet of puff pastry and trim to the edges of the dish. Cut a small opening in the centre of the pastry to allow steam to escape. Brush the pastry with beaten egg if you like and place in the oven for around 25-30 minutes, until the pastry is nicely golden. Dish this up along with salads or perhaps as a side-dish to some pork.

The Variations:

• If you wanted to make this even more substantial, you could, say, add some cooked ham to the pie just before baking

The Results:

• Serves around 4 people

Simple as they come:
potatoes roasted with a bit of inner bay leaf

I was struck lately by the seemingly relentless drive to label the recipes found in many cookbooks and (their often accompanying) cookery programmes as “simple” and “fast” – from Nigel Slater’s Simple Suppers and Simple Cooking to Jamie Oliver’s 30 Minute Meals, and a whole host of others in between. They all, in one way or another, address the perception that, as a race, we 21st century consumers have less and less time to cook and less and less of the kitchen skills required but, ironically, more and more time to watch cookery on TV.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for simple and fast, and I have been known to watch my fair share of television cookery – but if, perhaps, there were more books and programmes that stepped back from recipes and concentrated on teaching skills and techniques, that might actually make things simpler and faster for us in the long run.

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Roast Potatoes With Bay Leaves

If simple’s what you want, then simple is what you’ll get with these spuds.

A couple of weeks back, I received a tweet from my good fried Jenni about “a tater thing” she’d made – namely a potato baked with bay leaf. It was, she declared, really, really good, an endorsement which placed it firmly on my must-make list. It also reminded me of a recipe in Eveleen Coyle’s Irish Potato Cookbook for roast potatoes with bay leaves which I’d been meaning to try. So finally, today, I did just that.

What you see below is Eveleen’s recipe, more or less, but the essence of it – and the technique that you need to remember – is that you cut a slit in a potato, insert a bay leaf and then roast or bake it, just as Jenni did. Simple, yes, and really, really good.

You’ll need:

• 800g baby potatoes (or any small, evenly-sized potatoes)
• salt, for parboiling the potatoes
• 2 tblsp olive oil (or substitute rapeseed oil)
• bay leaves, one for each potato
• coarse salt

You’ll also need:

• A roasting tin large enough to fit the potatoes in a single layer

The Steps:

• Preheat your oven to 200C
• Scrub the potatoes and leave them unpeeled.
• Bring a pot of about 1.5l water to the boil, add 2 tsp salt and the potatoes. Bring back to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer gently, covered, for about 3 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow them to dry off and cool slightly.
• Add your oil to the roasting tin and place in the oven to heat.
• Cut a slit in each potato and insert a bay leaf.
• Remove your tin from the oven and toss the potatoes with the hot oil. Sprinkle with coarse salt and return to the oven. Roast for 35-45 minutes, until tender and browned. These are lovely on their own with some salt and butter or serve alongside any kind of roast meat – Eveleen Coyle notes that they are particularly good with game.

The Variations:

• Instead of roasting the potatoes in oil, you could do like Jenni did, and bake them without oil but with a little butter added into the slit along with the bay leaf.

The Results:

• This serves 3-4 as a side-dish

“It’s the best thing I’ve ever done,” said David Puttnam.

We were talking about his having taken up residence in West Cork some 22 years ago. Then he glanced down the table towards his wife and smiled, “well, it’s the second best thing, the best was marrying Patsy…”

Either way, it was quite a statement from a man whose career has included film production credits for, among others, the Oscar-winning Chariots of Fire, and it said a lot about how locals and blow-ins alike regard this particularly captivating corner of the world.

View from Glebe Gardens, Baltimore, West Cork

I met David and Patsy in Skibbereen as part of a weekend visit to West Cork for a preview of West Cork Food, a new food tourism initiative of which the Puttnams are patrons. The aim is to provide visitors with an opportunity to meet and visit with artisan producers, and to watch them at work. It’s a proposition that’s bound to appeal to anyone with an interest in artisanal food and the production thereof, particularly given the stellar array of producers who live in, and operate from, this area.

A land of peninsulas and pasture, West Cork is where the revival of Irish farmhouse cheesemaking began in the late 70′s, and the region now boasts what is probably the highest concentration of artisan food producers in Ireland. It’s here that you’ll find, among many others, Durrus and Milleens cheese, Skeaghanore Duck, cheese and charcuterie from Gubbeen, butter, yoghurt and more from Glenilen Farm and smoked wild fish from Sally Barnes’ Woodcock Smokery.

