Now I am not one for gadgets and gizmos. If you brought me along to one of those Toys 4 Big Boys gigs in The RDS, all I’d do is spend the whole day leering and letching at bikini clad wanna be Georgia Salpas all day. But I recently purchased a device that is called a Sm0king Gun and it has already brought me no end of joy.  It is a hand held, battery operated smoker that is exceptionally easy to use and imparts a shitload of flavour, very quickly.

As you can see from any of the youtube links, it works by placing a small amount of wood chips, herbs or teas into the bowl. You then turn on the gizmo and spark up whatever’s in the bowl. It then sucks out the smoke like a hoover and then another wee fan blows it out through the rubber pipe.  Last week I used it on some cocktails and for the last couple of days, I’ve been hitting some chicken with a bit of applewood smoke for jambalaya’s and some tea for more Asian fare.  There is no end to the amount of different edible items that can’t be livened up with some smoke. There is also no end to the amount of different ways you can fuck up something edible by oversmoking it, so it’s all trial and error. But if you’re anything like me, none of that type of experimenting is ever time wasted.

Anyhoop, throughout these various smoke tests, I enlisted the help of my eldest Diva. Because as we all know, the family that smokes together….Here she is with some ziplocked bag of chicken filled with applewood.

Here’s a quick shot of the Smoking Gun in action. As you can see, it has a bong like bowl. This was while I was smoking some Barry’s Tea into the chicken.

This is the final product. A nice stir fry. Recipe below. Get smoking!!

BARRY’S TEA SMOKED CHICKEN WITH STIR FRIED NOODLES AND VEG

INGREDIENTS:

2 Chicken fillets

1 Barry’s Teabag, cut and emptied out

3 handfuls of dried egg noodles

8 small sliced shallots

3 thumb sized pieces of ginger, cut up into matchsticks

4 cloves of garlic

4 large dried chillies, cut up into 1 inch pieces. Keep the seeds if you like heat.

6 baby corn, sliced in 2, vertically

6 baby pak choi, sliced in 3 vertically

2 scallions, sliced diagonally, 1/2 inch per slice

2 tablespoons of peanut oil

INGREDIENTS AND METHOD FOR THE SAUCE:

1/2 a Kallo Chicken Stock Cube, dilute it in 200ml of boiling water

Add 50 ml of Chinese Cooking Wine (buy this in any Chinese food store) and 25 ml of soy sauce. Mix and reduce for a couple of minutes on a medium heat. If you want to thicken, add a cornflour paste.

METHOD:

Boil the noodles in a good litre or so of water, stirring them every now and then so they don’t stick and to see how they’re doing. When they’re done, drain them and place them in cold water so they stop cooking. Keep them for after.

Slice your chicken and stick in a zip lock bag. Place some tea in the smoking bowl and stick the rubber pipe in the bag and zip it up as much as you can. Light that bad boy up and stick on the gun. Let the smoke pump up in there til it runs out and then seal it up tight. Swish the chicken round so that it absorbs the smoke evenly.  Let it rest for half an hour while you get on with your sauce and cut up all the other shit.

When everything is sliced and ready to rock, lash in the peanut oil into the wok and get it really hot. Fry the chicken in it first and then put it aside. Then throw in the shallots and cook for 30 seconds, then throw in the chilies, garlic and ginger and cook for another minute.

The next step is to quickly fry the pak choi and corn, stick them in for a minute or so. Follow that with the cooked noodles (drain them again) and stir it all up.  You then stick in the cooked chicken and sauce and combine all that up with a stir. To get up to a higher temperature, put a lid on it and bring up the heat to the max. Garnish with the sliced scallions and serve. Two people will eat very well with this.

]]> http://www.rockcookbook.com/barrys-tea-smoked-chicken-with-noodles/feed/ 0 http://www.rockcookbook.com/feel-good-drinking-with-irish-made-cocktails/ http://www.rockcookbook.com/feel-good-drinking-with-irish-made-cocktails/#comments Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:30:44 +0000 admin http://www.rockcookbook.com/?p=1749 Our nation is somewhat economically banjaxed at the moment and any body with half a brain knows that we cannot rely on members of the Dáil to help repair things. One particular group of individuals who go under the name of Hireland, are actively trying to find employers who can afford to bring on just one new staff member. No matter how you view this project, it’s a good thing. An initiative such as that should certainly be applauded and similar measures ought to be taken on elsewhere by anyone thinks they can help.  But there is very little that a seasoned degenerate such as my dear self could ever hope to offer his country. I can’t speak Irish. I hate 99.9% of all politicians. I don’t ever vote for any of our wannabe boil in the bag celebrities when they’re entered into talent contests and reality shows. And I don’t even drink tea.

Should there ever be a state sponsored academic master’s course in: Having The Absolute Craic and Not Giving A Bollix About Anything, then there’d be no better buachaill – I could teach that shit no bother. Having said all that, in all my years of becoming a Professor of Craicology, I have managed to learn a thing or two about the auld gargoyle.  I have even managed somehow to pick up some handy info on how to mix drinks with as much Irish in them as possible. In fact, in true neurotic form, I have become somewhat obsessed with my search for using Irish ingredients to imbibe with and I have already built up quite a catalog.

In even further neurotic form, I have convinced myself that I can show others how  positively delightful Irish made cocktails truly are and how easy they can be rolled out, either at home or within various sectors of the service industry. We are well into a food awakening here in Ireland. Our citizens no longer just want to eat to live, more and more of us are realizing that food can bring tremendous pleasure. Simultaneously, we are also realizing the health benefits of eating proper grub and not Findus Fucking Pancakes. And on a different end of the scale, Irish people are starting to feel more confident about the quality of what we can produce within the food and drink sector, which is in fact, one of the very few growth industries we actually have here.

Food exports are kicking ass and more locals are starting to think locally when it comes to what they eat and drink with. Irish made craft beers are rocking in every bar they’re sold in. I reckon something similar can be done with cocktails and that’s why I set up the facebook page: Irish Made Cocktails. It will serve as a general board of communication and info for cocktails that are made with Irish spirits & liqueurs or produce.  I also hope to use it as a platform to dispel certain myths about cocktails, such as: they do not need to cost that much, they do not need little umbrellas on them, they do not require “flairing “, ie poseur wankbag bartenders who spend more time showing off than putting money in the till, etc, etc….

So basically, since last summer I’ve mixed a shitload of Irish juices, fruits, vegetables and herbs with a shitload of different types of drinks. I’ve also spent a lot of time messing around with homegrown spirits like Jameson, Cork Dry Gin and Bunratty Mead.  If I can get the right support, I reckon I can write up a seasonal menu and programme of a good sized list of Irish made cocktails.  I see no reason on Earth, why every Irish restaurant, bar, club, venue, theatre, festival and hotel should not be able to mix at least 3 Irish made cocktails.  I see no reason on Earth, why we shouldn’t be known internationally as a nation who can create and embrace their own cocktail culture – fuck knows we’ve embraced every other bit of gargoyle.

Irish made cocktails can take on all shapes, sizes and flavours.  My bar manager in The Sugar Club came up with this exceptionally simple but perfectly pimped out Cork Dry Gin & Tonic by adding a sugar syrup that was made with locally  grown thyme + lemongrass.

These badboys here are jellyshots. They were made with Jameson Whiskey, Crabapples from Kildare and Lavender from Wicklow.

You can lash out a very simple dessert cocktail such as The Irish Mocha Martini – a modern take on the Irish Coffee.  Or you can go slightly mad and use a hand smoking device and smoke some whiskey. This is what I did with one the other day, click here.  This was Jameson whiskey that I infused back in November with wild hawthorn berries and jelly, I realize that’s not something that a lot of people are gonna do but it’s just to show yez how mad you can go if you want. Anyhoo, I smoked with it that smoker with some applewood chips and mixed 1 shot of it with 1 shot of freshly squeezed orange juice, 1 shot of Wexford Honey syrup and a few dashes of orange bitters to create this hunk of Paddy Love here:

SMOKED JAMESON & WILD HAWTHORN

It ticks all the right flavour boxes – sweet, sour, heat from the spirit and then an extra vibe that comes from the applewood smoke. We’ll be lashing them out at The Sugar Club this weekend at €7.50 a pop.

When you drink Bailey’s, you’re supporting Irish dairy farmers. When you drink Jameson, you’re supporting Irish grain farmers.  When you drink a mojito made with mint grown in Ireland, you’re supporting a local herb grower.  The more we support local trade, the better off our economy can become. Extending our spending power to include Irish made cocktails is something that could benefit a lot of people.  Best of all, knowing all of this while consuming an Irish made cocktail will give you a smug feel-good-glow. What’s not to like about that?

If anyone would like to contribute any ideas, recipes or photos to Irish Made Cocktails – you can like the page and leave something there or hit me up with an email to oisin@thesugarclub.com

I have had the distinct pleasure of working with the man himself  down on Leeson Street for the last couple of years and this weekend we celebrate a new departure – The Burlesque & Cabaret Social Club is moving it’s monthly residency from Fridays to Saturdays! This will allow more time for performers to gather up their costumes and gizmos and more time for the punters to max out their glam. This may not sound like much, but any regular will tell you that this will be of tremendous help! One does not attend in one’s hipster flannel shirt and Topman jeans….

To help launch the new residency Karl has enlisted the help of a heavy hitter from London town to host the first show of 2012 this Saturday night. His name is Desmond O’Connor and he’s a dark and twisted ukulele playing funny man, par excellence.  And while he may be no stranger to our shores, I thought it would be nice to for you all to get know him a little better by way of one of my special wee slightly fucked up interviews. We discussed all that was truly important in life – food & frolics.  It turns out that auld Dessie is quite the gourmand and a vegetarian one at that. His recipe is a beautiful culmination of wild mushrooms and artichokes bound together with home made strudel. Nice!

- What have you been up to for the last 6 months and what have you got planned for the next 6?

