Cook new potatoes, till just done but still firm. Drain, peel, put in a bowl and season. Add a few good slugs of olive oil to a pan and gently heat then pour over the potatoes. Lightly crush the potatoes with a fork – they want to be chunky rather than smooth. Then stir through some very finely diced and lightly fried onion, some de-seeded and finely diced tomato, some basil, coriander, tarragon and lemon juice.
The sauce/dressing is just a little light vegetable stock blended with some olive oil, finely diced tomato, basil and a little red wine vinegar all brought up to the boil. And then set aside.
To finish - stack the potato (which should still be just warm) in ring moulds. Cut the sole into triangles, season and quickly fry in butter and olive oil in a hot pan – it should take no more than a minute on either side. Pile the fish pieces up on top of the potato and spoon the dressing out round the plate.
Pork in milk
The main isn’t the most attractive dish but the meat is really tender and moist and the milk really help to impart all the flavour of the herbs and lemon and garlic into the meat.
I got the pork recipe from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall. I used goats milk here but cow flavour milk is fine too. Just be sure to use whole milk.
The seasoned pork loin, with the rind removed is browned all over in a hot pan first, then set aside. Turn the heat down and add about 10 peeled garlic gloves and cook slowly till they start to just brown, then whip them out with a slotted spoon. Add sage, bay, thyme, rosemary and the peel pared from a lemon, let them infuse in the oil for a moment then add the the meat back to the pan and then add the goats milk – about a litre but enough to at least half cover. Bring to the boil and simmer slowly for about any hour and a half. The milk will have reduced right down and will have separated out leaving a gloopy sauce full of curds.
To accompany this I served baby beetroots, baby carrots and steamed rainbow chard. The carrots are cooked in the juice of half an orange, a chunk of butter and a little bit of cinnamon bark. Squeeze out a wt piece of grease proof paper and tuck it tightly down over the carrots, put the lid on the pan and let them steam in their own juice for half and hour. I always cook carrots like this they end up sweet and very carroty. The beets are scrubbed and baked whole in foil for an hour first with a good sprinkling of salt. Then tossed in a pan with butter and a splash of balsamic till glazed and syrupy.
Treacle tart, pears poached in ginger wine and peated whiskey ice cream
The desert is autumn on the plate. The treacle tart is soft, intensely sweet and warming, the pears are just slightly peppery from being poached in the ginger wine but what really sets this apart is the smokey, peated whiskey ice cream. I used Laphroaig whiskey. They make it by drying malted barley over turf fires. It has this pungent earthy and very smokey aroma in fact its almost tastes like someone left a cigarette butt in you glass of whiskey.
A spot of brunch. This is a great pumpernickel style rye bread made with pumpkin seeds (I didn’t make it). Very savoury and slightly sour. You have to toast it to get the best out of it really. In fact it’s pretty gross unless you toast it. Perfect for melting some good cheddar on with some grilled tomato and pesto or for some lemony avocados with toasted sunflower seeds, or anything else for that matter.
After a few days of not feeling so good something healthy and wholesome was called for. Fitting the bill in this instance was a warm salad of saffron infused cauliflower, garlic and chili broccoli, grilled peppers all mixed up with some organic rocket leaves, a handful of coriander and topped with some toasted pumpkin seeds. That’s better.
The cauliflower is just blanched for about 3 mins, then loosely drained and cooked off with a little oil saffron, and a sprinkle of sugar for another 5 mins or until all the remaining liquid has gone and the florets have gained some colour. The broccoli is blanched for just 1 min and then finished off in a wok with some garlic and chili. The leaves are lightly coated in a thin french dressing that's been seasoned with a tea spoon of tahini.
Started off with a little fruit salad – figs, greengages, red grapes, segmented orange, pear.
