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Clonakilty – Ireland’s Premier Foodie Town

Posted on February 21, 2017April 16, 2020 by flavourie

The beautiful and welcoming seaside town of Clonakilty has a reputation for firsts. The first Fair Trade town in Ireland; Ireland’s first EDEN destination of excellence; the first Cittaslow town in Ireland for celebrating the multiple benefits of slow living and slow food and recently voted the Greatest Town in Europe at the AOU Awards in London.

Now, the multi-award winning town on the south west coast of Irelands’ Wild Atlantic Way is holding claim to being the hidden gem in Ireland’s foodie crown; and a collaborative project of the towns’ best food and creative people have produced an inspiring short film about its top class foodie credentials to prove it.

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Review: Irish Peat Wine

Posted on February 21, 2017April 16, 2020 by flavourie

BT Wines of West Limerick have developed the world’s first Irish Peat Wine. A unique and innovative wine – and intriguing…

Brendan and Trisha, the lifelong friends from West Limerick with a passion for good food and wine, have spent the past few years developing their product – Irish Peat Wine. It’s a first in every possible way. Together as BT Wines, they have created a beautiful wine that blends their creativity, ingenuity and enthusiasm into every last drop.

Brendan and Trisha source their Pinot Noir grapes from small vineyards in the Rheinhessen and Pfalz regions of Germany’s famous Rhein valley, carefully selected to ensure the marriage of vine and peat is perfectly matched. Maturation of the wine, developed by Brendan and Trisha over many years, happens through their application of a truly innovative process using peat sourced from the boglands of West Limerick. Similar to the process of Oaking, this allows the wine to settle and develop its complex palate and richly deep ruby red colour.

This wine is full of surprises. It will also leave you speechless for a while; make you smile, maybe produce an involuntary chuckle of delight. But mainly it will leave you in awe.

It has the most inviting deep ruby colour that is as clear and glassy at the precious stone itself. Upon the nose, there is the comforting smell of peat but almost as a half remembered dream. It stirs the memory and comforts – recreating feelings of sitting beside a turf fire with people of good humour, or alone in contemplation. Upon the palate, it has superb structure providing a front mouth, mid-mouth and finishing flavours that change perceptively. It is rich and rounded from the peat, yet retaining its lightness – characteristic of classic pinot noirs. The final surprise is its warming finish. Akin to the welcoming warmth of an imbibed whiskey, but in a wine that is perfectly balanced with little hint of aggressive tannin. It simply is a delight to experience this wine, and to appreciate it for the dedication to the craft of small batch wine making. The addition of the Irish Peat is a clever, ingenius addition that is far, far removed from a gimick and shows an understanding of wine making, wine appreciation and a celebration of place that is to be applauded and supported with fervour.

As Brendan Reddin says: “It is our passion for wine and our love of home that inspired us to develop Irish Peat Wine”

This is a complex wine that needs to be tasted to be truly appreciated…

For more information, and to find their current list of stockists, visit their website at www.btwines.ie

screen-shot-2017-02-06-at-10-46-12 — Trisha meets Ryan on the Late Late Show 3rd Feb

Ultimate Potato and Leek Soup

Posted on February 11, 2017April 16, 2020 by flavourie

For those who are regular visitors to my recipe blog, you’ll know that I have a soft spot for soup! To some people, soup is boring – something that comes out of a can and the last vestige of the time pressed. But to me, soup is the Ultimate Bowl Food delivering on all levels: comfort, taste, flavour, nutrition, ease.

I couldn’t tell you the last time I bought soup. Instead, I bulk make soups and chill down or freeze. Yes, there is a little bit of prep and cooking, but a lot less than say cooking a roast dinner. It’s a great way to warm you up; use up vegetables or bit of meat and bones and from such humble ingredients comes the most delicious things to eat.

Setting aside modesty for a moment, I believe that my version of Potato and Leek soup is the best one you’ll taste. I really can’t recommend enough that you make this. It also makes the perfect base soup for a proper bowl of chowder if thinned out a little and some fresh fish added to it. Not a carrot to be seen, and easy on the cream. You’re welcome…

Ingredients (serves 4 as a soup or 6 thinned out more if using for base of a chowder):

