The Daily Spud » Meals

Spud Sunday: Boozy Spuds

Daily Spud — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:48:06 +0000

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

Speaking of wine, if you’d like to end January in style, then you might just be interested in this…

Jamie Marfell, winemaker with New Zealand’s Brancott Estate, is in town for the New Zealand Wine Fair at the end of the month, and will host a free wine tasting masterclass in the Odessa Club, Dublin on Tuesday 31st January, along with Irish wine aficionado Jean Smullen. There are 30 places at the wine tasting up for grabs and tickets are available by emailing Brancottestateireland@gmail.com with your name, date of birth, contact details and address, or visit the Brancott Estate Facebook page for more information. Tickets will be allocated on a lottery basis and guests will be notified of attendance by Friday 27th January.

If you don’t secure a place at the wine tasting (or even if you do), you might also be interested in attending the New Zealand Wine Fair itself, which happens on Monday, January 30th at the Radisson Blu Hotel on Golden Lane in Dublin 8. Around 35 wineries are participating and there will be over 200 New Zealand wines to try (though you don’t actually have to try them all…). The event is open to the general public from 6.30pm to 8.30pm and consumer tickets are now on sale price €15.00. The aforementioned Jean Smullen has the low down here.

Spud Sunday: Spuds On The Menu

Daily Spud — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 19:32:00 +0000

For some reason, it was the cause of much mirth amongst my work colleagues when I mentioned that, as part of my general spud research, I was meeting the president of the Irish Potato Federation for lunch (an organisation of wholesalers, importers and exporters of potatoes and whose members together handle around 75% of the potato trade in Ireland).

I suspect that the sniggerati’s mental image of two potato heads lunching may have had a certain cartoonish quality to it. I had to laugh myself, really. What was once a vegetable is now a vocation – I have become The Daily Spud and this is the kind of thing I do.

An all-potato menu at The Clarence

As for the lunch itself, I was, unsurprisingly, tickled pink by the all-potato menu, which Liam Glennon, president of the aforementioned federation, asked the chef at The Clarence Tea Room to prepare. Feasting on leek and potato soup, gnocchi and chocolate potato cake was as good a reminder as any that being The Daily Spud is no bad thing. In fact, it’s a very good thing indeed.

Speaking of special menus, you may be interested in one or other (or both) of the following events:

Chapter One Charity Lunch For Barrettstown

Chapter One restaurant in Dublin will be the venue for a special charity lunch on Monday 30th January. Michelin-starred executive chef Ross Lewis will present a menu inspired by the one that he prepared for the state banquet in honour of HM Queen Elizabeth II during her visit here last May (and fear not, with smoked champ potato on the menu, there will be spuds).

The lunch is limited to 80 people, with all food and wine costs being covered by Chapter One and all proceeds from tickets going to support the work of Barretstown, the Kildare-based camp designed for children who have been affected by a serious illness, primarily cancer, and their families. Tickets are available at €100 per person or €200 per person for a place at the Chef’s Table. Bookings can be made by contacting Chapter One at info@chapteronerestaurant.com or by phoning 01-8732266.

West Cork Burns Night Supper

If you’re in the vicinity of Skibbereen on January 25th next and you’re of a Scottish persuasion (or even if you’re not), you’ll want to head for the West Cork Hotel, which, in association with the lovely folks from West Cork Food, will be hosting its first ever Burns Night supper.

For what sounds to me like the extremely good value price of €30, you’ll get five (or, from what my sources tell me, possibly even six) courses of fine West Cork produce crafted into a traditional Scottish meal, while the all-important haggis is being flown in from McSween’s of Edinburgh, a company that has been making award-winning haggis for over 50 years. On the spud front, meanwhile, I would naturally expect some version of neeps and tatties to make an appearance on the night. Musician Ronnie Costly will provide the entertainment for the evening and there will be recitals of Robbie Burns Poetry and, of course, a wee dram. See here for more details.

Spud Sunday: A Resolutionary Soup

Daily Spud — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 16:26:30 +0000

White winter vegetable soup: potato, celeriac, cauliflower and roasted garlic

Ah yes, it’s that time of year where we resolve to swap the excesses of Christmas eating for regimes that are altogether more virtuous. Quite how many of us manage to stick to those resolutions for any length of time is another matter entirely (and far be it from me to judge – I have left a trail of failed resolutions in my wake over the years).

Still, I can do my little bit and, this year, it starts with this white winter vegetable soup.

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Potato, Celeriac and Cauliflower Soup

Mostly, it’s simplicity and comfort that I crave food-wise at this time of year and this soup fits that bill. A little bit of onion, equal parts potato, celeriac and cauliflower and finished with a hit of warming roasted garlic and toasted cumin seeds. There’s really not much else required.