Sally Barnes

It is the aforementioned Sally Barnes who is one of the driving forces behind the West Cork Food initiative, along with Stephen Sage of the West Cork Guide. Prior to my visit, I knew Sally only by reputation as one of the finest smokers of fish anywhere. Over the weekend, we visited her smokery, filleted own our fish, and watched the brining and smoking process. We also listened as Sally talked.

At Sally Barnes' Woodcock Smokery near Castletownshend

Like many West Corkonians, she’s a blow-in, originally from Scotland, but ended up here more than 30 years ago when she married a fisherman. Her fish smoking skills are self-taught – wanting to preserve the fish that her husband had caught and lacking a freezer, she started experimenting, first with a tea-chest and pan, and later with a kiln acquired in settlement of a debt. She later studied food production systems and oceanography through the Open University.

As is the case with many of the producers in the area, she’s both knowledgeable and passionate about her subject and you can’t help but become enthused yourself. Enabling visitors to have access to people like Sally is what West Cork Food is all about. Be warned, though – if you do visit West Cork, you might not want to leave. Staying, in fact, might be the best thing you’ve ever done.

One whiting, ready for filleting

Sally talks filleting and fish

Brining the fish: Sally's formula is simple, she adds salt to water until the fish float;
these whiting fillets were brined for about 15 minutes, others will be brined for shorter or longer periods;
salmon, on the other hand, she dry salts;

Into the kiln for 6 hours of cold-smoking, using beech smoke

Et voilà, a beautifully smoked fillet of whiting

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Potatoes And Lentils With Smoked White Fish

“Nothing goes with fish better than potatoes,” so commented Prue Leith while scrutinising a submission for the fish course of The Great British Menu. I don’t recall the dish in question, but the comment sprang to mind as I thought about what to do with my two beautiful fillets of beech-smoked whiting from Sally Barnes.

Truth be told, Sally’s beech-smoked whiting is such a fine piece of fish that, really, very little, if anything needs to be added in order to enjoy it. Her own suggestions were to either poach it in milk with potatoes and onions or simply acidulate it for about an hour before eating, perhaps along with some spring onions. I took the latter idea, allowed strips of the fish to marinate in lemon juice, while I made a kind of thick, earthy potato and lentil stew to be eaten alongside. It’s hearty, satisfying fare.

You’ll need:

• approx. 200g good quality smoked white fish (I used Sally Barnes’ smoked whiting)
• juice of one lemon
• 2-3 spring onions, finely sliced
• vegetable oil for frying
• 1 medium-sized onion, approx. 150g, sliced into fine half rings
• 300g tomatoes, skinned and finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 0.5 tsp fennel seeds, lightly crushed
• 0.5 tsp paprika
• 400g potato, peeled and cut into approx. 1cm cubes
• 200g puy lentils, rinsed
• 1 bay leaf
• 1.5 tsp salt
• approx. 750ml water or vegetable stock
• 200g kale, thick stalks removed and leaves finely chopped (or use swiss chard or spinach)
• freshly ground black pepper
• freshly chopped flat leaf parsley (optional)

You’ll also need:

• A large, heavy-based saucepan

The Steps:

• Slice the smoked fish into very fine, narrow strips, spread onto a plate or board, scatter with the spring onions, squeeze generously with lemon juice and set aside.
• Place a large saucepan over a medium heat. When hot, add vegetable oil to coat the pan. Add the sliced onions and stir and fry for about 5 minutes or until starting to soften.
• Add the tomatoes and garlic, fry for another 5-8 minutes or until the tomatoes have softened.
• Add the crushed fennel seeds and the paprika, stir briefly, then add the cubed potatoes, puy lentils, bay leaf, salt and water or stock. Bring to the boil, then cover and simmer for about 10 minutes.
• Add the chopped kale and simmer for about 30 minutes more or until the lentils and vegetables are tender. Add black pepper to taste and additional salt if it needs it.
• Remove from the heat and stir in about half of the smoked fish and spring onions. To serve, ladle into bowls and scatter with the remaining smoked fish and some chopped parsley if using.

The Variations:

• You could perhaps replace the smoked fish with some smoked bacon or leave both out and enjoy as a satisfying vegetarian main course on its own.