Knob of butter
1tsp of olive oil
50g smoked bacon lardons (I use Gubbeen here, but Baltimore Pig is also good)
3 small or 1 large leek cleaned, trimmed and sliced into thin rounds
250g potatoes, peeled and cut into apx 3cm cubed pieces
500ml of vegetable stock (if using a cube/gel only use half in 500ml of water)
250ml hot water
25g flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Over a medium heat, slowly heat the oil and butter together.
Add the bacon lardon and fry gently until starting to colour but not too dark (this will ruin the final colour of the soup
Add the leeks, stir through and cook until softened.
Add the chopped potatoes. Stir and cover with the bacon and leek mix. Cook for a minute or two, then add the stock.
Cover, turn down the heat and cook until the potatoes are softened and cooked through but not falling apart. Add a little more of the hot water if needed.
Add everything to a blender, blend until smooth. If too thick add the remaining hot water a little at a time until the required consistency is gained.
Return to the pan and heat through. At this stage taste and season with salt and pepper to taste. You can also add more water to thin out further especially if you are turning the soup into the base of your chowder.
Spoon into bowls and garnish with a drizzle of cream, some fried crispy lardons, a couple of fried potato slices and a leaf of parsley. Finish with a final grind of black pepper and serve up immediately with some crusty bread and butter.

And…Enjoy!

Flavour.ie Christmas Food 2016 eBook

Posted on December 22, 2016April 16, 2020 by flavourie

I hope I didn’t leave you waiting too long? Maybe you’re all set for the big day and you don’t need these for this year (2017 maybe?), or maybe you haven’t a notion and this is just the thing you are looking for! Either way, I’m sorry to have kept you waiting!

Without further ado, please find the 2016 edition of the Flavour.ie Christmas Food eBook – free of charge! These are all the recipes I have had published in The Southern Star and The Evening Echo this year, and am really happy to be able to reshare them with you in this handy little eBook – just for you!

flavour-ie-free-christmas-ebook_dec2016

(p.s. please note the file is quite large so might take a few minutes to download depending on your broadband speed – thanks!)

ENJOY and a very Merry Christmas to you all! Here’s to another amazing year of Flavour in 2017!

Kate xxx

Potato, Leek and Smoked Salmon Baked Galette

Posted on December 6, 2016April 16, 2020 by flavourie

A few days before I made this recipe, I had a little rant via Facebook Livestream on the vagaries of food labelling and packaging. It was a very successful broadcast which garnered a lot of interaction and reach – which was great because it’s a topic I feel very strongly about and raising awareness is crucial.

I had chosen to “pick on” smoked salmon, greek yoghurt and butter. I had purchased quite a bit of these in order to be able to demonstrate my points. Ergo, I had a lot left over and because I am anti-food waste, I needed to find a way to make use of it.

A quick sconce through the fridge and cupboards to see what I had to hand, and voila, off I was making this super tasty dish. There’s not too much prep in this – mainly the potatoes and making the white sauce, but really these things are not taxing and can be completed in the time it takes for your oven to come up to heat so it’s efficient with your time too!

The trick is to not get to over zealous with the amount of smoked salmon here. Stick to the amount suggested below and you will achieve the perfect balance of flavour.

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Caitlin Ruth’s Baked Squash

Posted on November 23, 2016April 16, 2020 by flavourie

A couple of weeks’ ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing Caitlin Ruth, head chef of Deasy’s Harbour Bar and Restaurant for our local radio station, Clonline Radio (listen to the interview here). This was the second time I had the chance to interview Caitlin, and as before it was a lot of fun – more like having a chat, only that the wine was missing!

During our interview, Caitlin mentioned a recipe she made for a vegetarian friend who came for Christmas Dinner one year. A whole baked squashed, stuffed with loads of yummy things, served up whole and sliced at the table. I immediately fell in love with the notion of the humble squash being given as glorious a treatment at the turkey itself.

When I asked for the recipe, I didn’t think Caitlin would actually say yes, but she did. True to her word, a few days later arrived pictures and the full recipe of how to make her Baked Squash. I’m sharing this recipe with you as I feel now is about the time that there are people out there starting to have a melt down about what to make their vegetarian dinner guest on Christmas Day that isn’t a totally predictable nut roast. Well, thanks to Caitlin you no longer have to worry – we’ve got you covered!

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Lobster Mac n Cheese

Posted on October 13, 2016April 16, 2020 by flavourie

I couldn’t tell you how long I had waited and wanted to make this recipe.

Mac n Cheese has seen a boom in popularity that, based on absolutely no fact-based proof at all, feels to me to be a result of the explosion of popularity of BBQ restaurants in Ireland. It’s not the BBQ restaurants themselves, per se, but rather our new found love of American Cuisine. I have long had my suspicions that American Food is not all Taco Bell and Wendy’s. Since my first visit to the US in 2008, and two other trips subsequent, my suspicions that American food is one of the worlds most misunderstood cuisines have become a reality.