You’ll need:

1 small head of garlic
olive oil, for roasting the garlic
vegetable oil for frying
butter for frying
75g onion, finely chopped
salt
300g potatoes, peeled and cut into approx. 0.5cm cubes
300g celeriac, peeled and cut into approx. 0.5cm cubes
800ml water or vegetable stock (or use chicken stock if you prefer)
300g cauliflower, cut into thin florets
0.5 tsp cumin seeds
1.5 tsp lemon juice or more to taste
freshly ground black pepper
chopped flat leaf parsley to garnish

You’ll also need:

A blender or food processor to blend the soup (a hand-held immersion blender is ideal)

The Steps:

Preheat your oven to 180C
Remove the outer papery skin from the head of garlic and slice off the top to expose the garlic cloves. Drizzle a little olive oil over the top of the garlic, wrap in foil and place in the oven for 30-40 minutes until the cloves have softened completely.
While the garlic is roasting, place a large, heavy saucepan over a medium heat. When hot, add 1-2 tsp each vegetable oil and butter. When the butter has melted, add the chopped onion and a pinch of salt. Stir and fry for 4-5 minutes until softened.
Add the chopped potato and celeriac and stir briefly, then add the water or stock along with about 0.75 tsp salt (or less if you’re using stock that is already salted).
Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat, cover and simmer for about 10 minutes. Stir in the chopped cauliflower, bring back to a boil and simmer for a further 20 minutes or until the vegetables are tender.
While the soup is simmering, place a small frying pan over a medium heat. When hot, add the cumin seeds and toast for 3-4 minutes until fragrant, shaking the pan frequently.
When the vegetables are cooked, remove the soup from the heat and blend until reasonably smooth. Remove 5-6 cloves of the roasted garlic from their skins and blend into the soup (adding more to taste if desired).
Add lemon juice, freshly ground black pepper and additional salt if the soup needs it and stir in the toasted cumin seeds. The soup will be fairly thick, so use additional boiling water to thin to your desired consistency.
Serve with chopped flat leaf parsley and perhaps some toast spread with some of the remaining roasted garlic.

The Variations:

You could toss some breadcrumbs in a little olive oil and toast them in the oven for about 5 minutes while the garlic is roasting and use as a crunchy garnish or, alternatively, scatter the soup with some toasted flaked almonds or chopped roasted cashew nuts.

The Results:

Soup for 3-4

Spud Sunday: Crisps A Go-Go

Daily Spud — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 17:24:08 +0000

Hard to believe, but I have been taken to task in certain quarters for having included on these pages a recipe for so simple a thing as the crisp sandwich. Yes, in these days where tv chefs and cookbook authors are falling over themselves to produce ever easier and ever simpler recipes, this might have been construed as a simplification too far.

My point, of course, was not to teach anybody how to make a crisp sambo per se, but to acknowledge the fact that it sits proudly in the pantheon of spud classics, as much as any buttery mash or creamy gratin. And the same, it has to be said, goes for its close cousin, the crisp toastie.

This week's crisp toastie

This particular toastie featured some of the new Keogh’s crisps that I sampled last week. What better place for a handful of the salt and vinegar variety than smushed between two slices of toasted batch bread, with some mature cheddar, tomatoes, spring onions and mayonnaise for company. It was a little piece of midweek lunch perfection.

Figuring that you might fancy making some toasties of your own, Keogh’s have offered to send one lucky Spud reader a sample of their new range, which includes Dubliner Cheese and Onion, Atlantic Sea Salt and Irish Cider Vinegar and Roast Beef and Irish Stout flavours. The rest of the toastie is, naturally, up to you.

To be in with a shout for the Keogh’s crisps, just leave a comment below.

Anyone with an address in the Republic of Ireland can enter and I’ll leave this open until midday GMT on Monday December 12th, after which I’ll pick a winner from the crisp bag.

Spud Sunday: Searching For Breakfast

Daily Spud — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 19:11:42 +0000

My friend and fellow potato enthusiast, Dave Langford, is in the habit of sending potato-related snippets my way. The latest to hit my inbox was this little snapshot which, needless to remark, brought a smile to my face:

It also prompted the creation of a suitably spudly breakfast dish (because I am, in matters potato, nothing if not predictable).

My Indian potato pancake, otherwise known as breakfast

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Indian Potato Pancake

In texture and composition, this pancake is somewhere between a rösti and a spanish omelette, while the spices used give it a definite Indian flavour. The quantity below makes for a generous single serving, but to feed more people you could easily double or triple the quantities and use a larger pan.

You’ll need:

1 medium-sized potato, about 200g
rapeseed, peanut or other vegetable oil for frying
0.25 tsp black mustard seeds
0.25 tsp cumin seeds
pinch of nigella seeds / kalonji – (optional)
25g finely chopped onion
1 small clove garlic
1 tsp finely chopped fresh ginger
0.25 tsp salt
1 egg, beaten
1 tblsp chopped fresh coriander

You’ll also need:

A small frying pan, around 20cm across, preferably non-stick, and a plate that’s slightly larger than the pan (for turning the pancake over).

