Since 1962 on Achill Island, the Calvey family has reared their mountain lamb on the wild Mayo coast producing meat of exquisite taste, sweetened by heather and seasoned by seaweed and salty air…
Continue reading “Adventures with Achill Mountain Lamb”Hard Milkshakes
These milkshakes are strictly for adults only. If, like me, you loved the Cocktail at Home craze of this Covid Year, you’ll adore Hard Milkshakes. Just don’t let the kids near them…
A few years ago, I found myself in London by myself for one night. I was going to be spending a couple of days there with my Dad, but he wasn’t due to arrive up on the train until the following day. I was in a part of London I wasn’t very familiar with, it was winter, very dark, cold and wet. I needed entertainment, but I didn’t want to stray too far.
I opened up Google Maps to see what I could find. I saw some quite wonderful reviews for a two-screen cinema just a short walk from the hotel that seemed to be my idea of heaven: a great little movie theatre doing rave burgers (by all accounts), and with an interior that looked as though the entire place was licked in soft velvet in tones of mustard yellow, scarlet red and teal.
I grabbed my handbag and went out into the night. While I waited for the movie to start (I think it was Hamburger Hill – I do love a war movie), I ordered the burger with indecent amounts of blue cheese and French fries. At the bottom of the menu, I spied something called “Hard Milkshakes”… Obviously, I ordered one, and then ordered another one to take into the screen with me. Needless to say, I don’t remember much about the movie, except there was a line that could have won Cringiest Movie Line Ever and that the main actor did a lot of rope pulling and had very sore hands by the end of it.
The Hard Milkshake however…well, that has stayed with me ever since; and seeing as this Christmas is all about throwing out the rule book, I figured why stay tame with dainty little cocktails when you can unleash your inner punk and go all out brassy with a hard milkshake – or three…
I have two tips for this: Firstly, just stick with vanilla ice cream. You wanna taste the booze, so confusing the whole thing with fancy flavoured ice cream will cool the mood significantly. Secondly, use whatever booze you like – I mean you could even use stout if you wanted, and it would be rather festive! I like dark rum (especially a spiced dark rum), vodka, cherry brandy or something like a port cask aged whiskey.
Are you gasping? What am I at? Taking a beautifully crafted cask aged whiskey and firing it into a Milkshake? Yes, yes I have told you to do that. Now shut up and make one, and then you can come back and apologise to me properly.
Ingredients
- Large handful of ice cubes
- 150ml good quality vanilla ice cream (softened)
- 60ml whole milk
- 50ml of booze
- Whipped Cream and garnishes (thick chocolate, cherries, crumbled cookie pieces etc – frankly, the trashier looking the better!)
Method
Combine everything except the whipped cream and garnishes in a blender and blitz on a high speed until smooth.
Decant into a glass vessel of some kind (you could go completely rouge an pop it an old jam jar for instance), top with whipped cream and garnishes, land in a paper straw and flounce about the place drinking your Hard Milkshake completely in love with Christmas!
Tidings of Joy! It’s the 2017 Flavour.ie FREE Christmas eBOOK!
We have been putting together for you a Christmas eBook for the last 3 years’ but this years is a little different!
Click here to access 2016 and 2015 editions…
Instead of me bombarding you with recipes for new ways with Brussel Sprouts, I have decided to focus on things we can Slurp & Sip all winter long!
So feel free and welcome to download the 2017 Edition of the Flavour.ie Christmas eBook and access 12 original Flavour.ie recipes for Seasonal Soups and Warming Cocktails! Get everything you need to stay warm and rosey cheeked this winter, and download the eBook NOW!
What are you waiting for? It’s FREE, DELICIOUS and will take no time at all to download!
Try them out and let us know what you think!
CHEERS – Wishing you all a Very Merry Christmas!
Potato, Leek and Smoked Salmon Baked Galette
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.
Continue reading “Potato, Leek and Smoked Salmon Baked Galette”
Black Forest Gateaux
This recipe is part of my “Tea with Granny” blog post on my Flavour Favourites blog. I’d love it if you could give that post a read as well please – thank you!
Sage Butter Roasted Pheasant, Duchess Potatoes and Cranberry and Blood Orange Sauce
This recipe is part of my “Tea with Granny” blog post on my Flavour Favourites blog. I’d love it if you could give that post a read as well please – thank you!
Pea and Ham Hock Puree with Seared Scallops
This recipe is part of my “Tea with Granny” blog post on my Flavour Favourites blog. I’d love it if you could give that post a read as well please – thank you!
Continue reading “Pea and Ham Hock Puree with Seared Scallops”
Warm Salad of Pear, Walnuts and Molasses Cured Baltimore Pig Bacon, Mustard Leaves and a Savoury Dark Chocolate, Rosemary and Sea Salt Sauce
I have been asked to submit a couple of sweet/savoury tapas for an upcoming event where Clonakilty Chocolate will be launching their new bean-to-bar chocolate range (5th March…get your tickets here!). Following on from the success of my Savoury Cooking with Chocolate Supper Club in February I was feeling very much up to the challenge! Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be adding a few more sweet/savoury chocolate recipes to the blog just to finish off the Chocolate Season on Flavour.ie in style!
