Farmers Market Summer Roast

On a day off from work I always like to make sure that I cook something a little bit special, something that I can pour my hours of freedom into. Waking up this Thursday morning I had only one thing on my mind: the Mahon Point Farmers Market. I would start my day with a coffee and plan my dinner as I took in the food buzz. Stopping in the bookstore in the shopping centre itself I looked at the shelves with the idea that maybe I’d pick up a new cookbook and cook something from that. As I stood there looking at the mostly familiar bookshop collection, I came to the quick realisation that what I was doing was nonsensical. Less than fifty meters away was a bustling market of the finest and freshest local produce. Couldn’t I just rustle up something of my own accord? I’d be a fool not to make the most of what was right in front of me and so I got up, got out and got thinking…

There is great importance in going to your local market every once in a while, just for the sake of reminding yourself of what exactly you can obtain that has been grown and produced in your own area. Wandering around, I could see all kinds of meats, cheeses, fruits and vegetables, all locally produced and some incorporated into international dishes: pizza with Gubeen sausage, tarts made with local apples, and so on. As I began picking up bits and pieces, it soon became apparent the direction in which my meal was going: hearty family style. One pot, one purpose, several delicious components!

 

Farmer’s Market Summer Roast

Serves 4

 

8 Gubbeen sausages (4 Cumberland, 4 Sun-dried tomato and basil)

6 Woodside Farm bacon rashers

3 red onions

3 sweet potatoes

4 baby potatoes

5 carrots

Broad beans (as many as you have the patience to deshell)

1 tbsp honey

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

150ml red wine

1 tbsp dried parsley

Salt and freshly ground pepper

 

• Preheat oven to 210 celcius.

• Prepare vegeatables: peel and quarter onions, wash and cut potatoes into chunks. Peel and chop carrots.

• Arrange vegeatables on a large roasting tin with sausages and bacon.

• Pour over wine, vinegar and honey.

• Season with salt and pepper and toss with parsley.

• Toss everything in the tray and put straight in the oven for 40-50 minutes.

• In the meantime, de-shell the beans by simply breaking the pod open with your hands and dislodging the beans. These can be added to the dish two minutes before removing from the oven.

• Serve straight from the dish onto warm plates.

 

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A-list food: it’s all the rage!