Although Mac n Cheese is English in origin (and classed as a casserole, baked as it is in the oven), but become imbedded in American food culture by former American President Thomas Jefferson in the 18th Century. It is probably now the most beloved of all American “comfort foods” and is subjected to many variations depending on where you live.

I grew up eating Macaroni Cheese. But not the American Style. I wrote a blog post about this a couple of years ago, along with the recipe for “My Mum’s ‘Not Very Macaroni Cheese’ Macaroni Cheese” – I highly recommend you make this recipe by the way. Thankfully, it seems my Mum was way ahead of the curve in elevating the traditional “macaroni pasta and cheese sauce” to something more desirable and downright classy. This dishes’ resurgence on restaurant and bistro menu’s has provided the perfect (read : bland) canvas for chefs to become more experimental with this side dish and make it exciting once again.

This recipe has been a long time in the making. Between spending time understanding American food and how they get layer upon layer of flavour going into their dishes; reading and tasting I’m feeling pretty confident that this is not only the BEST Mac n Cheese recipe in the world (sorry Mum), but also the only one you’ll want to make time again.

Yes, it contains lobster, but, unless you’ve not been paying close attention, the price of lobster has plummeted in the past couple of years reducing lobster status as only for the well-lined of pocket, and more accessible to Joe Soaps like you and me. Pairing this with sweetcorn is basically the only vegetable you need here. The secret to this is in the cheese sauce. Surprisingly though, this isn’t a dish that will take you hours to prepare – especially if you buy a ready-cooked lobster. Take your time bashing the shell for two reasons: 1: you’ll want to keep the head and legs intact; 2: it works better texturally if the body and the claws can come out whole.

Have fun, and trust me…you will ENJOY this one!

Ingredients:

1 whole cooked lobster
1 white onion sliced
pinch of whole black pepper corns
2 fresh bay leaves
small bunch of fresh thyme
smoked sea salt
1 tbsp salted butter
500ml best quality full fat milk (I suggest the beautiful Gloun Cross Dairy milk from Dunmanway, West Cork)
75g of strong cheddar, grated. I recommend Collea Cheese (50g for the sauce; 25g on top before grilling)
1 ball of fresh mozzarella, I recommend Macroom Mozzarella Company
Smoked paprika
Zest of 1 lemon; juice of 1/2 a lemon
Handful of fresh coriander, finely chopped
1 whole fresh sweetcorn on the cob
250g dried macaroni pasta
1 tblsp of anchovy butter (bought or home made)

Method:

Firmly but gently break open the cooked lobster. Take out the tail and the claws whole. Set aside the head and legs (shell on)
Slice the white onion and add these to a heavy bottom medium sized pan. Add the black peppercorns, 2 fresh bay leaves, sprigs of thyme, smoked sea salt, the lobster head and legs and the milk. Poach everything very gently for about 10-15 mins. Watch it carefully to avoid boil over or burn.
Strain the liquid into a bowl and discard the poaching ingredients.
Put on a large pot of well salted water to boil.
Stand the sweetcorn on a chopping board. Slice the sweetcorn off of the cob by using your knife to slice lengthways down the cob.
When the water is boiling, add the macaroni pasta to it. After 5 mins add the sweetcorn kernels.
In a small, heavy bottomed pan, add 1 tbsp of salted butter and allow to slowly melt. Add in a heaped tbsp. of plain flour. Cook the flour off in the butter using a wooden spoon and stirring constantly. Slowly start to add in the infused milk and stir with a mini hand whisk to ensure that all lumps are worked out. Leave to cook and thicken a little, stirring every now and again with a wooden spoon.
Drain the macaroni and sweetcorn and set aside.
Add 50g of the grated medium strong hard cheese and add this to the milk. Stir to melt and thicken further. Check for seasoning and adjust.
Add in 2 tsp of smoked paprika, grate in the zest of a lemon and the juice of half a lemon. Add in most of the chopped coriander. Stir to combine and to thicken so it coats the back of the spoon very well indeed.
Chop up the lobster tail into small bite-sized chunks. Not too small that the chunks of lobster will be lost in the dish, but then not too large that the pieces are then few and far between! Set aside.
Place the drained pasta and sweetcorn back in the saucepan. Pour over the cheese sauce, then add in the chopped lobster. Stir to combine and then place in a deep, oven proof dish.
Scatter the other 25g of grated cheese over the top and dot half a ball of mozzarella around the top. Scatter another small amount of paprika over the top. Place under a re ally hot grill until the cheese had melted and browned.
Meanwhile, gentle rinse the lobster claws and drain on some kitchen towel.
Melt some anchovy butter in a pan and gently add the dry lobster claws. Slowly and gently warm the claws through in the butter, basting as you go.
Take the Mac n Cheese out from under the grill, and finish off with a final twist of black pepper, and scatter the remaining coriander. Place the two warmed through lobster claws on top.
Serve with a slice of lemon and some fresh crusty bread. Eat immediately, and try to stop yourself from going back for seconds!