The Results:

• Serves 4-6 for lunch or dinner

So, what exactly does one do with a load of Turkish pepper?

I’ve been wondering about that for past few weeks, ever since my brother, who’d been travelling in the Turkish neck of the woods, brought me a collection of randomly chosen local spices, most of which turned out to be pepper of some kind. There were small, maroon-coloured chilli flakes called isot biber or urfa biber (and not one, but two packets thereof), bright red chilli flakes labelled pul kirmizi biber, and karabiber, which I took to be ground white pepper but which I now suspect is more black peppery.

Part of my newly-acquired Turkish pepper stash

Whatever the nature of the individual peppers, though, the key point was that I now had rather a large quantity of them languishing in my cupboards. They might have continued that way for some time if not for the spotting, last week, of a potato recipe in the Guardian from Yotam Ottolenghi which called for Turkish chilli flakes or pul biber. Described in the piece as a classic Lebanese and Syrian take on roast potatoes, the recipe for batata harra had my name, and (I hoped) my pepper, written all over it.

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Middle Eastern Roasted Potatoes

The recipe below is an adaptation of Yotam Ottolenghi’s aforementioned formula for batata harra. The original calls for sweet red peppers to be roasted with the potatoes, whilst I have used cherry tomatoes instead – mostly because they were growing right outside my kitchen window. Also, while the recipe features the classic Lebanese trinity of lemon, garlic and olive oil, I’ve included a few other Middle Eastern regulars, in the shape of mint and sesame seeds, along with a helping of spring onions.

The other thing to say, of course, is that you don’t have to use Turkish chilli flakes in this recipe – you can always use other chilli flakes which will bring their own particular heat and flavour. The pul kirmizi biber which I used was like a hot paprika, but Syrian aleppo pepper, for example, would be fruitier and milder. Remember also that chilli flakes will vary in strength, as do people’s tolerances for heat, so adjust according to your taste and the chilli you’re using.

You’ll need:

• 1kg waxy salad potatoes, such as Charlotte, peeled or not as you prefer and chopped into approx. 2cm chunks
• 2 tblsp olive oil
• 2 tblsp sunflower or peanut oil
• coarse salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• 500g cherry tomatoes, halved
• 6-8 cloves of garlic, crushed
• approx. 30g fresh coriander (leaves and stems), finely minced
• 1 tsp Turkish or other chilli flakes, or to taste
• 1 tsp sumac or more to taste (optional)
• zest of 1 lemon
• 1 tblsp lemon juice or to taste
• 4-6 spring onions, finely chopped
• 2 tblsp sesame seeds, toasted (optional)
• 1 tbslp chopped mint

You’ll also need:

• A large-ish roasting tray, big enough to accommodate the potato chunks in a single layer, or use 2 smaller trays; plus tin foil for lining

The Steps:

• Preheat your oven to 220C and line your roasting tray with foil
• Bring a saucepan of salted water to the boil (approx 1.5l water and 2 tsp salt). Add the potato chunks, return to the boil and boil gently for about 3 minutes. Drain well and then either let them sit, covered by a tea-towel, for about 5 minutes or place the saucepan over a low heat and stir the potatoes gently for a minute or so while they dry out.
• Toss the potatoes with the olive and sunflower oils and about 2 tsp coarse salt plus some black pepper.
• Spread the potatoes onto your roasting tray and place in the oven for about 10 minutes, then stir in the tomatoes and garlic, along with half of the coriander, the chilli flakes and the sumac (if using). Roast for another 20-30 minutes or until the potatoes are browned and tender.
• Tip the contents of the roasting tray into a large bowl and add the lemon zest, lemon juice, spring onions, toasted sesame seeds (if using) and more salt and pepper if need be. Serve warm or at room temperature on its own or perhaps with some fried fish, such as sea bass, and stir in the remaining coriander, as well as the mint just before serving.

The Variations:

• Of course you can give Ottolenghi’s original version a whirl, using red peppers in place of the cherry tomatoes.

The Results:

• Serves around 4 people as a warm salad or side dish.

It may surprise, or even shock you to learn that, in almost three years of writing this blog, and with its avowed affection for all things potato, that sweet potatoes have never been called for in any of the recipes published herein. Yep, that’s right, not once. Ever. Have a looksee and you’ll find that those other potatoes barely even warrant a mention.