It is wonderful to know that once you chose to immerse yourself in the stockpot of the culinary world there is so much going on that you can find constant inspiration, engage on different levels and be sure to keep yourself interested. It is entirely true that all one needs in order to thrive and grow in the kitchen is an unwavering passion. In the kitchen at work the chef is well able to let a shout every once in a while, and when he does, I simply have to smile. That is passion.
This weekend I attended a day course on gluten free cooking in Ballymaloe. The day was led by Rosemary Kearney, a graduate of the school who was diagnosed as a coeliac at the age of one and a half. Although we had covered many of the recipes during our three weeks already, others were new or had been adapted. This was the most valuable lesson, to realise just how many recipes could be easily adapted to suit the diet of coeliacs.
In the Pizzeria, we cater for coeliacs with pizzas, pastas and of course, chocolate cake. I am surprised each week at the number of requests we have for gluten free food. It has really opened my eyes to the necessity of meeting all dietary requirements for any customer. Rosemary commented on how nice it is to be able to go to a restaurant and be able to order gluten free food without causing a fuss or feeling like an inconvenience. As a waiter, I was shocked to think that there was a time and there are still places that will consider a food intolerance as an inconvenience to their business and kitchen. Therefore I was delighted to hear that there is such an extensive range of foods available today.
I had one question to ask though and that was regarding a gluten free diet for non coeliacs. Are there really any health benefits? Amongst our coeliac customers, we also have a few who have gluten one day and gluten free the next, so I figured this to be simply a Hollywood diet. Largely it is, was my answer. However it has to be considered that some people will find that their body reacts better to the gluten free option, for example, they may feel less bloated or something along those lines. There are subtle little differences that their bodies pick up on. I’m glad I cleared that up instead of looking at the person and thinking how they really don’t need to diet and that they should stop taking tips from the magazines. Glad to see them looking after their health after all.
On a final note about the gluten free lifestyle, one thing that Rosemary tightly stressed over and over is to be careful of cross contamination. Using a spoon in your gluten free cake mix and in your regular Victoria sponge is not a good idea. Read the packets carefully, as a conveyer belt may have been used a day prior for a wafer biscuit and is today used for a gluten free bar. Vigilance is key.
My food fun didn’t stop there this weekend either. As I get to go home at the weekends, I have tried to rustle something up for y family to enjoy, and this weekend I decided to introduce to them the bread and butter pudding. It was strange searching the supermarket for the oldest bread on the shelf (older bread works better), and so I made it on Saturday night. After work I got home and just started cooking. Two loaves of bread and two bread and butter puddings. The bread was first on the agenda and so I got that done without hesitation. However I hit a bump when I realised the lack of sunflower oil in the cupboard. A quick search on the Internet and it seemed that substituting olive oil would work for the whole meal bread, and so I did. Being home also means little peace in that great family way and come 2am, the bread had 20 minutes remaining and I got a call from my sister to ask for a lift home from the pub. ‘Be there in 5 minutes’ I warned her… 40 minutes later she made her way to the car, an so my bread was understandably overcooked. I would like to blame this failure entirely on my delay, however I feel like over cooked or not, the bread just wouldn’t have been right, and for this I blame the olive oil. I have therefore added sunflower oil to the shopping list for this week. It meant that the two loaves were inedible, but I was glad to have learnt a valuable lesson as a result.
Back to the pudding however and that was a massive success. I cooked it at 5am (long story), but it meant that it was ready and only needed reheating this Sunday afternoon. As I set about making it, I had acquired a couple of intoxicated onlookers in the form of my sisters friends. As they watched and asked questions with surprising enthusiasm, I was only too happy to put on my own demonstration. I’m sure they all left with a burning desire ti cool. Everyone enjoyed the introduction to this old fashioned favourite, students and eaters, so I shall adding that to my repertoire of dinner party favourites. Food has cycles too and this is definitely back in fashion.

My Foodie Manifesto

What is it? The following is what I believe in as a cook, the values and principles of food which I respect and live by. Why am I doing this? I guess it is like any profession,  there is the actor that always aims to stir emotion in the viewer because they believe that to be the purpose of theatre. Then there is the painter who paints only in water colour, quite simply because that is what they enjoy and that henceforth becomes a part of their identity. Now look at some chefs we all know, taking Gordon Ramsey, he is as well known for his temper as he is for his cooking, and Jamie Oliver, the king of simple, quick, delicious and healthy food. Then we’ve got John A. Barker, what is he all about? Let’s can a potential book load of passion-fuelled words into a mere 200. It is a great challenge which forces people to acknowledge to themselves, never mind anyone else, what they believe about a certain subject. This is draft one, a mere week into the 12 week Ballymaloe cookery course, and so by the end I will revise this, see what has changed and how maybe I have been influenced. I can already feel the ‘no waste’ motto catching on.

 

At my table

Eating is a ceremony. At a table. In company.

Cooking is for everybody, with everybody. It does not end when the oven switch is turned off, rather when the fire dies in the living room as you finish a bottle of wine.

Welcome.

Food is fun. It can look fun. It can taste fun. It can taste pretty awful, as long as making it was fun. Try. Ketchup sandwiches. Burnt toast with natural yoghurt. Don’t know. Try. Avocado and chocolate. Learn. Caramel carrot. Fun. Smile. Sing. Go. EAT!

Simple. There is always time for comfort. Hug.

Help yourself. Plates in the middle. Take. Pass to the next. Share. Unite.

Food is for family. It is recipes from your grandmother; it is recipes for your grandchildren. It is providing the best for the ones you love, the ones you want to see eating well.