Cha Cha Cha Chilli
Who doesn’t love a bit of chilli? Beef chilli, bean chilli, veg chilli – I just can’t resist the warm hug of chilli. Something so simple that packs a whack of flavour is always a sure fire hit with me, and, like a curry, gets better the second day too which makes for awesome left overs and gives you extra bang for your cooking buck!
Christmas Feasting Inspiration from Flavour HQ!
I can almost hear the sleigh bells ringing at this stage! The kids have broken up from school; many many mistakes have been made I am sure following on from the invasion of the annual office party into every city, town and village and people are starting to lose their temper at the supermarket as everyone rushes out to get the things that they only buy once a year. Christmas mania is here; but not at Flavour HQ where we are the kind of calm and collected you only find where all overseas presents and cards have finally been posted; the meat for feasting has been ordererd weeks ago, and your veggies will be collected directly from the farm pre-ordered and pulled a mere two days before Christmas! The rest is just sweets, booze and cooking – simple!
Christmas dinner is the one thing I cannot help but plan literally months in advance! It’s my all time favourite meal of the year and everytime its my turn to host I like to try and do something a little different to keep it special and surprising for those that we dine with! Three days of feasting that I literally cannot wait for! Everyone has their own take on the perfect Christmas dinner, and for fear of me trying to teach anyone to suck eggs I thought I would share with you our Christmas feasting plans here at Flavour HQ more in case for anyone who maybe stuck for some ideas for one or more of their courses or meals over Christmas! There are no recipes written here yet, but if anyone would like me to send one or more of the recipes directly then just contact me at flavour@allsorts.net or via Facebook or Twitter and I will happily oblige!
Christmas Eve
Medium bodied red wine mulled with clementime, lemon, cinnamon and cloves finished with Cointreau and Brandy for an extra indulgent touch!
Festive Ham cooked in sweet fruit juices and spices for about 3 hours and then finished off in the oven studded with cloves and with a glaze made from homemade cranberry sauce, mustard powder and honey so it goes extra sticky and lovely! I’ll be serving this up with some fresh homemade soda bread (our recipe is here), baby potato and scallion salad, homemade carrot and fennel slaw, pickles and a leaf salad.
Desert is inspired by my recent trip to Belfast and a french patissiere in the Christmas market there: puff pastry tartlets, topped with thinly sliced caramelised applies and served up with a salted caramel sauce and ice cream.
Christmas Day
Starting off the Christmas Day feast with an all traditional snowball (in memory of my Grandad who made a mean one) served in crystal glasses with a dressed rim of lime juice and icing suagr.
Starter: Choice of rustic wild West Cork rabbit terrine or a smooth chicken liver pate served with homemade red onion chutney, crostini, pickles and dressed winter salad leaves.
Mains: Slow roasted haunch of wild West Cork venison (marinaded overnight in port, red wine, garlic, rosemary, juniper berries, all spice berries and whole black and pink peppercorns) served up with braised red cabbage, duck fat roast potatoes, maple glazed carrots and parsnips, brussels sprouts with pancetta, garlic and chestnuts and served with a red wine and meadowsweet jus, homemade cranberry sauce and homemade horseradish sauce.
Desert: Winter Berry Trifle (blueberries, redcurrants and cranberry sauce), atop cointreau saoked ladies fingers and set in an orange and brandy jelly, topped with thick vanilla custard, whipped cream and white and dark chocolate shards.
St Stephens’ Day / Boxing Day (Ireland and UK covered there!)
MJ O’Neill’s special recipe spiced beef served with colcannon and plain mash, peas, carrots, portabello mushrooms, mustard and gravy.
I hope this helps to provide some inspiration for your Christmas feasts this year, or maybe for 2015 which, as we all know, won’t be long in coming around again – I already can’t wait!
Wishing all my supporters, friends, family and well wishers all the very best for a happy, healthy and peaceful Christmastime and with all good wishes for a great 2015!
Lots of of Love and a very Merry Christmas – Flavour.ie xxxx
Shepherd’s Pie with Celeriac Mash
It’s just turned the 1st of December, and nature has acknowledged this fact by making it cold and damp. Great. The heating is now on and the deflating of the chimney balloon so we can light the first fire of the season cannot be too far away now. And thus, thoughts turn towards seasonal comfort food the likes of which we haven’t seen since the last winter finally buggered off to make way for the spring to push through. And for me, this time of year always fills me with nostalgia for dinner around the table in the family home in Bristol when I was a child.
Wild Venison Pie
It’s here! It’s here! Finally, it’s game season! What a treat this food season is. Getting your hands on good quality wild game meats is not the easiest thing in the world to do, but to persevere is to be rewarded with food fit for a King!