The last six months have been crazy. Working with Scott Mills and the Radio One crew up in Edinburgh, as well as producing six other shows and appearing in the three of them. They say the Irish are an industrious nation, so I guess I have my ancestors to thank for the fact I’m a workaholic; I can probably thank them for a few other bad habits as well. The next six months are relaxing by comparison; I open a new musical, Toxic Bankers, at the start of March then I start work on Radio Four: The Musical, and amidst all of that is my biggest production of 2012…I’m going to be a dad!

-  Who in your professional opinion, has done the best tassel based performance you have ever seen?

The competition is, ahem, stiff, but there are a few favourites who never fail to titillate with their twirling talents. Fancy Chance spins a mean tassel and Belfast’s Leyla Rose is a force to be reckoned with, but my all time favourite has to the buxom and beautiful Cherry Shakewell…the name says it all!

-  Should Boylesque be an Olympic sport?

I thought it was already…a fine collection of shining rings, all shapes and sizes, that unite the world in love.

-  What’s your favourite cocktail?

The temptation to lapse into innuendo is almost irresistible, but I shall be honest and say that an espresso Martini gets my vote every time; caffeine and booze in equal,  over-zealous measures. What’s not to love?

-  Your earliest food memory is….

Being rushed into hospital because my stomach stopped working when I was a little tot. I gave the girl from the exorcist a run for her money with my projectile vomiting. I also remember being taken to a slaughter-house as a child by my well-meaning father. I’d bullied him into doing it because I was quite a morbid little soul. It ended up prompting my life-long commitment to being a vegetarian. My mother was delighted.

- What’s your all time favourite hangover meal?

I find that the only thing that ever really cures a hangover is more booze, so I always aim to maintain a stable level of insobriety. I am, though, something of a gastronome as well (which I used to think referred to a midget Jamie Oliver lookalike) so I’ve provided a recipe that combines fine, vegetarian dining with the copious consumption of my famously favourite tipple.

- Are you doing any whacky food diets now that we’re into the guilty  post Christmas purge? Have you done any before?

It’s a little known fact that I was nearly twice the size I am today whilst a drunken lazy student, but I found the Fatkins diet, combined with a strenuous ‘nightclubbing’ regime that often lasted from Friday night until Monday morning worked wonders for burning off the extra pounds (and euros).

- What’s the one food or dish that would make you instantly puke?

I’m a genuine and adventurous lover of food and I hate waste more than anything else so I think you’d be hard pushed to come up with anything that had an instantly emetic effect on my cast iron constitution.
- When you’re not on the road what do you like to cook at home?

This is where I share the deep, dark secret that I love to cook steak for my beautiful, pregnant girlfriend, Zoie. As an ethical vegetarian with a secret meat fetish, I was thrilled when the doctor said that her blood count was a little low and that she could do with getting some meat inside her; needless to say, I rushed her home and immediately set to work on following the doctor’s orders.

DESMOND O’CONNOR’S WILD MUSHROOM & ARTICHOKE STRUDEL WITH CHEAP WHITE WINE SAUCE

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 onion, sliced
• 425g/11oz unsalted butter
• 500g/1lb 2oz wild mushrooms, such as ceps or girolles, sliced thickly. psilocybe semilanceata may be used at the chef’s own risk
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves, picked from their stems
• 250g/9oz artichoke hearts in olive oil, quartered
• 1 tbsp pine nuts, toasted
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 6 large sheets filo pastry

Cheap Shite White Wine Sauce

• 25g (1oz) butter
• 2 shallots, diced
• 1tbsp fresh thyme
• 300ml (10fl oz) white wine*
• 250ml (9fl oz) fresh double cream
• 1tbsp Dijon mustard
• Squeeze of lemon juice

*For a wine to achieve the Cheap Shite White Wine seal of approval it must cost less than five euros and have alcohol by volume of 13% or more.

METHOD:

·         Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6. Grease a baking tray with melted butter.

·         Open the wine and don’t, whatever you do, let it breath.

·         Heat the oil in a heavy-based frying pan and gently fry the onion for five minutes, or until softened. Remove the onion and place into a large bowl.

·         Melt 150g/5oz of the butter in the frying pan until foaming. Then add the mushrooms, garlic and thyme leaves and cook for five minutes, or until the mushrooms have softened.

·         Take a hefty glug from the wine to ensure that the quality is sufficiently low and the alcohol sufficiently high for it to achieve the desired effect.

·         Remove from the heat and add the mushrooms to the onion. Add the artichoke hearts and pine nuts to the bowl, and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Mix until well combined. Allow to cool and then drain the mixture through a sieve.

·         To assemble the strudel, melt the remaining butter and place into a small bowl. Lay out two sheets of filo pastry, overlapping at the thin end, to cover the greased baking tray. Brush the pastry with some of the melted butter.

·         Cover the pastry with a further two layers and brush with melted butter.

·         Add a final layer of pastry, but only brush the edges of the pastry with melted butter. Place the mushroom mixture onto the unbuttered pastry and roll up to form a parcel, tucking the sides in.

·         Brush well with more melted butter and bake for 25 minutes, or until crisp and golden-brown.

·         Ensure that there is not too much wine in the wine by imbibing at least another glass and a half before getting to work on the sauce.

·         Melt the butter in a pan and gently fry the shallots and thyme for a few mins or until the onion is soft but not coloured.

·         Add the wine, bring to the boil and boil rapidly for 10 mins or until the liquid is reduced by half. Add the cream and mustard and warm through thoroughly.

·         Add a squeeze of lemon juice and some black pepper. Strain into a jug and serve.

·         Pour over the strudel, down your throat and, since you’re probably pissed by now, all over the table and the laps of your friends and family.

Come check out Desmond O’Connor and a geansaí load of other lushes and rides down at The Sugar Club from 8pm – this Saturday.

This one of a kind approach to live entertainment has earned him legions of fans the world over. Conan O’Brien is one and he had this to say of him, “he may be the only person in the business with hair more shocking than mine.” Not only has he been a regular guest on his TV show but Reggie has also performed on every gig of the recent live comedy tour Conan staged around the US. Since then, there has been a dizzying array of work for him that’s taken in Comedy Central programmes, tours in Canada and Europe and a new 10 part show on The Independent Film Channel.

So what does the tee totalling workaholic musical comedian do in the few bits of downtime he allows himself? Well to start off with, he loves to indulge in some of the food that his mother French mother made for him as a child like pates, terrines and gruyere packed onion soup. But his own killer dish, is the humble cheese toastie. As you would expect from Mr. Watts, this is not your average run of the mill pub sarnie. Like everything else he does, he takes it to a whole new level.

THE REGGIE WATTS CHEESE TOASTIE

INGREDIENTS, MAKES 2:

4 Slices of multi grain brown bread

4 sandwich sized slices of mature cheddar cheese

1 chicken fillet

3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

5 – 6 fresh tarragon leaves

1 tablespoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 tablespoon of finely chopped chives

White pepper and sea salt to season

METHOD:

Mix 2 tablespoons of the olive oil with the lemon juice and a little salt and pepper in a cup. Tear the tarragon leaves roughly and combine them with the oil. Smear this all over the chicken and allow it to marinade for at least an hour.

Cook the chicken on a dry griddle pan, until there is a nice char on it and the centre is done. Let it rest for 15 minutes so that the juices go back into the meat.

Heat a flat frying pan with the remaining olive oil at a medium level. Place the inside of each slice of bread, with a slice of cheese and sprinkle on a little of the chive and some seasoning. Then cut the chicken as thinly as you can and place it on top of the cheese. Make your sandwiches and slide them onto the pan. Cook each side until it’s golden brown.

I would greatly advise you to check out Reggie Watts on Saturday January 21st in Whelan’s. It should be an outstanding gig.

This piece is also available in today’s issue of The Ticket in The Irish Times.

So you can imagine my unhindered delight, when I found out that through the wonders of modern science, a perfect hybrid of Frank Sinatra and Adolf Hitler was somehow formed. A creature that embodies all that is best about The Fuhrer and The Chairman of The Board – a cool charming velvet voice with all the aggression and genius of a great despot.  They call him Frank Sanazi, The Ubermeister of Lounge. He has graced our shores twice now and in the intimate surroundings of The Sugar Club has belted out such gems as “Third Reich”, “Strangers on My Flight” and “Big Bad Chairman Mao”.

Frank Sanazi – the founder of the new Germanic musical movement, “Fatherlounge.”

But when Frank started hatching plans for his Uber Welt Domination Comeback Tour, he knew he couldn’t do it solo. Allies were needed. That’s why he quickly formed The Iraq Pack  and recruited like minded vocalists with a penchant for autocracy. Guys like Osama Bing Crosby - Saddami Davis Junior and Russia’s very own, Dean Stalin.

Apparently the boys have a nice Christmas tradition where they all hang out in the bunker and entertain the frauleine with songs, cocktails and lashings and lashings of Frank’s favourite German/Italian festive cuisine – White Christmas with ribbon and truffle pasta.

I caught up with Frank the other day to see how the plans for his Fourth Reich were coming along and to see how his Chrimbo meal went….

- So Frank, you’re obviously quite the epicurean, who would you say
had a greater influence on your kitchen pursuits? Eva Braun or Ava
Gardner?

In answer to your question, both Eva & Ava were gute around ze Kitchen – unfortunately in later years Eva didn’t have the space to produce such culinary delights and supplies were becoming short! She did teach me some fantastische Christmas treats though. Zis year I did a special tray of her ‘Minced Spies’ made ze old fashioned vay using proper Mince Meat imported from France. Unt ven I approached ze Iraq Pack to discuss our World Domination Tour it vos zis time of year unt meinself & Eva cooked up a beautiful ‘Roast Goose-step’ vit all ze trimmings. They included Brussel Krauts unt Boiled Swedes – Vun must insist zat ze Goose is stuffed full of Sage & Onion unt set ze oven to Gas Mark Nein for 2 hours!