ENJOY!

Low’n’Slow, Night’n’Day, Rain’n’Wind

Posted on August 28, 2016July 2, 2020 by flavourie

It was exactly a week ago today that I was starting to experience a noticeable increase of the amount of butterflies in my tummy as I busied myself pulling together the final few bits and pieces before heading to the Celtic Ross Hotel to meet with Ireland’s finest Smoke & Fire chef: John Relihan and Decky Walsh, his head chef of Holy Smoke restaurant.

And as I sit here writing this, the sky awash with blue and a punch of late summer heat, I recall that a good proportion of those butterflies were down to the horrific weather that was unfolding before my very eyes last Sunday. Despite some promising signs that the wind and rain would abate come 3pm on Sunday, in the end the weather decided to throw the whole lot at me and give me a mini-hurricane instead. Thanks for that.

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Hake, Turmeric and Coconut Curry

Posted on July 21, 2016April 16, 2020 by flavourie

If you’ve been keeping a beady eye on the latest fresh food trends, you may notice that fresh turmeric root is starting to become more available. Most of us have grown up with turmeric as that deep yellow powder with an earthy aroma and an ability to stain anything it touches, forever! We all know that there is no substitute for fresh spices, and fresh root turmeric is no different!

It looks like a scrawnier version of ginger, with a darker skin and a bright orange interior. It smells amazing, and has even more power to stain your clothes, so take precautions and wear an apron!

This curry then make the most of my new found access to this wonderful fresh root and matches it with a beautifully fresh fillet of locally caught and landed West Cork Hake. Although this is a well-flavoured curry, it’s mild and aromatic not masking the flavour of the fish. Poaching the hake in the curry sauce also means that the flavour gently infuses and protects ensuring your fish is perfectly soft and flakey!

Ingredients (makes enough curry sauce for 4 portions):

1 piece of Hake per person (apx 250g per portion) boned and skin off
1 tsp Fenugreek seeds
1 tsp dry curry leaves
½ tsp black peppercorns
1 ½ tsp coriander seed
6 banana shallots, finely chopped
1 red chilli
5cm piece of fresh turmeric
1 clove of garlic
Thumb-sized piece of ginger
4 fresh tomatoes
1 tbsp of coconut oil
1 x 400g can of coconut milk (full fat)
1 tbsp of ground almonds
Handful of fresh coriander, finely chopped
Sea salt
Drizzle of chilli oil
Toasted flaked almonds
Jasmine rice to serve

Method:

Cook the jasmine rice: 1 cup of rice per person to 1 ½ cups of water. Add salt, cover and cook until all the water is absorbed and the rice is soft. Add more water if needs be.
While the rice is cooking, take the fenugreek and coriander seeds and black peppercorns and toast gently in a dry pan for just enough time for the oils to activate, but be careful not to burn them. Transfer to a pestle and mortar and crush as fine as you can.
In a small processor, place the shallots and blitz to a fine chop. Empty out into a bowl and set aside.
Place the red chilli, garlic, ginger, turmeric and fresh tomatoes in the processor and finely chopped together.
In a large heavy bottom pot on a low – medium heat, add the coconut oil and melt.
Add the chopped shallots and cook slowly until softened.
Add in the ground spices and crush in the curry leaves and combine with the shallots. Cook for a couple of minutes, careful not to burn.
Add in the tomato mix and stir to combine. Cook out for another couple of minutes.
Add the coconut milk and ground almonds. Taste for seasoning, add salt to taste. Stir to combine then add the hake.
Turn up the heat slightly, cover and leave the fish to poach gently in the curry sauce. This will take apx 10 – 15 mins depending on the thickness of the fish.
When the rice is cooked, mix through most of the fresh chopped coriander.
Plate up the rice, a portion of the hake and a generous amount of the curry sauce.
Garnish with the toasted flaked almonds, a light drizzle of chilli oil and a final scattering of fresh coriander.

And….Enjoy!