The Steps:

Scrub the potato very well and (leaving the skin on) grate it. Place the grated potato into a clean tea towel, twist and squeeze to remove as much water as possible.
Place your pan over a medium heat and, when hot, add enough oil to coat the pan. Add the mustard seeds, cumin seeds and nigella seeds. When the mustard seeds start to pop (after about a minute), add the onion and fry for about five minutes or so, until starting to soften.
Add the chopped garlic and ginger, stir and fry for about a minute more, then add the grated potato and sprinkle with the salt. Stir and fry the potato for around 10-12 minutes, adding some more oil if the mixture seems dry.
Now flatten the potato mixture and spread it out so that it covers the base of the pan. Mix the chopped coriander with the beaten egg and pour evenly over the potatoes. Cook for a further 5-7 minutes, until the egg and potato pancake seems set.
Now turn the pancake, by taking a plate or flat saucepan lid, placing it on the frying pan, and inverting the pan so that the pancake ends up on the plate. Then slide it carefully back into the pan and cook on the second side for a further 3-4 minutes.
Enjoy the pancake on its own or perhaps with some fried tomatoes, mushrooms and other breakfast fare.

The Variations:

Of course you can vary the flavourings according to your taste: add some chilli flakes to the egg, say, or omit the spices and ginger and add thyme and parsley or whatever else takes your fancy.

The Results:

Serves one generously.

Spud Sunday: Michelin Spuds

Daily Spud — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 23:45:16 +0000

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

Those keen to get their hands on a copy of the book will find it on sale at, among others, Avoca stores, Brown Thomas, Dubray Books, Fallon & Byrne, as well as at Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud. It retails at €50 and proceeds from the sale of the book go to the Irish Hospice Foundation.

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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.

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Tandoori Gnocchi

Quantity-wise, this recipe probably produces enough gnocchi to adorn 10 or so Guilbaud-style salmon fillets (as only 3-4 gnocchi are specified per serving). However, you could, I think, always choose to serve up more gnocchi with each plate – I, for one, wouldn’t complain – in which case this probably makes enough for 4 servings.

The other thing to note is that the Guilbaud recipe called for a quantity of tandoori spice, which is, in itself, a spice mix that may have different formulations. I took a stab at making my own tandoori spice though (given that I’ve never had this dish at Guilbaud’s) I can’t really say how it compares to that used in the restaurant. One thing it doesn’t have (and which is common in tandoori formulae) is vibrant red food colouring, but I figured I could live without that.

For the tandoori spice:

1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
0.5 tsp cayenne pepper
0.5 tsp nutmeg
0.25 tsp gnd cinnamon

For the gnocchi:

500g potatoes, preferably a floury variety
coarse salt
100g flour, preferably 00 pasta flour
50g parmesan, finely grated
10g melted butter
1 egg, beaten
tandoori spice (see above)

You’ll also need:

A potato ricer is useful, though not essential, for mashing the potato

The Steps:

To make the spice mix, toast the cumin and coriander seeds in a small pan over a medium heat for 4-5 minutes or until fragrant. Grind using a mortar and pestle or a spice grinder and mix with the cayenne pepper, nutmeg and cinnamon and set aside.
Preheat your oven to 200C
Scrub the potatoes, prick all over with a fork. Scatter a baking tray with coarse salt, place the potatoes on the salt and bake until fork tender – this could take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour or more, depending on size.
Split each potato in two and scoop out the flesh. Push the flesh through a potato ricer into a bowl, or mash well using a masher or a fork if you don’t have a ricer.
To the still warm potatoes, add the flour, parmesan, melted butter, egg and about 2 tsp of the tandoori spice (keeping aside a small amount for finishing the gnocchi later). Mix to a soft, pliable dough – if the dough feels a bit damp add a little more flour as needed.
Break off pieces of the dough and roll into logs around the thickness of your thumb. Then cut the logs into pieces around 2cm long (the Guilbaud recipe specifies a weight of 15g for each piece). Using plenty of flour so that the pieces don’t stick, press each piece against the inside of a fork, so that it forms little ridges on one side. Alternatively, if you have such a thing as a gnocchi paddle then by all means use it.
Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil. Cook the gnocchi in batches, dropping the pieces into the boiling water and waiting until shortly after they float back up to the top of the pot (this should only take a couple of minutes). Then remove with a slotted spoon, refresh in iced water and reserve until needed.

The Variations:

The obvious thing to vary here is the spicing – if I had any inkling about the nature of the tandoori spice used by Guilbaud’s, I’d certainly try that out.