- With all those crazy  Yuletide celebrations you guys had, who amongst The Iraq Pack did what? Did  Sadammi Davis Jnr whisk up the cocktails and help keep up the banter mit ze dames while Dean Stalin kept the home help in line?

Ze Pre- Xmas Molotov cocktails are normally left to Osama Bing Crosby to knock up before Xmas dinner. Unfortunately Osama didn’t return my invite….in fact he’s stopped all correspondence for some reason . It is a pity as he used to mix a great ‘ Cherry Bomb’ ( Vodka, Cherry Brandy and Tabasco) zis vill blow ze pants off any infidel.

Of course ze Xmas festivities would not be complete without a Sing-a-long and extreme renditions of such Xmas classics as ‘ Rudolph Hess Knows Pain Dear’ & ‘ Gestapo, Gestapo, Gestapo’ as well as ‘George Bush Nuts roasting on an Open Fire’ it is made all the more enjoyable if mein daughter Nancy is over from The USA for the Holidays after their ‘Yanks Giving’.
This year we were joined by Tony Benito after his invite to join Kim Jong Il had been withdrawn, this was the 2nd rejection for poor old Tony as Gadaffi’s party was also cut short. He was worried he may have to accept Mugabe’’s offer of a Black Forrest Ghetto with Supreme White Sauce!

- But with such great minds all in the one underground bunker, it couldn’t have all been baubles, bangles unt beanz? I’d say you must have had some serious strategic ordering to get sorted.

Xmas is a great time for planning another invasion and all ze Iraq pack boys are gearing up for another ‘World Domination’ push ..I have already made inroads into Ireland and fed ze troops on ze local diet of ‘Cold Cannon’ vit a touch of ‘Saurkraut’ for major advances!

WHITE CHRISTMAS PUDDING WITH VON RIBBONTROP PASTA

INGREDIENTS:
6 white puddings ( I usually use ze German black puddings called blutwurst, but hey, it vas Christmas where White is Right)
600 g fresh ribbon pasta
2 tbsp truffle oil
sea salt, for ze seasoning
freshly ground black pepper
1 white truffle

METHOD:
Place ze white puddings on ze grill pan and cook for 12 minutes or until golden brown, turning occasionally.

Meanwhile, bring a large pan of water to ze boil, add ze pasta and cook according to what Benito calls “Al Dente”.

Heat a big pot.  Pour half of ze truffle oil and a little seasoning into ze pot and turn to coat ze inside. Add ze pasta, drizzle over ze remaining oil and sprinkle with a little more seasoning. Toss well.

Slice ze white pudding. Finely slice ze white truffle using a truffle slicer. Add both to ze pasta and serve IMMEDIATELY!

Dessert was a pretty wild affair in Ze Bunker this year.

If I may, I’d like to leave the last few words back to Frank. He has some sage advice for all you wild and whacky Burlesque and Cabaret lovers who might be attending their New Year’s Eve Ball tomorrow night.

Remember don’t drink & drive on ze New Year’s Eve. If you can, try to  take ze cab home. The Iraq Pack recommends ‘Schindler’s Lifts’.

Her food is either gick or 100% lifted from somebody else. The filler bits before the food are always pointless, like the montage shots of her getting out of a cab and walking around shops with her Stepford Wife valium grin.  But most irritating of all, is when she serves up the grub to the perfectly p.c. audience gathered round her table. There’s always the token Asian/African/Auld Wan, then the rest look like they were gathered up from a nearby posh hotel bar. The one thing that they have in common though, is the confused glare on all their faces as they’ve obviously never met before and have to wax lyrical about the food on offer.  It’s a blatant pitch to the viewer of this surreal, perfect lifestyle where Benetton Ads are reenacted and everybody is unified in their mutual love for the gorgeous host. Wankology of the highest order and so very dated.

These visions of bizarre festive gatherings are so utterly removed from reality. It’s all well and good for Nigella and so many other TV food presenters, to be presenting their guests with home made blinis and crab rolls, but when is that ever gonna happen when any of us are knocking round to mates or family around the holidays? You’ll be lucky to get a ham sarnie with leftover sprouts.  And besides, we all know that social calls taking place over the next 10 days or so are all about the gargoyle.  Here are a few booze related suggestions, some are staples that you should all bloody well know by now.

MULLED WINE A LA LISTON’S ON CAMDEN STREET

Karen, the owner of the wonderful deli and food-store Liston’s must curse the day when she revealed to me the mad secret ingredient to her mulled wine that she lashes out every Christmas Eve. It’s Bulmer’s. And the funny thing about that is thatI fucking hate that shit. But this is the second best thing you could ever do with it. The first being, shoving a can of it up a chicken’s shitter and lashing it on the barbuecue.

Anyway, on to the mulled vino. Everybody needs to learn how to make this. It should be on the school curriculum alongside Peig and Catholic self loathing. Done properly, mulled wine is like a warm hug from someone you fancy. One thing though, if you’re gonna make some, make a shitload. The ingredients I give you here can easily be tripled or quadrupled.

INGREDIENTS:

1 bottle of a fresh beaujolais or cheap Spanish fresh rioja

1 can of Bulmer’s

1 mulled wine bouquet garni. Buy them pre-made from Liston’s

3 slices of orange, studded with cloves

1/2 a cinnamon stick

1 cup of golden sugar

METHOD:

Get a big fuck off pot. Lash in the liquid, bring to a strong simmer but not a boil. Take the temperature way down and then put everything else, stirring the sugar to let it dissolve.

Let it all combine for about 15 minutes. Get stuck in.  Serve it from your cooker to keep it warm.

WHAT TO DO WITH THAT BOTTLE OF WHISKEY SOMEBODY GAVE YOU, WHEN YOU DON’T REALLY LIKE WHISKEY

Jenna Jameson, porn star and heir to the Jameson Whiskey fortune. One of these statements is factually correct.

There are always gifts you get at Chrimbo that make you wonder whether they’re second hand. Like the dusty looking bath salts from shops that don’t exist anymore. Or anything ornamental and porcelain. The same goes for bottles of whiskey. Especially when you arrive to someone’s gaff a day or two after the big day and you’ve just received a couple of bottles of spirits and you don’t mind passing one on. I have no doubt that a single bottle of spirits can easily have at least 3 owners over the course of a week.

So, if you have a bottle of whiskey that you don’t know what to do with, read 0n. This is a wicked whiskey punch, that has zero typical Christmas flavour, which is really good if you’re totally sick of festive spices and sweets.

INGREDIENTS:

1 bottle of Jameson

1/3 of a bottle of Elderflower Cordial

The juice of 2 lemons

1 cup of honey syrup. Make this by emptying 1 jar of honey into a pot and filling it up with 2 jars of boling water and stirring it up. It will keep, literallty forever.

1 pint of soda water

METHOD:

Pour everything except the soda water into a punch bowl. Stir it up with some ice. Then pour in the soda water and enjoy. Feel free to enjoy this on your own, if you happen to have a serious alcohol and quite prone to downing a whole bottle, then go for it. For all the rest of us, this is a party punch. Have the craic with it.

CHRISTMAS RUM PUNCH

7 Year Old Aged Havana Club Rum + Fresh Ginger + All Spice Berries + Star Anise + Brown Sugar + Tipperary Pressed Apple Juice = An exceptionally, tasty, spicy and fruity punch with a proper Christmas bling kick. The whole festive season in a glass.

These are on sale tonight in The Sugar Club for €7.50 a pop.  The syrup with the juice and rum is kick ass. You can use the syrup for desserts with pie and ice cream too if you want.

INGREDIENTS: FOR SYRUP

1 cup of brown sugar

1 cup of water

A fistful of ginger, peeled and sliced

2 star anise

A teaspoon of all spice berries

Put all of these in a pot, bring it to the boil and then simmer for 15 minutes. Then, strain and put aside.

Other ingredients for the punch are Havana Club 7 year old and Karmine Tipperary Apple Juice – you can get that in Fallon & Byrne if you’re in town.

METHOD:

Shake 1 shot of rum, with 1 shot of syrup, 2 shots of apple juice and a fistful of ice.  Strain into chilled glass.

P.S.

Rest In Peace - Christopher Hitchens. A bloke whose work I always loved reading. Six years ago the good man had this to say about Christmas, it’s fucking gas.

The second problem with Christmas pudding, is that the 99% of us who hate it, never get our shit together to present a half decent alternative. It’s like we don’t want to insult the 1% who actually remember to get a pudding (nobody makes them anymore), because if you refuse it, you’re branded as being a wet sponge anti-christmas killjoy.  And with all the shite we have to get sorted, you can be hardly be blamed to “forget the Chrimbo pud”, especially when at the back of your mind, you want everybody to consign the bloody thing to oblivion anyway.

But here’s something that might help out the fellow 99 percenters. It’s a recipe given to me last week by me good pal Sinéad. She is an exceptionally deadly cook and for the last decade or so, this cake has been a firm favourite in her “Can Not Go Wrong” collection. She’s right. I made it with my two small nippers on Sunday and it was bang on easy.

Her recipe is a Tunisian Almond & Orange Cake, but for the purposes of lashing something out for the festive season, I have altered it to pump up out the Christmas bling tastes. If you want, you can always make it in advance and freeze it. Or just make it on Christmas Eve. Either way, you will be a dinner table hero of the people. Fuck the 1 percent.

CHRIMBO DRIZZLE CAKE

MIX THESE DRY INGREDIENTS:

45g Slightly Stale White Breadcrumbs
200g Caster Sugar
100g Ground Almonds
1 and a half level teaspoons Baking Powder

MIX THESE WET INGREDIENTS:

200ml Sunflower/Vegetable Oil
4 medium eggs
Finely grated zest of 2 limes

MAKE YOUR SYRUP BY…

Putting half a pint of water in a small pot with:

1 cup of caster sugar

1 cinnamon stick

4 whole cloves

1 teaspoon of all spice

2 cardamom pods

2 thumb sized pieces of skinned, fresh ginger

2 star anise

Bring it all up to the boil, then let it simmer for about 10 minutes. Let it cool, then strain into a jug.