Lemon, Courgette and Hazelnut Risotto

Posted on July 21, 2016April 16, 2020 by flavourie

Put up your hand if you’re running out of ideas of what to do with your glut of courgettes? It’s late July, courgettes are everywhere. They have been everywhere since about early June, and there’s still August to get through. You are finding it hard to even give the little buggers away for free. You’ve grated, spiralised, baked, stuffed, fried and stacked them, but they just won’t go away.

Well, help is at hand! This recipe was borne out of a need to use up a few too many courgettes that I received in my fortnightly organic veg box. My fennel plant in the garden was (is) slowly turning into a gigantic triffid and I still had some fecking hazelnuts in the nut bowl from Christmas (note to self, buy less in-shell nuts next Christmas – doesn’t matter how much of a bargain they are!) From this ramshackle bunch of ingredients was this risotto recipe born. Even my husband who really isn’t a fan of courgettes wolfed this down scraping the very last remnants from his plate and asking if there was any more left. Now, I call that a successful dish…

You may note that there is an absence of white wine and cheese in this dish. Instead of white wine, I have chosen to use the lemon juice for the acid, and instead of parmesan and cream, I have opted for the lighter option of crème fraiche. If you couldn’t face your risotto without some parmesan atop, then by all means knock yourself out…I’m not precious about these things!

Ingredients (serves 2):

1/2 cup of risotto rice
3 banana shallots
Zest and juice of 1 large lemon
1 yellow chili
1 ltr of vegetable stock
2 courgettes (green/yellow), cut into 2cm pieces
Fresh fennel/dill herb
1 tbsp of crème fraiche
Handful of hazelnuts, shelled and roughly chopped
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Fennel pollen to garnish

Method:

Finely chopped the shallots (in a mini-chopper is best).
Add some olive oil to a frying pan over a medium heat. Add the shallots and gently fry until transparent. Do this slowly so as not to burn. Add the finely chopped chili.
Add the rice to the pan and stir until well coated. Add the courgettes.
Grate the zest of the lemon into the pan. After zesting, firmly roll the lemon then cut in half and extract all the juice directly into the pan. Stir everything together until the rice has absorbed the lemon juice.
Begin adding the stock slowly, about a ladle full at a time, stirring constantly until all the liquid has been soaked up by the rice before adding more. The more liquid you add, the longer it will take for the rice to soak up the liquid but don’t rush this part of the process.
Continue adding the liquid until about 750ml of stock is gone.
At this point, your risotto will be pretty much done. Add the finely chopped fennel herb, stir and check for seasoning. Add / adjust as you need to.
Check your rice. The risotto should not be too stodgy or too loose, and the rice should be cooked but retaining a little bite. If you would like your rice cooked a little softer, or your risotto a little looser, add the remaining stock so that the whole litre of it is used up.
When happy with the risotto’s consistency, stir through the crème fraiche and scatter most of the hazelnuts through. A final stir and you are ready to serve.
Garnish with the remaining hazelnuts, fennel pollen stems and a final twist of black pepper and you are ready to serve!

And….Enjoy!

Buttermilk Ice Cream

Posted on July 21, 2016April 16, 2020 by flavourie

It’s SUMMER! It might be a bit unpredictable and prone to extreme swings of temperature, but when in Ireland the only thing to do is to roll with it and pretend you’re on the Costa del Blah doing well on gas mark 7.

Summer equals ice cream. End of. I’ve never bothered to purchase an ice cream maker because in all my years of watching reality cookery programmes, when you positively absolutely must have them work they break down resulting in serving up a bowl of sweet, creamy soup. But, in recent years I have become determined to master the art of making no-churn ice cream that doesn’t taste like you’re eating a scoop of ice crystals. My successes have made it onto the blog (coconut ice cream, salted caramel ice cream), but failures caste into my cookery Room 101 never to be mentioned again.

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Miyazaki – Where Food Meets Art

Posted on June 7, 2016July 2, 2020 by flavourie

If there’s one downside to living in West Cork, it’s that I’m always last to the party when great places to eat in the City open up! Cork City may only be a 50 minute drive up the road, but when you’re laid back lifestyle in sleepy West Cork seems to never be that laid back, the City can feel as far away as Letterkenny!

Still, when I do get to go up, there is always plenty of time set aside to get to one of the eateries on my never end list of places to try out. For a very long time, Miyazaki has been right at the top of that list, ever since John McKenna couldn’t stop raving about it during his teaching day for the UCC Creative Food Writing Course I completed in September 2015!

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Clonakilty – Ireland’s Premier Foodie Town

Kate Ryan