The Results:

Around regular 4 dinner servings of gnocchi or perhaps 10 or so Guilbaud-style servings with the salmon above

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Sorrel Sauce

As with the gnocchi, I would estimate that the quantity of sauce made by this recipe is enough to dress maybe 10 or so of the Guilbaud salmon fillets (though if you wanted to serve more gnocchi on each plate (as suggested above), you’d probably also allow a little more sauce per serving also).

The Guilbaud’s recipe for this very butter-rich sauce calls for the use Bordier butter, a rather highly regarded French product. Not having such a thing, I used good old Irish butter instead.

The recipe also calls for reducing a quantity of fish stock, though it doesn’t specify by how much, so I hedged my bets and reduced it by around half.

You’ll need:

200ml fish stock
50g sorrel leaves
200g butter
a few drops of lemon juice, to taste
salt, to taste

The Steps:

Place the fish stock in a small saucepan over a medium heat. Bring to a boil, then simmer for around 15 minutes or until reduced by about half.
Add the sorrel leaves to the stock, remove from the heat and leave to sit for 2-3 minutes.
Strain the stock into a clean pan and return to the heat. Whisk in the butter a little at a time. Adjust the seasoning with lemon juice (though just a few drops, otherwise you may overpower the tang of the sorrel) and salt and keep warm until required.

The Results:

Makes around 300ml of sauce

On The Food Trail Again

Daily Spud — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 16:20:51 +0000

I have never been a fan of early morning airport starts (well, who is?), but as I coaxed myself out of bed at an unreasonable hour this very chilly a.m., there were two things that helped:

1. some honest-to-goodness porridge, breakfast of champions – I have Flahavan’s to thank for what seems to be a never-ending supply of same

Flahavan's latest: their multi-seed porridge with pumpkin and hemp seeds, among others

2. a destination promising significantly more than porridge – with the reward for my early rise being a visit to Wales and a place at the table for their True Taste national food awards

Naturally, I will report back in due course – I don’t doubt but that it will turn out to be one of those things that was well worth getting out of bed for.

Spud Sunday: The Why Of Cookbooks

Daily Spud — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 21:50:00 +0000

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

Spud Sunday: Simple Spuds

Daily Spud — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 13:30:00 +0000

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

The Trifle Tower

Daily Spud — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 15:01:01 +0000

I won’t delay. It is unseasonably warm outside and, that being such a rarity in this parts, I really should take advantage, but not before leaving you with this month’s contribution to the five star makeover series.

hosted by 5 Star Foodie & Lazaro Cooks!

This month’s theme called for a makeover of dishes where wine was a major ingredient. I chose that old-fashioned triumph of sponge, fruit, jelly, custard and cream, the sherry trifle.

My mini trifle tower

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Mini Port Trifles

The first thing that I did to the poor old sherry trifle was to replace the sherry with a thyme-infused port reduction. In this I was inspired by a recipe for raspberry meringue in Catherine Fulvio’s new book, Catherine’s Family Kitchen, which features raspberries soaked in red wine with honey and thyme. I also left out the jelly part of the trifle, but I did add custard, and I used yoghurt instead of cream (but that’s just my preference, go ahead and use cream if you like or, better still, some mascarpone).

I also made free-standing individual servings, using queen cakes (i.e. plain, undecorated buns or cupcakes) as the sponge base. For these, I generally use a plain madeira mixture and the formula learned from my mother: four, four, six, two, beat and beat until you’re blue (meaning 4oz sugar, 4oz butter, 6 oz self raising flour, two eggs and liberal application of a wooden spoon).

For the custard, you can use a good quality readymade custard if you like, or, even nicer, make your own crème anglaise.

You’ll need:

600ml ruby port
5 tblsp honey
2 x 7-8cm sprigs of thyme
6 plums, halved
12 queen cakes
125ml pouring custard
4 tblsp natural yoghurt
12 walnut halves, toasted and chopped (optional)
zest of one lemon

You’ll also need:

A heavy-based saucepan for making the port reduction

The Steps:

Place the port, honey and thyme in a heavy saucepan, and place over a medium heat. When the honey has dissolved, add the halved plums. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for about 10 minutes. Remove the plums, then bring the port back to a boil and allow it to boil and reduce for about 20 minutes or until the liquid had reduce to about one third of it’s original amount.
To assemble the mini-trifles: Slice the tops off the queen cakes and set aside. Place the cake bases onto serving plates, drizzle the bases with about one third of the port reduction, top each with a plum half, then drizzle with another third of the port. Top with the custard and then the yoghurt. Scatter with the lemon zest and chopped walnuts. Top each with the reserved lids of the queen cakes and drizzle with the remaining port.

The Variations:

Lots of variations possible – you could, for example, replace the plums with raspberries and/or replace the yoghurt with whipped cream, say, or some mascarpone.

The Results:

Makes 12 mini-trifles