TO BAKE THE CAKE:

Add liquid to dry ingredients and mix.
Pour into greased 8-inch loose bottom baking tin (I used a brownie tray, that works too).
Place in cold oven and set to 190 degrees.  Bake for 45/50 minutes until top is golden brown and skewer comes out clean (oily is okay).  I find it can take longer depending on the oven. If you think it’s getting too brown on top, just stick a saucepan lid on top.

Allow to cool and remove from tin.  Place on plate with raised lip, or in shallow bowl. (or keep in tin if transporting…….). Prick the surface of the cake with a toothpick or skewer.  Pour over about half of the syrup. Then mix the rest in with some decent Greek yoghurt or creme fraiche and dollop on each serving.

For those of you with a fear of baking, the inside should look like that. As a recovering baking-phobe, I know these images can help.

RICKY

Living in an automobile is a lifestyle choice that Ricky has become so accustomed to, that when he tries to get some kip in a bed, he can’t actually sleep and has to go back to his car again. But at least it keeps him close to his marijuana operation, which is still going very well, even with some setbacks like the occasional cop bust and wild animals eating his harvest. He’s keen to keep it up as a family tradition and teach the tricks of his trade to his teenage daughter Trinity, as soon as they both get their grade 12 though.

While his fellow Sunnyvale resident and arch enemy Randy, may be the uncrowned barbecued cheeseburger king of the Park, Ricky is a dab hand at cooking other meats al fresco. Especially pepperoni and chicken sticks. While Ricky did not go into massive detail with this dish, he did stress that its flavours were very much enhanced by sparking up one of his home grown efforts and advises against imbibing any liquor with it, as that would in fact kill your taste buds. Said with a true respect for his food.

BARBECUED CHICKEN STICKS & PEPPERONI

INGREDIENTS:

1 Packet of Frozen Chicken Sticks (no particular brand was specified)

6 Pepperoni Sausages

METHOD:

Steal Randy’s barbecue, fill with stolen propane and fire it up. Char grill the chicken and pepperoni and serve with your choice of ketchup, barbecue sauce or more illegal substances. Or even all three.

JULIAN

Very much the wheeler dealer and ladies man of their gang, Julian has got what he reckons will be a sweet little earner planned for when he arrives on Irish soil. He has managed to procure a large boat that he has filled with exceptionally cheap potatoes, which he will distil down to make poitin. This will of course be sold to us booze loving locals and perhaps dished out as freebies to his female fans, who he has told me, he is very fond of. Apparently, when compared to Canadian girls, the Hibernian lassies are a lot more relaxed and understanding when it comes to allowing him to hang out til dawn with his mates. This sentiment towards the women of his homeland might be brought on by the fact that he recently dated a law enforcement officer. When I reminded him of how unusual it was for a multiple repeat offender such as he to date a policewoman, he didn’t seem to see an issue. Supposedly the extra caution he had to exercise while in her company was well worth it as, “hot cops are crazy in the sack.”

He also recommends being extremely cautious when cooking his signature Trailer Park dish, deep fried turkey.  Such is the high chance of the oil overheating and going up in flame, that 1 in 10 trailers will burn down when deep frying turkeys at dinner engagements. Not a healthy statistic for such an unhealthy meal.

DEEP FRIED TRAILER PARK TURKEY

INGREDIENTS:

1 Ten pound turkey

3 litres of peanut oil

3 tablespoons of salt

3 tablespoons of pepper

3 tablespoons of garlic powder

METHOD:

Get an extremely large pot or even a discarded oil drum and fill it up to 75% of it’s capacity. Do not go over 75%! This could very well lead to aforementioned domestic fire incident after you’ve placed the bird in. While that’s heating up, pat the bird dry and smother it inside and out with the salt, pepper and garlic powder.

Very carefully place the bird in the hot oil and cook for about 35 minutes.

BUBBLES

As any fan of the TV show or Trailer Park Boys movies will tell you, the lads don’t get on at all with Randy & Mr. Lahey. This of course will mean that going on tour with them should be especially interesting and will surely test Bubbles’ well documented peacemaking skills to the absolute max. He is not being optimistic either, as Lahey’s alcohol consumption has actually been getting worse. “The last time I saw him, he was eating liquor ball sandwiches.” Never a good look. The sideline business that Bubbles started, “Kittyland” the cat daycare would appear to be thriving. So much so, that in the spring, he hopes to have enough money to add a second level onto the shed he lives in to “accommodate guests” as he says. Should you ever be lucky enough to be welcomed into his home, bear in mind that you may be sharing some space with one of his cats. At any given time, he has over 60 of them.

When it comes to his ultimate Trailer Park dish, the one meal that really gets him going is macaroni and cheese. Nobody else in Sunnyvale makes it better than Bubbles. He likes it plain, or with bacon and sometimes he’ll pimp it out with a certain well known chocolate confectionery snack…

MACARONI AND CHEESE WITH M&M’S

INGREDIENTS:

1 packet of macaroni pasta

12 slices of easi single cheese

1 tablespoon of butter

1 large packet of M&M’s

METHOD:

Boil the pasta in a big pot, preheat your oven to 180 degrees.

Slice the cheese into little bits.

When the pasta is done, strain it and then throw it into a baking dish Mix in the cheese and butter and stick that in the oven for 10 minutes. Sprinkle with the M&M’s.

Trailer Park Boys bring their “Dear Santa, Go Fuck Yourself” tour to The Olympia Theatre on December 12, 13 and 14

I am not really sure what strange forces are compelling me to make and more and more boozy jelly shots, but I’ve been at it a lot lately. Recent jellified concoctions have included Refresher shots, ABSOLUT Pear & Blackcurrant shots and Beetroot & Ginger ABSOLUT shots.  When I put out a call recently to get my paws on some more crab-apples, my old pal Graeme came back with a massive bag of them from his parent’s gaff in Kildare.  Really into these at the moment, love their high levels of acidity and their wicked colour.  Jameson and crab-apples have really been working for me but I wanted to see what else I could throw into the mix. In the summer I had the great fortune of tasting Ernie Whalley’s home made lavender ice cream. It was the mutt’s nuts. That gave me the idea of throwing some lavender into my next crab-apple syrup.

If you’ve never fucked around with lavender in your food or drink, bear one thing in mind. It is seriously strong. Too much of it and your mouth will feel like you just got a ware off of a box of washing powder. But when you use the correct amount and pair it with something sharp like crab-apples and something sweet like honey, it’s a flavour bomb.

Of course, if you want to get some Jameson in there, then you’re really going places.  All of the ingredients you see in that photo, are 100% Irish. This is a challenge I’ve been setting myself of late for the backstage bar in The Sugar Club. Been trying to come up with nice cocktails that contain Irish booze or have Irish products in the mix.  This is the most Hibernian one yet. We’re selling them this weekend, 2 for a fiver. Or if you want to give them a go yourself, here’s the recipe.

CRAB-APPLE & LAVENDER JAMESON JELLY SHOTS

INGREDIENTS:

1 Bottle of Jameson Whiskey

1 kilo of crab-apples. The mild weather of late means that you can still find these. Apparently my mother still has a rake of them in her garden.

1 jar of Wexford Honey

1/2 a teaspoon of dried lavender

10 Marks & Spencer gelatine strips, these are the easiest to find

METHOD:

You have to make a syrup out of the crab-apples, but first you have to trim the twiggy stems that are probably still on them. Once you’ve that sorted, rinse them and slice them in half.

Stick them all in a big fuck off pot along with about 1 litre of water. Bring it up to a quick boil and then bring the heat right down. Arm yourself with a potato masher and start squashing those bad boys up.  After a few minutes, strain them off into another pot that you put on a low heat. Pour in the honey and stir, until it’s even. Then you drop in the lavender and stir that for about a minute or so and then strain again. That’s your syrup done.

Cut up the gelatine strips really small with a scissors. Immerse them in about 50 ml of water, let them soak for 10 minutes. While they’re soaking, drop in the Jameson and heat all that up, but not too hot. Just a really low simmer. You then drop in the gelatine and water and stir all that through until it’s all melted.

Buy those disposable plastic shot glasses and fill them up on a tray and place them in a fridge for at least 4 hours. You’ll get about 100 of them.

Of course, my good behaviour was down to the fact that I wasn’t attending your usual mad fuckpit in a field. I was down in Brook Lodge for The Wild & Slow Festival – a fantastic weekender that celebrated wild Irish foods at their very best. There was a 2 day market where stallholders were flogging anything wild that could have been picked, hunted, fished or foraged. I came home with bags of Wild Damson Cordial, Sloe-berry Jam,  Seaweed, Dried Elderflower, Hazelnuts. I snacked on roasted wild chestnuts, barbecued venison baps and wild mushroom soup. Regrettably, I did not have enough stomach space to suck on the rabbit legs that were going round. They were coated in oats and Parmesan breadcrumbs, then deep fried – a steal at only €1.50 a pop.

There were a shitload of very well attended workshops taking place that were all about teaching everyone where to go looking for wild foods and what to do with them.  When you’ve got the likes of Ed Hick, Derry Clarke & Darina Allen rolling all that out, you know you’re in good hands.

But the highlight for me was the outstanding meal we enjoyed on Saturday night.  A five course deluxe where there were a minimum of 2 wild Irish ingredients on each plate.  It was prepared, cooked and served perfectly and washed down with a geansaí load of vino.  Brook Lodge’s Headchef Tim Daly and his crew were behind it all. Please observe:

A Potted Wild Rabbit, Wild Rose Hip, Wild Elderberry Jelly, Brioche
___
Our own Macreddin Smoked Wild Salmon, Wild Dillisk Foam
___
Wild Damson, Pink Peppercorn, Yoghurt Sorbet
___
A Wild Leaf Salad, Wild Woodcock, Pomegranate Dressing
___
Slow Cooked Wild Venison, Puff Pastry, Wild Garlic Mash,
Balsamic Jus
___
The Macreddin Wild Desert Plate with Wild Elderberry Orange Pudding,
Wild Blackberry Panna Cotta, Chocolate Marquis, Wild Hazelnut Tuile

We need to be looking more at wild food in Ireland, for both in and out of restaurants. It’s local. It’s fresh. It’s seasonal. And it’s free. I don’t buy the counter argument of “but it takes time to get all those things.” Well we are time rich here at the moment. There are thousands of people in the country dying to work. Show them how they can bring all these foods to the table and maybe they too can sell them. Or even just eat them and save themselves a few quid?  And if NOMA can be voted as the best restaurant in the world with a massive abundance of super fresh wild foods on their menu, surely we need to start examining whether we can blend some of that same magic here?