It’s not that I don’t like sweet potatoes – quite the contrary – but, not being a common vegetable in these parts, they tend to be a bit of a rarity in my kitchen. The truth of the matter, frankly, is that I don’t think of them as potatoes at all. That, in turn, may have something to do with the fact that, botanically speaking, the two are not even closely related.

No, not the kind of potato I'm used to...

The sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) hails from the Convolvulaceae family (now there’s a mouthful) and (if I may refer to it as such) the true potato (Solanum tuberosum) is a member of the family Solanaceae. When Columbus was doing his discovery of the Americas thing in 1492, he and his followers found the sweet potato cultivated as a staple throughout the Caribbean, where it was known as batatas. When the potato (which was known as papa in the Andes) was later brought across to Europe, their similar external appearance and underground nature caused the names of the two vegetables to become confused, and they have been joined in name, if not origin, ever since. It also has to be said that, related or not, they get along quite well on the dinner plate too.

I was reminded of that fact when I was perusing Catherine Fulvio’s new book, Catherine’s Family Kitchen. Included throughout the book (and possibly my favourite part of it) are her ’5 Ways With’ sections – suggestions for five quick and easy ways with things like soup, soda bread, pasta and mash. Unsurprisingly, most of the entries under mash are ones with which I was already familar – such as adding celeriac or roasted garlic, pesto or wasabi – but a mash of potato, sweet potato and lime was one I hadn’t tried, and so, in the interests of finally bringing the two potato worlds together, I thought it was about time that I should.

Hot off the presses: Catherine Fulvio's latest, with TV series to follow, starting September 9th

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Sweet Potato Mash

In Catherine’s book, her instructions are to simply to mix half and half potatoes and sweet potatoes, adding lime zest and juice, plus butter and cream. The recipe below adds little to that, other than to suggest specific quantities and to call for the addition of some cayenne pepper, which I think adds a nice extra dimension to the sweet and tangy whole.

Also, given that the dish combines white(-ish) potatoes, orange sweet potatoes and green lime zest, I didn’t miss the opportunity to give this a somewhat patriotic Irish presentation, by keeping aside some of the plain potato mash and lime zest so that they could be swirled in and sprinkled, respectively, for a bit of green, white and orange action.

To prepare the potatoes and sweet potatoes, you can boil or steam according to your preference – if you have a vegetable steamer that can accommodate multiple tiers, that’s probably the most convenient way to prepare both at the same time and using a single burner.

You’ll need:

• 400g potatoes, preferably a floury variety, boiled or steamed until fork tender
• 50g butter, melted
• 50-100ml milk (or cream if you prefer), warmed
• coarse salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• 400g sweet potatoes, boiled or steamed until fork tender
• zest of 1 lime
• juice of 1/2 lime or to taste
• cayenne pepper to taste (optional)

You’ll also need:

• A ricer, though not essential, is definitely your friend when it come to mashing potatoes

The Steps:

• Put the cooked and still warm potatoes through a potato ricer, if you have one, or mash with a potato masher or fork.
• Add the melted butter to the potatoes and mix to combine, followed by about 50ml of the warmed milk (or cream), adding more if you prefer a looser consistency. Season to taste with coarse salt and black pepper and, if you like, set aside 4-5 tblsp of the mash to swirl in later.
• Mash the sweet potatoes (again you can use a ricer if you have one) and add to the rest of the potatoes, mixing well.
• Add about half of the lime zest to the potatoes and add lime juice to taste plus more salt if you think it needs it, along with a sprinkling of cayenne pepper if using.
• To serve, swirl in the reserved (white) mash and sprinkle with the remaining lime zest. Serve with roasted poultry, pork or, for an alternative take on bangers and mash, have it with some sausages and perhaps a red onion gravy.

The Variations:

• I think you could probably substitute carrots for the sweet potatoes here, for something that’s even more Irish in nature.

The Results:

• Serves around 4 people as a side dish

The trouble with designing a pizza, or perhaps the beauty of it, is that there’s just so much choice.

Like a painter who has no subject before them to guide their work, the pizza creator is limited only by imagination – and, one hopes, a good sense of taste – in choosing the canvas, colours and textures of their design.

So it was that I found myself pondering endless possibilities for the latest five star makeover mission, to spruce pizza up with our own particular brand of spit and polish. Bewildered somewhat by the choices, I did, in the end, what I often do – I lead my pizza down an Irish road.

hosted by 5 Star Foodie & Lazaro Cooks!