Followed with mushroom, poached egg, bacon and roasted cherry tomatoes on toast. The bacon's cooked in the oven flattened and weighted down between 2 baking sheets which keeps it totally flat while it cooks also makes the fat and rind crispy but strangely soft at the same time. Use a decent bacon – preferably a dry cure or you’ll just end up with puddles of water and flabby fat. The poached eggs are cracked into little ramekins lined with squares of cligfilm. Twist up the edges and cook in the little bags in boiling water for a 3 mins then drop into iced water. Drop back into boiling water for a min before serving. This is a really easy way of cooking poached eggs – especially if you have a few to cook to be ready at the same time and if you don’t want to be messing around cooking them and getting the timing right at the last minute. They just pop out of the cling film at the end. The mushrooms are just done in the oven with melted butter, garlic and parsley brushed into the gills before hand.. The green on top of the eggs is matcha tea salt.
What better way to finish off brunch than with a clafoutis. The simplest thing to make. I swear by Julia Child's recipe for the batter. She also recommends cooking a thin layer of the batter in an oven and hob proof pan first and then adding the fruit, sugar followed by the rest of the batter before putting in the oven. This creates a barrier between the base of the cooking dish and the fruit. Best served cooled a little rather than straight out the oven. The one in the photo here is an apricot clafoutis with sugared almonds and lavender infused cream.
The sweetness of the crab and the peas are a great match.
The knack to good crab cakes is to keep the potato to a minimum. Restaurants always seem to overdo the potato to stretch out the crab. Pointless. I came across a big batch of fresh peas on special offer but frozen peas are a pretty good substitute.
So for the crab cakes it’s potatoes, boiled and put through a ricer, a little chili, spring onion and garlic fried and all mixed together with the fresh crab and little parsley, lemon and seasoning. Shape in to small flat rounds and fry in hot butter. The peas are just boiled and then liquidized with some stock and spring onions softened in a little oil. For serving this I fried a few pieces of bacon to sit in the soup. The flower on top is a bit unnecessary but figured I needed to to do something with my nasturtiums.
A quick and simple supper of broad beans and green beans boiled, drained tossed in some fried bacon bits served up with, roast tomatoes and ricotta cheese.
You don't need much more than that.
This was really tasty and quick. A light creamy coconut, zingy broth, just a touch of heat, lots of freshness coming through the greens, a bit of meatiness from the mushrooms and as much stodge as you want from the noodles. A splash of sesame oil and the deep fried slices of banana add depth and texture.
It wasn't designed or consumed with a hangover in mind but thinking about it now this would be excellent hangover food - salty, savoury sweet and stodge but with an uplifting freshness from the ginger, scallions, spinach and lime - enough to trick your mind into a healthy revival.
I know its tempting to leave out the bananas - but it just wont be the same - don't do it.
Get a pan good and hot, add a good slug of vegetable oil and fry ginger garlic, lemongrass, scallions and chili, followed shortly after by sliced mushrooms. When the mushrooms have wilted and crisped a little add a splash of nam pla, a couple of lime leaves with coconut block and some water or stock, Bring up to the boil and let simmer for 5 mins.
Meanwhile put noodles on to boil and deep fry some slices of banana – making sure to get the oil hot enough first. When the noodles are done, drain and toss in toasted sesame oil.
Taste the broth add a little sugar and some more nam pla or chili if necessary. Throw in spinach leaves, stir round and put lid on. Leave on heat for about one more min then stir through some lime juice, put the lid back on and let sit for a couple of mins.
To serve, pile noodles in a bowl, top with spinach, mushrooms and the broth and top with banana slices.
We may not have had much of a summer but at least we can have summer puddings. And for an extra special occasion you'll need two.
Remove the crusts from a loaf of white bread and cut thickish slices to line a deep glass dish.
Warm through blackcurrants and red currants with sugar till they just start to bleed, remove from heat and stir through chopped strawberries and raspberries. If there's not much juice make a little sugar syrup and stir through to taste but make sure it stays sharp.
Fill the bread lined bowl, reserving some juice, top with a final layer of bread and spoon over the rest of the juice. You need to compress the whole thing and leave in the fridge overnight for the juices to soak right through and saturate the bread. Use a plate or anything you can find the right size and use a really heavy weight – rocks or bricks wrapped in clingfilm can be useful.