Massive show of respect for everybody who put The Wild & Slow Festival together. Massive show of respect for those who continuously use and serve these wild ingredients like Enda McEvoy over in Aniar Restaurant and Evan Doyle in Brook Lodge.

For any of the 150 odd who enjoyed the meal with me on Saturday, you may recall that there was a pasty looking lad pushing pre-dinner cocktails on everyone like a crackwhore at a schoolyard. That was me. The cocktail in question was The Elderberry Gin Fizz and they were made especially nice by the wild violet flower garnish that went onto all of them.  Mary (I did not get her surname unfortunately) the foraging manager of Brook Lodge made that possible by spending absolutely ages picking through all the stems and leaves to delicately separate all the flowers. An exceptionally nice thing to do for me and indicates the level of passion that is so wonderfully predominant there.

THE ELDERBERRY GIN FIZZ

Here’s how we managed to serve 150 of them in 45 minutes.

INGREDIENTS:

A week prior to the festival, the Brook Lodge crew placed 2 tablespoons of dried elderberries into 9 bottles of Cork Dry Gin.  They then placed a teaspoon of whole cloves for every 70 cl of Elderberry cordial they made. So when I got down there on the Saturday, I strained the gin to remove the berries and strained the cordial to remove the cloves.

I then set about mixing the cocktails shaker by shaker by placing in a scoop of ice, 2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice and equal amounts of gin to cordial. Once I shaked, I batched everything into a catering bucket. This took a while but it was worth it, as the flavours had a chance to mingle.

Right before serving, with the lid on, I gave the bucket a great big shake again and started pouring out  the mix into jugs. As each guest approached us, we’d fill a Slim Jim with ice, lash out the gin mix to 3/4 of the glass, top it up with sparkling water and then garnish with the wild flowers.

The equal ratio of house made berry flavoured spirit to berry cordial is something that I’ve found ridiculously easy to roll out and equally pleasing to the punter. All it needs is decent booze, produce and a little sour to cut through it. I would love to see other bars do the same, especially with Irish brands and fruit.  Don’t be shy if you reckon you could be interested, I’d love to share more details.

There are certain things that I have been reading about lately, which for me, have gone beyond being plain theories and have become undeniable truths.  In no particular order, they would be:

- X Factor and all of it’s clones are killing music. Not because the songs they all sing are shit, which they mostly are, but because they are now making every fuckdonkey idiot believe that they are destined to be overnight, boil in the bag, instant megastars.

- There is no way in hell that a highly industrialized global population of 7 billion people cannot be fucking up the climate.  Those who just say it’s Mother Nature in her flowers are only spoofing themselves at this point.

- If we keep on eating the amount of meat that we are currently getting through, we will completely fuck up ourselves and the planet we live on.  Not only are all the burgers and wings turning us into lardasses but cow’s farts are damaging the ozone layer faster than all of the world’s cars. We are using more and more woodland and forest areas to raise more and more  cattle in and to grow the grain to feed them all.

It’s bad enough that we have now ensured that our grandchildren will be burdened with massive national debts, we shouldn’t leave them with even more problems.  We have to start eating less meat, end of story. The question is, how do we go about doing it and what are the alternatives?

We reckoned we could kick off a little dialogue about this topic at our next For Food’s Sake event on Thursday Nov. 24th in The Sugar Club.  That’s why we have given the night the title of: MEAT….are we eating too much? Hit the invite here for full details of who we’ve got on the panel. We will also have some wicked free food to hand out and sell courtesy of some great local food producers. And in the spirit of the evening’s theme, a vegetarian cook off between the twins Dave and Steve Flynn from The Happy Pear Market and Restaurant & Market in Greystones. Nothing like a bit pf sibling rivalry for added drama and tension.

Bearing all this veggieness in mind, I thought I’d concoct a meat free recipe this week.  Bit of a Cali-Mex vibe. The feta chills it all down.

POBLANOS STUFFED WITH RICE AND CHERRY & ANCHO SALSA

INGREDIENTS:

1 teacup of cooked jasmine rice

2 poblano peppers (these are Mexican peppers, like bell peppers)

20 cherry tomatoes

1 dried ancho chilli (a Mexican chilli that has a different type of flavour, but similar in heat to normal chili)

half a red onion

3 cloves of roasted garlic (put a little oil, on a whole bulb and stick it in the oven for half an hour or so while you’re making something else)

a fistful of coriander

Vegetable stock cube

1 teaspoon of sugar

the juice of half a lime

200 g of feta cheese

1 small tub of sour cream

50ml of sparkling water

METHOD:

- Soak the ancho chilli in some water for half an hour. Boil up your stock cube in about 750 ml of water. Reduce to a simmer and place the poblanos in there to poach for about 5 minutes and set them aside. This softens them up a bit. Don’t throw out the stock.

- Peel the onion half and poach that in the stock for a couple of minutes, this takes away some of that mad sharpness. Remove, let it cool and then dice finely and don’t throw out the stock.

- Cut the cherry tomatoes in half and remove all the seeds.  Then stick half the tomatoes in a liquidizer with the garlic, ancho, coriander, sugar, 3 tablespoons of the stock and lime juice. The reason why I put the stock in,  is because I need it be very wet to coat the rice and also gives a little saltiness.

- Mix the remaining cherry tomatoes in with the liquidized ingredients. Split the poblano peppers in half lengthways, discard the seeds. Mix the rice with the salsa and place that onto the peppers.

- Whisk the feta, sour cream and sparkling water. You will have a shitload of it, way more than you need for this recipe but you can use it for other thangs like on salads or on top of grilled chicken.

- Drizzle the feta mix all over the filling on the poblanos and stick them under the grill for a few minutes til the feta goes a golden colour.  Serve with a jug of margarita if you can.

There will be:

- A large market in the village where people from all over the shop have been stockpiling all things wild to be sold as jams, preserves, cordials, smoked fish and meats, dried herbs, berries, the list goes on…

- A furred game tasting workshop conducted by Derry Clarke of l’Ecrivain.

- A jam and preserve workshop given by Darina Allen of Ballymaloe Cookery School.

- A venison smoking and curing workshop rolled out by Ed Hick.

Check this link out here for a full list of events. It covers loads of other areas like fish and wild herbs. I have been asked to go down meself and do a quick demo on how you can mix wild Irish ingredients into cocktails. There’s a big wild banquet taking place on the Saturday and right before we are served,  I will be dishing out about 120 Elderberry Gin Fizzes as freebies to everyone. I have been serving these in The Sugar Club of late and they’ve rocked til they could rock no more, in other words I aint got any left. More next autumn! Thankfully Evan Doyle from Brooklodge has the largest wild food stash in the country and can hook me up.

The plan is that while these are sipped and everyone kicks back, I will share a few pointers I’ve picked up recently on how to make Wild Blackberry Daiquiris,  Crab-apple and Ginger Whiskey Highballs and if I have time, Rhubarb and Elderflower Bellinis.

I really feel that embracing wild foods should be essential for anybody who has any kind of interest in the culinary arts, especially if they’re professionals. We have a massive abundance of wild produce that we can bring to what we eat and drink in Ireland. This will be the perfect weekend to learn more all about it. There are still places available if you want to join us. And besides, I always like to have as big a crew as possible to roll with.

One fine group of lads you will see donning such whiskers this month are the members of Irish Rock act Royseven. Although their singer Paul Walsh admits to suffering from what he calls, “long term youthful appearance” and finds growing a beard quite challenging. Bearing in mind that he’s the front man of the band, Paul’s inability to grow a moustache may not be such a bad thing, as any bloke with a ronnie always runs the danger of looking like Charles Bronson or Ned Flanders. And besides, a hairy soup strainer might get in the way when he’s slurping back his favourite pasta dish that’s laced with cream and chorizo. Paul’s earliest food memory is of his father serving him spaghetti Bolognese with chips around the perimeter of the plate. Apparently they were an incentive for him to eat everything else. It must have worked because these days he loves nothing more than lashing up big bowls of pasta which he unconventionally cooks from a wok.  You can check out how the band are getting on with their “Mo’s” by hitting their Movember page here or indeed seeing them in the flesh on November 25^th in The Academy.

It’s never too late to get involved in Movember! You can register here on www.movember.com or join in on somebody else’s team. The Sugar Club is hosting a Movember party tonight that is a celebration of all things Spinal Tap called “Turn It Up To 11”, quite fitting for the date that’s in it…

ROYSEVEN’S CREAMY FUSILI WITH CHORIZO

If you don’t like chorizo, then you can go fuck a duck

INGREDIENTS:

1 Packet of fusili pasta

150 g of cooking chorizo, thinly sliced

75 g of cherry tomatoes, sliced in half

50ml of single cream

4 cloves of minced garlic

1 teaspoon of chili flakes

1 teaspoon of sesame oil

a handful of parmesan cheese

1 tablespoon of chopped flatleaf parsley

Fusilli is brilliant for clinging on to creamy sauces

METHOD:

Cook your pasta in boiling salted water until al dente. As that cooks, heat the sesame oil in a wok and fry your chorizo until it colours. The wok is great in that it’s big enough to hold everything in later.  Add in the cherry tomatoes and stir. Once they have released some juice, stir in the garlic.