Through food we can teach, we can surprise, we can love, we can impress, we can create. It is endless possibilities. We can achieve.

It is a passion that doesn’t fade after all is eaten. It is a passion that continues to read books, to question, to experiment. A nerdish excitement, without shame.

Simple.

A Necessary Recommendation: Theory Thursday

Theory Thursday hit us today, not with that kind of energising kick that would send you flying through your waking hours, but more with a great big anchor under which you know you are trapped and there is no getting away. I don’t believe it was the content, rather it was just an energy slump after three hectic days. Our poor body clocks don’t hardly know what to do. It was unfortunate, given that I love cheese and wine, and coincidentally, our morning happened to be comprised of lectures on both cheese and wine. Followed by an afternoon on fire safety and HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point). Therefore, it may, on paper, not seem like the most riveting of days and for many it wasn’t. Given that I have worked in the restaurant setting for many years, I was lucky to have some level of interest as it was a side of things which I hadn’t, before now, given all that much thought to.

A few particular points of interest included the often overlooked differentiation between a necessity and recommendation, and the recent outbreak of allergies to food. Looking at the first, this was geared around thoughts of starting up a restaurant, or a home-based food supplying business. With all the new, money-driven food safety and hygiene systems in place, it is most important to ask is it a necessity or is it a recommendation. This simple question can and will essentially save you a lot of money. For a start-up business the cost of an extra sink could cripple the company, or could be the case that an entrepreneur simply decides against following through with his or her idea because of the projected costs of meeting the imagined legislations. As somebody who could well have all of this ahead of them in the future, it is an awful shame to see this going on.  The whole idea of knowing your rights comes into place here. For example, wooden boards are a more hygienic surface to prepare food on, but we have been led to believe that buying multiple different coloured plastic boards for food preparation is the best and safest way to work. Ideas about cleanliness seem to be introduced so frequently in the business and at a great speed, generating a lot of expenditure for restaurants, only for the once recommended equipment to soon be called into question about the real standard of hygiene it upholds, hand dryers and electrical fly repellents being just two examples of the products now under scrutiny.

This leads into the second point, and this one being about the new special diets and allergies that are engulfing consumers these days. As Darina puts it, ‘they never had any of these when I was a girl’, and although she has a few years on me, I completely agree. All these hand sanitisors and so on haven’t been around all that long, and yet before they were introduced there was certainly no need for them at all. The poor quality food which often lines the shelves of our supermarkets has also led to the creation and outbreak of new dietary requirements: allergies and intolerances exist like never before. Why can’t we just cook the good simple food that our mothers, grandmothers and so on grew up with. In fact, it is this new level of hygiene that is depleting the resistance of our bodies, making us more prone to certain illnesses and so on. Children that are now growing up in this sterile environment will have no natural defences when they do indeed encounter a little harmful bacteria. As the older generation often told us how they ‘had it tough’, it may well be the case the the next generation think the same of us when they learn that we had to pick a potato or a carrot from the ground. Let us not let it get to that stage eh?

Anyway, as Darina spoke so strongly of this, and tossed out ideas of business start-up, it got me thinking about what my own identity is as a chef and where I might like this course to take me. I then recalled a time last year in university where I had to write my own manifesto on what theatre is, and so today I am setting myself the same challenge to write my food manifesto in the coming days, which I will undoubtedly share on here. I set myself a 200 word limit, and I encourage you to do the same about some aspect of your life. It is a great challenge, yielding hugely beneficial results.

Also, in spite of a day of chock-a-block theory, I couldn’t let it slip by without a little bit of cooking, or rather baking. So in went a loaf of wholemeal bread at 6:45pm and out it came again at 7:45pm. Straight into a bag and it was soon landed on my mother’s kitchen table where we sliced and buttered a piece and drank tea and I told her all about my week so far (as she isn’t so internet savvy and would probably think a blog was some Eastern European delicacy). Good food: unites all.