Before turning out just loosen with a knife round the edges. Once out it should slice well so long as its been well compressed. It a good idea to check it a few hours before turning out to see if there's any white of the bread still showing (which is why a glass bowl is preferable. If necessary just make up a little more syrup and whiz with some berries. Use a palette knife to lift up the side and pour in a bit of the extra juice to cover up the white patches then put back in the fridge till you need it.
This ones served with softly whipped sweetened cream infused with a little lavender and folded into mascapone.
More salad. Black pudding, wilted spinach, broad beans, croutons, poached egg, apple balsamic vinegar.
The black pudding is Jane Russell’s fresh blood back pudding. She must be one of a very few in the country to be producing fresh blood puddings.See www.straightsausages.com for a list of markets and venues where you can pick up her products.
Pablo Picante's has a great selection of Mexican wrestling masks in its tiny space on Baggot St which is fitting given the grappling, sweating and manhandling required to consume a burrito from this fine establishment.
The web site tells us the real life story of lunch chef, wrestler and Homer Simpson look alike Pablo Picante and how he came to bring his tastyo burritos to Dublin…via California.!
The pork (Cali Carnitas) is pretty good and the smoky sauce is highly recommended – all bundled up with rice, beans, salsa and lime. These are mighty Big Daddy sized meals, in fact you rarely ever see a woman queueing up here.
Voted best burrito in Dublin in 2010 by entertainment.ie. Also at Clarendon Market. For more about the wrestling legend that is Pablo Picante. www.pablopicante.ie
Amuse bouche
Polenta, aubergine and smoked paprika, beetroot oil
Broad bean, feta, mint on pear
Courgette cannelloni, butternut squash flower
I love making up little amuse bouche although they can be hard work - these 3 little mouthfuls probably took more time to prepare than any other of the items on the menu. Using the rigatoni tube as a mini cannelloni is a handy trick. Great for crab. The version here stuffed with courgette was finished off with the last minute idea of adding the courgette flower – inspired if truth be told by the pured butternut squash I’d just defrosted to feed the baby.
Starter
Clear tomato water, mozzarella panna cotta, basil sorbet
This is one of my own inventions; it's a kind of take on a caprese salad. Part of me wonders if I'd actually prefer to eat a real caprese salad with sun warmed Sicilian tomatoes and great mozzarella but for a dinner party when you're trying to impress you can't be serving people simple food like that, can you?
The panna cotta here is made out of the milky water you get in the bag with your mozzarella ball, combined with some reduced cream. I tried this previously (photo) and on that occasion I actually liquidized some mozzarella in with the water and cream, however, when it set it was grainy and had the texture of ricotta. By just using the mozzarella liquid and cream you still get the real panna cotta texture and you still get a real taste of the mozzarella.
The tomato water or tomato consommé as I've also heard it called is just a lot of tomatoes liquidized and then put in a double layered muslin bag to drip through. Whatever you do don’t squeeze it otherwiseyou'll end up with a red liquid rather than a clear liquid. For additional flavor I add green tomatovines to the water and allow them to steep for a few hours before serving. There's great smell and flavor out of the vines but it gets lost in cooking so it's great for something like this.
John dory, saffron potatoes, samphire, orange butter sauce
The John Dory and orange sauce is taken from Simon Hopkinson's book ‘Week in Week out’. The idea of the saffron potatoes and samphire was nabbed from Ottolenghi. Combining them as a single dish worked pretty well. This is definitely something I will serve again, looks fantastic and has great flavor combinations with the salty samphire and the sharp orange sauce. I remember an old Masterchef episode where Jean Michelle Roux Jr berated some poor guy for having potato and orange on the same plate - but it works for definite here.A full single fillet per person would be ideal here normally but with there being a few courses this time I was trying to keep the portions small, so it's half a fillet each which is difficult to do with a John Dory.It's pretty difficult to cut fish neatly after it's cooked but it's also far better to cook John Dory on the bone. So I opted to cut through the flesh before hand to portion it up but leave it actually on the bone for cooking.Once it's cooked the flesh comes away from the skin and bones very easily.