Drain your pasta but keep at least a cup of the cooking water and then throw that into the wok. Then stir in the pasta, cream, cheese and chili flakes until it is all absorbed and evenly coated. Garnish each serving with a sprinkling of some parsley.

I am all too aware that reading this site may well be perceived as time wasting by a loved one or a colleague. So if you prefer to be caught looking at something more reputable, then you can always read this piece in today’s copy of The Irish Times where my column comes out once a month.

These people need to surgically remove the hot pokers that is shoved up their collective anuses and should be placed on a craic programme. Funnily enough there is one such initiative taking place right now that would be perfect for at least 50% of them, the ones with mickies anyway. Movember is upon us again. That time of year when the participants declare  to anyone who gazes  upon them and can boldy claim,

“Yes that is a moustache. Not a birthmark or indeed a dirty Sanchez. I am more than aware that it makes me look like a kiddie fiddler but I’m prepared to let that go, because the money I am raising by growing it, is going to be spent on prostate cancer research and development. Now fuck off and go stare at that bird’s rack or something.”

In terms of other bits and bobs I have done for charity, there have been frosty dips in the 40 foot at Christmas dressed as a chippendale, santa and a fairy.  I also did a fun run in Oakland in a Batman costume. Yet they all pale in ridiculousness when it comes to not shaving the hair above my upper lip. Spending the best part of a month looking like a sex pest is the ultimate test of a man’s vanity and how seriously one takes one’s appearance. There are of course those who can look well with a Mo – Adolf Hitler, Tom Selleck, Willie O’Dea – but I don’t fall into that category unfortunately.

So because I’m growing a moustache I therefore want as many to share in the collective experience. It is never too late to register or if you want, you can join The Sugar Club’s team.  Last year’s campaign raised an extremely impressive €1.5 million, a fantastic result. Hopefully they can do the same again this year, even with the economy in the proverbial toilet bowl more so than 12 months ago.

There have been plenty of Movember related recipes that have been thrown around over the years that all carry a theme of healthier grub options. Here’s one I’m offering up consisting of nice and light chicken meat balls that you pan fry and smother in my big fuck off peanut sauce. Serve them as starters or apply them into a noodle based stir fry. And don’t forget to get your Mo on.

THAI CHICKEN MEATBALLS

INGREDIENTS:

• 1kg Chicken fillets, mince them by putting them in a blender
  
• 120 breadcrumbs
• 4 finely sliced scallions
  
• a fistful of fresh coriander, finely chopped
  
• half a stick of lemongrass, finely chopped
  
• 4 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
  

METHOD:

- Combine them all up in a mixing bowl but delicately enough. Then make them into a little pattie meatballs and pan fry them in a little peanut oil.

BIG FUCK OFF PEANUT SAUCE

INGREDIENTS:

* 1 cup of chunky peanut butter
* ½ cup of peanut oil
* ¼ cup of lemon juice
* ¼ cup of white wine vinegar
* ¼ cup of tamari sauce (Asian Market or Oriental Emporium, use soy sauce if you can’t get it)
* ¼ cup of water
* 2 teaspoons of fresh ginger
* 4 garlic cloves
* Half a fistful of fresh coriander, stalks and all
* 1 teaspoon of dried chili flakes

METHOD:

Throw in all the wet ingredients into a blender and then all the other ones. Blend it until it’s real smooth.

And don’t forget, there’s a wicked Movember Party in The Sugar Club next Friday on 11/11/11 – a big tribute to Nigel Tufnel and Spinal Tap called Movember Presents: Turn It Up To 11. So far, we have guest vocalists from the following acts performing: – Ham Sandwich – Dead Cat Bounce – Dirty Epics – The Blue Belles. From Radio Nova, both Marty Miller and Pat Courtnay will be hitting the stage too. Hit this for more info!

And why does that remind me of Halloween? Because we fucking invented it! Our semi pagan/semi Christian sorry asses invented the whole fucking holiday and even came up with the entire trick or fucking treat thing. Not the Yanks, as most people are led to believe. Before Columbus discovered America, nobody with pink skin ever set their sights on a pumpkin. Paddies would cut turnips out and stick candles in them at their doorways and windows. But when we went to the states we brought all that shit with us.

By the looks of things, we did a sterling job of spreading it round the rest of the world too.  There are Slovakians and Venezuelans who work here with me that celebrate Halloween by getting dressed up. So that’s literally millions of people from infants to auld fellas who will be donning fancy dress at parties or going door to door – and we don’t get any kickbacks?

MY SUGGESTIONS FOR GETTING THE IRISH ECONOMY ROCKING AGAIN – NO. 346 – Anybody non Irish who wears a bit of a costume over the next 3 days must pay a €10 Halloween tax to our government. I haven’t quite figured out the mechanics of how that could work just yet, but in the meantime let’s get stuck into some Halloween themed mixed beverages. These will all be available in the back stage bar in The Sugar Club from midnight tomorrow night for The Rocky Horror Picture Show and 9pm Sunday for The Cosmic Halloween Party.

REFRESHER SHOTS

This is ABSOLUT Vodka that’s been pimped out with one of the nation’s favourite sweeties – Refresher Bars. I’ve always been mad for these fuckers. God knows how many fillings I’ve lost because of them. We’ll be lashing these out at €20 for 4.

THE BILLY SCARY

Named after one of my favourite Dublin DJ’s who also happens to be headlining Sunday night. It’s made with ABSOLUT infused with apples and hawthorn berries and shaken with Karmine Apple juice from Tipperary, Cranberry Juice and cinnamon syrup. These will be lashed out for €7.50.

JAMESON HONEY JULEP

Honey and whiskey go together like Foster & Allen, Ant & Dec, Cocaine & Blowjobs, etc, etc… Any excuse to get them together works for me. This is my take on a classic Julep – I’ve replaced the bourbon with Jameson and the syrup with Galtee Irish Honey Syrup – yours for €7.50. The mint sends it over the edge.  I could drink these all day. In fact, I may well do at some point over the weekend.

Have a happy Irish Halloween – where ever the fuck you may find yourselves. Sláinte.

It ran for 5 days in The Astor Centre which also happens to have a massive offie in the basement – that came in handy.  The lads running the course are hands down – the supreme masters/Jedi Knights of the hard liquor and mixed drinks world. People like  Dale DeGroff – a man equally well known as The Cocktail King, he was our mixology teacher. David Wondrich – the leading spirits authority and writer on the planet, he gave us all our history and craft lessons.

Unexpectedly though, most of what we went through was actually tasting. Sampling shitloads of spirits, a few liqueurs and a fair amount of cocktails. Mr. Wondrich’s count was 160. That’s a wicked amount of gargoyle. It was agonizing having to spit any of  it out.  The spirits someliers who conducted the tastings had an outstanding ability to awaken flavour detection in all of us – and there were 50 attending.

In terms of what was imparted onto me from the course  – I repeatedly find myself using religious terminology in order to articulate it all, as it was genuinely a life changing experience. And while I have no doubt that even just the simple act of tasting 160 different drinks can bring any boozehound closer to God, everything else in between also had a great effect on my outlook towards the food and drinks industry.  I won’t bore you with a litany of all the different things I was taught and was inspired by, but I would like to say that BarSmarts reminded me that you should always stick to and improve what you love within your trade.  And the reason why I was put there in the first place , was that I put together a menu of cocktails that all featured Irish ingredients.  I now want to develop that concept further by conducting a wee experiment. For a trial period, I want to turn the backstage bar of The Sugar Club into a late night cocktail room that will only sell Irish cocktails. These drinks will be made exclusively of Irish alcoholic beverages or Irish mixers and produce. It kicks off tonight from 11pm with The Burlesque & Cabaret Social Club and will be available for tomorrow’s event with The GALAS and Sunday’s Twin Peaks is 21 Party. I’ll change the menu every week and it will only feature a couple of items.

Here’s what I’ll be lashing out this weekend:

WILD BLACKBERRY DAIQUIRI

When I got home, I went on a couple of berry picking expeditions to Wicklow. This is what I did with the blackberries.  I made a couple of litres of blackberry syrup and I put all the pulp into a load of bottles of Havana Club 3 year old.  This meant that the rum could infuse with the berries and impart a lovely colour.  Each of these daiquiris will contain 50 ml of the infused rum, some fresh lime juice and a good squeeze of the house made blackberry syrup.  We will be selling them for €7.50 a pop.

EMER’S APPLE PUNCH

My mother Emer gave me some lovely cooking apples from her garden. I think she was keen for me to make some jam. But as a great man somewhere, probably said, “Why make jam when you can make punch?”  So I chopped up the apples, stuck them in a container with ABSOLUT and a fistful of hawthorn berries for colour, so I could lash out some house infused apple vodka.  This is added to a mash of lemon rinds, orange bitters, Highbank Orchard Apple syrup from Kilkenny and topped off with Bulmer’s.  These will be sold for €20 each and it serves four.

ELDERBERRY GIN MARTINI

Been picking these Elderberries up until Tuesday of this week. They are absolutely all over the shop, from Ceannt Park in Crumlin to ditches in Enniskerry.  The ones I used for this drink came from a farmer’s field near Bray.  I basically made them into a syrup that was flavoured with cloves. The leftover pulp was then put into some bottles of Cork Dry Gin for extra colour and flavour. You take 50 ml of the gin – shake it up with the elderberry and clove syrup and some lemon juice to make one of these bad boys. Now I know that a load of you will read this and say to yourselves that you don’t like gin and therefore would never give this drink a go. So heres’ a challenge borrowed from Dale DeGroff himself – taste one, if you don’t like it, you don’t have to pay the €7.50 for it.

FINALLY, SHOW THIS MAN SOME LOVE!

His name is Chris McMillian, a native of New Orleans. He is a legendary bartender and founder of The Museum of The American Cocktail. Few people alive today have such an encyclopaedic knowledge of gargoyle. Yet such is his humility and love for his trade, he thought it would be still be worthwhile for him to attend the BarSmarts course.