This pizza may look like an Italian favourite, but it's got lots of Irish flavour

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Soda Bread Pizza

I could have called this an Irish four cheese pizza, for it is that, among other things.

It features some of our wonderful Irish farmhouse cheeses: salty, pungent Bellingham Blue, Swiss-style St. Gall, Irish buffalo mozzarella (yes, there is such a thing and it is available in Fallon & Byrne) and the hard, intensely-flavoured Desmond cheese. Somewhat amazingly for an Irish cheese pizza, there is not a lump of cheddar in sight.

The base uses a soda bread dough, and, in addition to the cheeses, there are potatoes (naturally) along with leeks and another vegetable familiar to Irish tables, the yellow-fleshed turnip (known as swede in England and rutabaga in the US, its sweetness here contrasts well with the salty blue cheese). I threw in some of my home-grown cherry tomatoes for good measure, and there’s also a kick of garlic and thyme. All in all, I’d say it’s a design I’m pretty happy with.

For the topping:

• 150g potato
• 100g yellow turnip (swede / rutabaga)
• 1 tblsp butter
• 150g leek, white and light green parts finely sliced
• pinch of salt
• 1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
• 50g St Gall cheese (or substitute emmental), grated
• 150g cherry tomatoes, halved
• 50g Bellingham Blue cheese (or substitute gorgonzola), crumbled
• 150g fresh buffalo mozzarella, thinly sliced
• 3 tblsp grated Desmond cheese (or substitute parmesan)

For the dough:

• 200g plain flour
• 0.5 tsp baking soda
• 0.5 tsp salt
• 25g butter, softened
• 100-125ml buttermilk
• a little cornmeal to scatter on the baking tray

You’ll also need:

• A large frying pan plus a large baking sheet, around 30cm x 40cm (or, if you have them, you can use a pizza peel and baking stone)

The Steps:

• Preheat your oven to 200C. If you’re using a baking stone, place it in the oven to heat.
• Scrub the potato and, leaving it unpeeled, slice it as thinly as you can (using a mandoline if you have it). Rinse the sliced potatoes in several changes of cold water, so that most of the cloudy starch is washed off, then drain and pat dry.
• Peel the turnip and slice thinly (again, using a mandoline if available).
• Place your frying pan over a medium heat. Add the butter and, when melted, add the leeks, a pinch of salt and the thyme leaves. Stir and fry for about 4-5 minutes, until just starting to soften. Add the garlic, stir and fry for about a minute more, then remove from the heat.
• Now, to make the dough, in a medium-sized bowl, add the flour, baking soda and salt. Whisk well, then add the butter and rub in until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Make a well in the center and add most of the buttermilk. Mix gently with your hands until it just comes together as a dough, adding a little more buttermilk if necessary.
• Gently roll out the dough into an approx. 30cm round.
• Scatter your baking sheet with some cornmeal and transfer the rolled-out dough to the sheet (or transfer to a pizza peel if you want to use a baking stone).
• Spread the softened leeks over the dough base. Add the turnip slices in a single layer, followed by half of the potato slices. Scatter over the St. Gall cheese (or emmental), followed by the rest of the potato slices. Finish with the cherry tomatoes, blue cheese and sliced mozzarella, then top the lot off with the grated Desmond cheese (or parmesan).
• Place the pizza in the oven (transferring from pizza peel to baking stone if using). Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the dough is browned, the cheese is bubbling and golden and the potatoes and turnips are cooked through. Now slice, serve and enjoy

The Variations:

• You could, of course, use a regular pizza crust here and change the selection of cheeses, based on what you have available.

The Results:

• One approx. 30cm round pizza, serves 4-6

]]> http://www.thedailyspud.com/2011/08/24/pizza-cheese-potato-irish/feed/ 26 http://www.thedailyspud.com/2011/08/19/louth-carlingford-oysters-drogheda/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=louth-carlingford-oysters-drogheda http://www.thedailyspud.com/2011/08/19/louth-carlingford-oysters-drogheda/#comments Fri, 19 Aug 2011 20:12:16 +0000 Daily Spud http://www.thedailyspud.com/?p=30252 I’ve never had that much occasion to visit Louth.