Refresher
Cucumber granita, pink grapefruit
I actually stole this from Dylan McGrath. He serves something like this with olives. He does a very nice portion of olives but it’s a bit mean that you only get 2 olives (maybe it’s 3 - but even so). I'm not sure if Dylan does it this way but it’s a cucumber juiced (not liquidized) with some sugar syrup made into a granita. Different from a sorbet in that for a granita you want large ice crystals rather than the smooth texture you get from a sorbet. You get this by allowing it to freeze in a shallow container and then periodically scraping away the crystals that form at the edges of the dish. Just scrape – don’t mash.
Meat
Lamb cutlet baked in lavender, braised lettuce, pea pure, swede, red wine reduction
I had originally planned to bake the lamb in hay, but a detour through the Wicklow Mountains didn't yield results (in a search for hay) so I ended up just baking it in a pot with some lavender. For future reference – city dwellers can purchase large bundles of hay from pet stores – even the pet section of Tescos. We should all really eat much more braised lettuce.
Desert
Vinegar parfait, champagne strawberry jelly, strawberries with black pepper
I was really impressed when I came across a vinegar ice cream a few years ago in a restaurant – the Bridge at Wilton in Ross-on-Wye (also had an excellent hops soufflé there) and was determined to have a stab at it myself. This is actually a parfait rather than an ice cream. With a parfait you don’t churn as you freeze as you do with an ice cream. It does require heating sugar syrup and eggs and then more than 10 minutes of whisking with an electric beater. The aerated result is much more stable and thicker than the standard custard you might use for an ice cream and is therefore much better at holding certain liquids that might split in a custard. It will also incorporate high levels of alcohol and yet still freeze, which a normal churned custard ice-cream won't. For all the real science behind ice crystals and eggs and fat and proteins and the likes best consult the bible on these things Harold Magee's – On food and Cooking – a reference book that will serve your kitchen well for life -well worth getting.
The vinegar ice cream I originally tasted used a malt vinegar. The first time I attempted this I tried balsamic vinegar given its affinity to strawberries but discovered that actually it was far too subtle. You need something much more astringent. In this instance I actually used the rather good Llewellyn`s Irish Balsamic Cider Vinegar. It actually takes a surprising amount of vinegar to add the required flavor and bite to this.
The basic parfait recipe is taken from the excellent Ices – just keep adding your vinegar at the end till it tastes right - bearing in mind that cold dulls flavor. The strawberry champagne jelly is from Gordon Ramsay's book Just Deserts.
You cant go wrong with pizza. And you cant do much better than using pizza bases from artisan pizza co. I know things are supposed be better if they're home made but until I build my own authentic wood burning pizza oven in the garden I'm gona be quite happy to keep using these. They’re thin, give a great crisp finish and cook in no time. I eat these at least once every other week.
The crucial thing to remember is to get the oven preheated to as hot as it will go. For the topping I just liquidize tomatoes garlic, a pinch of chili and some thyme. Spread a thin layer over the base and top with a few tasty bits – anchovies, red onion, olives., a couple of slices of buffalo mozzarella. Just don’t overload it. Brush the edge with oil, into the oven and they’re done in a matter of minutes.
One tip - there's a knack to getting these pizza in the oven - they go straight on to the shelf – but make sure it sits evenly spread on the shelf with as little overhang as possible. If you have much more than an inch hanging over the edge not supported by part of the shelf then it will wilt before it crisps up and anything on that strip of the pizza will slide off on to your oven base. Given your oven will be at 250degreeC+ its gona bake on pretty hard.
If you want a more authentic cooking method then Heston Blumenthal has a great suggestion for how to replicate in your own kitchen the 450degreeC+ temperatures that you might expect from a real pizza oven. He suggests putting the grill and hob on full blast, and leaving a wide based Le Creuset type pan on the hob for at least 20 mins. Then turn it over and place it under the grill and slide the pizza in to cook on top of the upturned pan. Although you have to wait 20 minutes for your pan to heat up, your pizza will then cook in all of one minute.