When the time came for the class to learn more about the Mint Julep, the BarSmarts crew were quite happy to put Chris in charge as he performed this demonstration for all to see. We gave him a standing ovation. Poetry in sweet, boozy motion – the highlight of the whole course for me.

I would like to thank again the good folk in Irish Distillers Pernod Ricard for giving me the once in a lifetime opportunity of attending BarSmarts in NY. It was amazing.

]]> http://www.rockcookbook.com/backstage-cocktails/feed/ 3 http://www.rockcookbook.com/apple-wild-berry-shortcrust-pie/ http://www.rockcookbook.com/apple-wild-berry-shortcrust-pie/#comments Thu, 13 Oct 2011 23:07:33 +0000 admin http://www.rockcookbook.com/?p=1519 Been watching that new BBC telly chef bird a fair bit of late. It took me a few episodes before I really copped on to her whole vibe. And when I did, it was like a million eureka moments at once. “Oh I get it now – she’s like really, really sexually attractive……When’s the next Lorraine Pascale show on I wonder?”

She’s  an ex model turned baker and her producers have seemingly gone after that Nigella-esque style of getting her to give long suggestive stares to the camera as certain sequences fade out. It’s thankfully not as blatantly obvious as Lady Lovelace Lawson, who is prone to fellating anything that resembles half a mickey and whose midnight snacks attempt to give off the air of post coital munchies.  But because Nigella has never brought any energy to my loins – I never really noticed how her whole show was about getting blokes to fancy her and birds to despise her. And oddly enough, I sussed it for Lorraine’s.  The food is the excuse for you to perv at yet another fine ting on de telly.

Her new series features absolutely nothing that has not been done a billion times before.   A paella where she uses one of her favourite ingredients – chorizo – how daring!!  Then it cuts to her perfectly manicured herb garden, “I just love using fresh herbs.”  You could smell the book publishers and her management team at that point, looking to tick all the right middle class boxes for the BBC audience. I switched off then, or maybe just put it on mute – which is actually the best way to watch her show.

Having said that, she does seem to know how to bake. And on one particular occasion, I did seem to recall her showing the viewer how to make shortcrust pastry. I use it in this recipe, along with some elderberries and blackberries I picked last Saturday.  And if Lorraine Pascale has one good message, it is that baking can actually be a piece of piss with right recipe. This one worked for me.

APPLE & WILD BERRY SHORTCRUST PIE

Elderberries – pick these fuckers now while they’re in season, they’re free and tasty.

INGREDIENTS FOR THE PASTRY:

225 g of plain flour

125 g of chilled butter, not room temperature

1/2 teaspoon of salt

3 to 4 tablespoons of ice water

By the way, this if for a 23cm pie case. If you’re using a bigger one, figure out the sums first.

INGREDIENTS FOR FILLING:

750 g of peeled apples

125 g of elderberries – I picked these alongside a ditch in Wicklow, but they are fucking everywhere, usually where there are blackberries.

125 g of blackberries

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

1 tablespoon of icing sugar

METHOD FOR PASTRY:

Sift the flour into a bowl with the salt. Cut up the butter into little cubes and rub it into the flour with your hands until it is all crumb like.

Gently sprinkle 3 tablespoons of water and mix that in with a fork to combine and moisten. Then you have to press the dough into a ball and add any remaining water. You then have to wrap the ball of dough with cling film and bang it in the fridge for 30 minutes. While that’s on, peel your apples and then slice them into eighths and rub the cinnamon all round them. Sprinkle the sugar on the berries, mix them up (but not with the apples) and put aside.

After the dough has rested, dust off a dry clean space to roll it out. Roll half the pastry, until you get it nice and thin, but not too thin that it breaks when you lift it – you’ll suss it after a bit, trust me. Line your  tie pin with this and trim the bits on the side.Then press the side bits down with a fork, to give it a pattern.

Lash in the peeled apples evenly around the base.

Then you put in the berries and wet the edge of the pastry with a brush.

Roll out the other bit of pastry and cut them into  strips that you lay on top of the pie. These are what’s called lattices as far as I know. As I was a tad hungover after a Crazy P gig the night before and a little stuck for time, I just did a single strip lattice on mine – you can go apeshit on them by layering them or braiding them, look it up. Sprinkle with more sugar and throw it in the oven for about 55 minutes.

When mine came out, I drizzled it in elderberry and clove syrup – which I thought would look cool – that didn’t work,  it just made it look messy. But it gave it an extra spice which was kinda nice. I then had to put the pie into a tin to go on the Luas. I also had to gaffer tape the lid just to keep it on, which kinda made it look like a bomb. Not a good idea to bring something that looks like a bomb on public transport, but anyhoop.

]]> http://www.rockcookbook.com/apple-wild-berry-shortcrust-pie/feed/ 0 http://www.rockcookbook.com/crazy-ps-chicken-asparagus-risotto/ http://www.rockcookbook.com/crazy-ps-chicken-asparagus-risotto/#comments Fri, 07 Oct 2011 13:57:40 +0000 admin http://www.rockcookbook.com/?p=1509 It is not always easy to take any positives from the global financial meltdown that we are now in. But if I may, I would definitely say that the decimation of property shows on the telly has got to be a good thing. At one stage not so long ago, it was next to impossible to find a channel that wasn’t advising the viewer on how to maximize the sale of one home so that they could buy a second or third one.

With house prices continuing to plummet, TV producers have gone off the idea of making programs about real estate and seem to be making a million and one food shows instead. And such is their popularity, I increasingly find myself asking contributors to this column what their favourite food shows are. Danielle Moore, lead singer of Nottingham electronic group Crazy P, is a bit of a Masterchef girl. “But it’s gotta be the English one mind you. Have you seen the Australian one? It is utter rubbish! The standard of food is diabolical! And one of their judges commented on a chef’s dish ‘I have one word to say about this dish…very good’ Erm?…That’s two words…!”

Yikes! Wonder what she’ll make of the Irish Masterchef then? She’ll have plenty of time to offer up her critique, Crazy P are playing The Sugar Club, Dublin tomorrow night! Their fifth studio album “When We On” is out now on the 2020 Vision label. www.crazyp.co.uk

CHICKEN & ASPARAGUS RISOTTO

INGREDIENTS: Makes 4

2 cups of Arborio Risotto rice

1 large glass of white wine

Olive oil- few big glugs

2 cloves of garlic

1 large onion

Salt n Pepper

4 chicken thighs chopped into good sized chunks-I always use thighs but fillets will also suffice

1.5 pints of good chicken stock

6 spears of asparagus, chopped into 1 inch pieces

½ cup of freshly grated Parmesan

A good handful of rocket

METHOD:

You need a good pan, if possible a non stick, decently sized deep pan. Turn it up to a moderate heat and add 5 good glugs of olive oil in. Drop in the chopped onion and the finely chopped garlic, sauté for a few minutes, then remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. In the same pan, add the chicken and cook til it’s nicely golden brown. Again, remove and set aside.  Then you add the rice and fry that for a couple of minutes ensuring it is coated in enough olive oil and the grains have been slightly toasted. Put the fried onion and garlic back in and season with some salt and pepper. Add the glass of wine and allow that to simmer for a couple of minutes until it has reduced and the alcohol has evaporated. Meanwhile, boil up your chicken stock and slowly add this to the risotto recipe-I usually go one cup at a time. This usually takes about 20 – 25 minutes. Test the rice as you go along, if it’s chalky, you’re not there yet. When it’s soft but still a little al dente – you’re there, at that stage put the chicken and asparagus in and heat them through. Finish it all off by mixing the Parmesan into it and when plating up, drop some rocket on top of each serving.

Crazy P are playing The Sugar Club, Saturday October 8^th.

This piece was also published in today’s copy of The Irish Times.

You know when you go to a Chinese or Indian takeaway and they serve your grub in those clear plastic boxes? Well you can buy them in euro-shops and I used them to store all the berries we went on the hunt for. 90 minutes of labour later and I filled 15 of those boxes – with a nice range of totally wild and totally FREE berries.

This was my entire haul, I tried to make it look like one of those Garda drugs confiscation things you see on Crimeline. “The patrol car caught up with the youths on the Naas Dual Carriageway and confiscated over €200, 000 of illegal substances.” Except all that’s laid out is a kilo of hash, a bag of yokes and a load of glucose to cut their shit coke with.

First up is the elderberries. This is 5 takeaway boxes worth. You just pick them by the sprig, one clump at a time. There is fucking shitloads everywhere folks, like ALL OVER the shop. They taste kinda like a blackcurrant at first but then you get that distinct taste that comes with elderflower – hardly surprising considering they are the same plant. I’ll be making a syrup out of most of these to throw into  Elderberry Royales and other alcoholic delights.  They’ll also be going into a pear tart.

Blackberries – again, everywhere. Surprisingly only half seemed to be ripe and ready to rock, which is cool I suppose, coz I intend to go back for more.  They’re going into a bottle of clear rum.

Rosehips – these fuckers left me with a couple of cuts. Plenty of sharp thorns on their branches. Bring garden gloves if you wanna give this picking malarkey a go. I wanted to include these in a multiple berry jam that Ed made last year and said was amazing. But my dearly beloved plans to use them for medicinal purposes. Apparently they have some great healing properties, I wouldn’t know anything about that kinda shite. But herself does.

Hawthorn berries – all over the hedges that surround fields.  They need to be cooked down and mixed with sugar. My initial taste is telling me they could go well muddled with gin. But I could well be mistaken. Maybe a blended whiskey.

Rowan berries – you don’t even have to go to Wicklow to get these bad boys. They’re all over the canal and most parks. There are even two trees growing right outside the Crumlin Fire Brigade.  We picked these right off the main road. They will be headed for the jam pots.

Sloe berries – these were the most difficult to find and to pick. But fuck me it’s totally worth it. Sloe gin is one of the nicest drinks I’ve ever tasted, even just neat on it’s own. I have no idea why it is not more readily available or commercialized.