Not that it’s far away or anything – it’s only just north of Dublin, after all – but I’ve rarely had any particular reason to go. Until last Saturday, that is, when the day was spent experiencing just some of what Ireland’s smallest county has to offer, food-wise.

Louth is not only home to Bellingham Blue and Glebe Brethan, two of our finest farmhouse cheeses, but it boasts the much-awarded Cooley Distillery, excellent Carlingford oysters and the surprise and delight that are the Eastern Seaboard Bar & Grill and the Brown Hound Bakery in Drogheda. Several reasons to visit the place, right there.

One Carlingford oyster, au naturel

First stop of the day with my fellow food-trippers, Aoife from I Can Has Cook and Joanna from Smörgåsblog, was the picturesque coastal village of Carlingford and its annual Oyster Festival. Though the festival oyster tent turned out to be a very small affair, it boasted the freshest of oysters, shucked for us by Kian Louet-Feisser of The Carlingford Oyster Company, who was joined by some young, but very able, assistants.

The freshest of oysters and the youngest of chefs

Right alongside were the folks from The Cooley Distillery, makers of some very fine Irish whiskeys, including the wonderful Connemara Peated Single Malt. We chatted with the founder, John Teeling, and of course had a few nips of whiskey (well, it would have been positively rude not to). Though we weren’t in the village for much more than two hours, we also managed to be interviewed for local radio, have lunch in PJ O’Hare’s and score some excellent raspberry jam from Daisy’s Pantry. Pretty good going, all in all.

Above: The Cooley whiskey collection
Below: Founder John Teeling inhales...

After that it was off to Drogheda, and a quick coffee-and-cake-stop at the lovely Trader’s café, before our rendezvous with a host of other bloggers – including Dinner du Jour, Gunternation, Caryna’s Cakes, Kuchennie, Gracie Bakes and Katz Miaow – for a tour of the newly opened Brown Hound Bakery, followed by dinner at the Eastern Seaboard Bar & Grill.

I’d heard a lot about the restaurant from Clare of An American in Ireland, who had organised the trip. Having spent a year living in Drogheda when she moved here from L.A., Eastern Seaboard, run by Jeni and Reuven Diaz, came as an unexpected and welcome find.

I think I'd go back to Eastern Seaboard for the bread alone

Positioned at the end of a small strip of shops in a Drogheda housing estate, it’s an unlikely location for top-quality dining. Yet that is exactly what you’ll get, and at reasonable prices too.

Plenty to delight the tastebuds, including crab cakes, salmon, rabbit and more at Eastern Seaboard.
The coffee jelly and ice cream dessert was positively intriguing.

The large, high-ceilinged and tastefully designed dining room, meanwhile, would not look remotely out of place in Paris or Manhattan, while the same can be said for The Brown Hound Bakery, which Jeni and Reuven have opened just down the way, alongside their take on the takeaway, Mo’s To Go.

With fresh oysters on the menu, not to mention Coney Island corn dogs, Mo's To Go is not your average Irish takeaway joint

Treats at the Brown Hound Bakery

I would actually go as far as to say that the bakery, with its large glassed displays of cakes and tarts, and cookies piled under glass domes, is not like any I’ve seen in Ireland. Many of the recipes come from New York-based baker Craig Thompson, owner of Shandaken Bake in the Catskills Mountains, who came out to Drogheda for three months to train the bakery staff. Each of us bloggers having been sent home with a goody box from the bakery, I can confirm that, just as with the restaurant next door, taste-wise, the Brown Hound does not disappoint. In fact it would not, I think, be extreme of me to make a special trip back just for their chocolate banana bread. That, truth be told, strikes me as a particularly good reason to visit.

Four pounds of cheese.

No, despite my near addiction to all things dairy, I am not actually referring to the amount of cheese that I am likely to consume in a single sitting. What that weighty amount of dairy goodness does represent is the amount of cheese thrown out by the average American over the course of a year, according to an article in the July, 2011 issue of National Geographic, entitled How to Feed A Growing Planet. That article, in turn, inspired my friend Jenni to start the Four Pounds of Cheese project – an experiment where participants would document, for a week, just what it was they were wasting, food-wise. Having been brought up to the tune of my mother’s “waste not, want not” mantra, I am programmed to abhor waste. That doesn’t mean that I’m not capable of wasting food with the best of them. It does, however, mean that I’ll feel dreadfully guilty when I do. Needless, to remark, I was keen to join in.

Last Monday, the week of waste watching began and it didn’t get off to a great start.

I ate out for lunch and the salmon I ordered was served in the classic Irish manner, meaning it came with two kinds of potato (mashed and roasted, in this case). Despite a valiant effort, I didn’t manage to clear my plate, so, to my shame, the very first thing I managed to waste were some of those selfsame spuds. And then I did what I suspect many of us do: I ordered dessert anyway. Different compartment, right? Surprise, surprise, I couldn’t finish that either. Sheesh. Waste 1, Spud 0.

Too many potatoes, even for me

Tuesday, for a while, looked like it might go the same way. In a clear case of trying to do too many things at once, I managed to burn what would otherwise have been a perfectly good batch of biscotti. After much cursing, followed by a bout of mature consideration, I decided that, though not my best work, they were still ok to eat. Waste 0, Spud 1.

My batting average for the rest of the week did improve greatly, but only because the exercise forced me to do more forward planning in terms of my food purchases, especially anything perishable. I am often guilty of buying the equivalent of my own bodyweight in fruit and vegetables, some of which are inevitably past their best before they get used, if they get used at all.

I also thought twice about other items that might more usually get thrown down the sink, so I found myself using milk that had soured to make scones, saving vegetable cooking liquid for stock and freezing the undrunk remains of a bottle of red to use for sauces. I also took to exploring the far reaches of my cupboards to see what might lurk therein. Thank goodness for the long shelf life of dried beans and pulses, because several not-quite-empty bags of lentils made for large batch of dinner-time dal.

All in all, then, not a great deal went to waste over the course of the week, so bully for me. I am, however, acutely aware of the fact that I’ll have wasted my time if I don’t try to keep it up.

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Cheesy Cauliflower Pie

Don’t panic, this recipe does not contain four pounds of cheese – four ounces, more like – but I wanted to include it, as it’s really a template for a pie to which you could add whatever cheese and vegetables you have on hand.

It’s based on a recipe I found in Eveleen Coyle’s Irish Potato Cookbook and it was the potato crust that caught my eye. No pastry here, but a crust composed of grated potato, grated onion and egg – an excellent gluten-free alternative for any savoury pie.

I have jazzed the original recipe up by roasting the cauliflower and adding gorgonzola and walnuts, though vary it with whatever vegetables and cheese you have around.

You’ll need:

• 1 potato crust (see recipe below) or use a shortcrust pastry lining, baked blind for about 10-15 minutes before filling
• 500g cauliflower, washed and separated into small florets
• 1 tblsp olive oil
• 50g walnuts
• butter for frying
• 1 small onion, about 100g, finely chopped
• pinch of salt
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
• 50g mature cheddar, grated
• 50g gorgonzola
• 4 large eggs
• 100ml milk
• freshly ground black pepper
• 3 tblsp grated parmesan

You’ll also need:

• A 24cm round ovenproof dish, about 4cm deep, and a couple of baking trays (mine were about 20cm x 30cm)

The Steps:

• Preheat your oven to 200C, prepare and bake the potato crust as below.
• While the potato crust is baking, toss the cauliflower florets with the olive oil, spread them out on a baking tray, place in the oven and roast for about 15 minutes, until starting to soften and char very slightly.
• Spread the walnuts out on another baking tray and place in the oven for 5 minutes to lightly toast. Remove and chop roughly.
• Once the pie crust, cauliflower and walnuts are done, turn the oven down to 180C.
• Place a small frying pan over a medium heat and, when hot, add about a teaspoon of butter. When the butter has melted, add the chopped onion and a pinch of salt. Stir and fry for about 5 minutes or until translucent. Add the chopped garlic and thyme, stir and fry for about a minute more, then remove from the heat.
• To assemble the pie, add the grated cheddar to the baked crust, followed by the cauliflower, fried onions and chopped walnuts. Crumble over the gorgonzola. Beat together the eggs and milk and pour over the vegetables and cheese. Add a few twists of black pepper and sprinkle over the grated parmesan.
• Return to the oven for about 25 minutes or until the eggs are set. If the edges of the crust are browning too much, cover with foil while cooking.
• Slice and serve warm with a green salad and perhaps a glass of wine.

The Variations:

• Really, you can vary the filling freely according to the vegetables and cheese that you have on hand.

The Results:

• Pie for 4-6 people