So anyhoop, these berries can be found all over the country.  It’s great craic picking them. It’s a nice vibe if you can get a gang out with you. And they cost fuck all.

This was my first time picking all these and once I knew what I was doing and looking for – it became so easy. Think back to the first time you went picking mushies and you turn round to your mates going, “I don’t see any? Just fucking grass lads!!??” Until you had that eureka moment and you find your first one and realize that they are in fact everywhere. That’s what it was like for me with the berries.

There are no secret locations either. Many of these trees were planted to keep cattle from wandering out of their fields and have been there for yonks. And that’s why as soon as you hit the countryside, you just can’t stop seeing berries. Of course, to a pleasure seeking hedonist like my dear self – it does mean that picking hysteria can kick in quite easily and all of a sudden you feel like an out of place crack whore on the hunt for a fix. So give yourself a time frame to operate in, we said we’d have to be back for dinner. 90 minutes was grand in the end, but I could have definitely done more.

1. WHENEVER YOU CAN, SHOVE A LEMON UP IT’S GICKHOLE.

2. IF IN DOUBT, WRAP IT IN BACON.

This week’s recipe doesn’t involve the auld citrus and sheriff’s badge maneuver, but it’s all about the bacon smothering. Why does covering something always work so well? Because it adds – smokiness, additional flavour and saltiness. It also locks in moisture and other flavours and of course, looks cool. As can be seen from these badboy prawns made last year.

Veg can be pimped out with a little bit of bacon wrap buzz – ie, shallots, asparagus, corn. The sweetness of fruit is joyously balanced with bacon – nectarines, apricots, dates, etc. And all poultry and most fish can benefit greatly from some sizzling bacon action.

Of course there have been a billion and one burgers that have been slobbered in a rasher or two. Red meat and bacon go down easier than a Baggot st brasser. But when I saw a photo that Ed Hick put up the other day, I have only had venison on my mind ever since.

A noble ending for Bambi

Game time folks! Get thine manky little paws on some deer meat. Dark, rich, intensely tasty bambi flesh.  Venison can really be enhanced with a little sweetness. My recipe here has a date syrup dressing that I used before on halloumi but it’s a wicked marinade for the venison.

MARINATED VENISON BITES WRAPPED IN BACON

INGREDIENTS:

4 tablespoons of date syrup

2 ablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar

1 loin of  Wild Irish Venison – most butchers will have them soon, if they don’t already

12 smoked slices of thin bacon

METHOD:

Whisk the date syrup, olive oil and vinegar together with a pinch or two of salt. This will work as a marinade and dressing.

Cut the venison into bite size chunks. Place them in a bowl and drop about 3/4 of the marinade in. Spread it all round the meat, then cover it and stick it in a fridge overnight.

Heat your oven/barbecue/griddle pan up to a medium heat.

Take out the venison and start wrapping them in the bacon. Hold each one together with a cocktail stick.

Cook them on out on whatever aparatus you’re using.  When they’re crispy and charred, they’re good to go, but you can check the venison with one first before you serve.  Venison is at it’s best when it’s rare in the centre.

Right before you serve, drizzle whatever is left of the marinade on top of them.

Musical highlights for me were:

The Chemical Bros – proper festival gargantuan tunes. Too many acts are put on the main stage and think they can pull it off. Wrong! Epic stages need epic acts.

Dave Clarke – never get bored with him, even after seeing him a hundred times.

Paul Kalkbrenner – who woulda thunk that the same country that gave us Hitler could produce someone so deadly?

Edible Highlights for me were:

Rathmullan House crab linguini – has anyone ever eaten better pasta at a festival? So good.

That Portuguese lad who was doing the pig on the spit. His roasted pork and apple sauce was amazing. There was another outlet from England that were doing the same, they were nowhere near as good. They were spit roasting theirs in closed ovens with smaller cuts of meat. The Portuguese lad had the whole pig on a charcoal barbie and it was really well seasoned – swine heaven.

The wild Irish mushrooms that the lads from Harry’s of Inishowen cooked up in the Theatre of Food. Not only did they show everyone how and where to pick them but they cooked them too. Butter fried local girolles – delish!

Of course it was the Theatre of Food where I was stationed on Saturday for my Booking The Cooks event. It was everything that I had hoped it would be – complete and utter food related lunacy.

To begin with, the two contestants in The Burger Cook Off – Michelle Doherty from Phantom FM and the comedian Danny Dowling were both given an opportunity to share some of their innermost secrets by playing a wee game I came up with called: TRUTH or FOOD DARE. Each of the contestants were given suitably awkward questions like, “have you ever NOT made it to the bathroom on time and had an accident?” If they didn’t want to answer the question they had to eat something from my surprise food box.  It contained things like stinking durian fruit, dried krill and crispy tinned clams.  Pretty fucking rotten – but neither Michelle nor Danny or even the audience had any problems eating them.  At one point I offered about 8 cocktails to any punters who would eat the clams. They were gone in seconds.

Me auld pal Clint Velour was on hand to play the piano and sing some food related songs. He was brilliant and had to accompany Danny Dowling as he sang along to “Food Glorious Food“, this was Danny’s booby prize for losing to Michelle in the burger cook off. Thankfully for Danny, his career in comedy is going swimmingly and he has no need to branch out to singing.  We just had enough time to blindfold 3 punters and do a blind taste test and belt out a great version of “Batterburger“.

I would like to thank Clint, Michelle and Danny for their input with the gig, it was so much craic. I would also like to thank the very, very good people in VSC Events who staged the whole Theatre of Food and for having me involved. I do hope that I didn’t lower the tone too much and nobody was overly offended. At least not to the extent that they’re gonna sue me.

Anyhoop, after the gig we went backstage to sink a shitload of gargoyle.  This was by far my favourite time of the whole weekend and was the best backstage craic I’ve ever that didn’t involve any crystal meth and conjoined albino midgets. To rock things on, the lads from Dungarvan Brewing Company were distributing free samples of their wicked beers. Then Ed Hick came out with a bottle of some seriously strong fraughan based alco concoction. We then moved on to the elderflower champagne and Damson Gin that Danny’s wife Lorraine made. Two hours of drinking guaranteed Irish beers, spirits and bubbly – the perfect way to kick off my first night of Picnic madness!

Damsons are a type of plum that the Romans brought with them from Damascus. They grow wildly all over Ireland + UK and if you lash them in a big jar with some gin and sugar, you are left with a superbly tasty drink.  They are in season right now, so go out and pick some! I can safely say that Lorraine’s Damson Gin is ze bollocks of ze dog. She was very kind enough to have shared her recipe with me. It needs time and a little bit of effort, but it so worth it.

LORRAINE DOWLING’S DAMSON GIN

INGREDIENTS:

Makes 700ml (1¼ pints)
Damsons – 450g (1 lb), stalks removed (you can also use Bullace plums)
Sugar – 60g (2 oz)
Gin – 70cl (1¼ pints) or Vodka

1 gallon Demijohn (sealable big glass jar) is ideal for 2.8l  (5 pints, 4 bottles) Bottles for final bottling. The original gin bottles are ideal.
Nylon coffee filter or muslin cloth.

METHOD:
Wash the damsons in cold water & freeze for 48hrs. Freezing serves two purposes. It causes the skins of the fruit to split removing the need to prick the fruit & it makes it far simpler to put the fruit into a demijohn. Add damsons, gin & sugar to a sealable bottle.

Shake bottle daily for the first two weeks, and then every week for the remaining period.
Keep for a minimum of 3 months. This should produce a deeply coloured rich & fruity liquor. For a richer slightly sharper taste leave for 4 months. The extra month will allow the flavour of the damson stones to further influence the final result. After 3 or 4 months, strain the liquor through the coffee filter or muslin cloth to remove any damson residue. Re-bottle and store in a cool dry place until required.
Don’t discard the used fruit! Served with cream or ice-cream it makes an luxurious desert perfectly suited to those who enjoy the drink. A word of caution, the used fruit is equal in strength to the damson gin!

I always tend to go a bit lighter on the sugar with the damsons as they are not as bitter as the sloes. A vanilla pod can be added as well
You can always add sugar syrup later. I’ve made it too syrupy in the past and it’s a pain to fix it.

I think once you get a taste for Damson Liquer it’s impossible not to go seeking out those elusive little buggers every year.

I would make it with both vodka and gin. Either one is perfect with elderflowerflower cordial/champagne with loads of ice.

The last earful I got was over in The Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin about 10 days ago. Twas a nice family day out and all was very civilized, until the Davis family primeval urges kicked into play. We spotted a few trees with some wicked looking berries on them – a quick iphone search revealed them to be mulberries. We went to town on them and went on a picking frenzy.

After a while we’d decided to try to stash a few for later consumption. That meant that we started depleting the tree’s lovely bounty quite quickly.  So I had to hop over a fence to get me hands on more berries. Of course that meant I had a park keeper give me shit for acting the maggot.  After the second reprimanding he just looked at me like I was some kind of spoiled five year old.

“I’m sorry fella, but they’re so good!”

Thankfully he appeared to agree and gave me an agreeable smile.  When I got home I decided to add them to what was left of my stash of my wild Irish blueberries (frockens/bilberries) that I picked in Wicklow.  Everybody’s a sucker for a soufflé, so I made a few out of the berries. You can replace the mulberries and frockens with raspberries and blueberries.

The mulberries mixed with the frockens. A fucking wicked combo, delighted that I resisted the initial temptation to mix them into a cocktail.

INGREDIENTS:

100 grams of stolen or preferably not stolen Mulberries

100 grams of wild Irish blueberries (frockens)

4 egg whites

3 tablespoons of sugar for egg whites

2 teaspoons of sugar for the berries

1 teaspoon of butter to grease the ramekins

METHOD:

Preheat oven to 200 degrees.

Butter the insides of six 1/2 cup ramekins

Lash all the berries in a blender, then strain through a fine mesh sieve to remove the seeds. Lots can get stuck on the under side of the sieve, be sure to brush them into bowl from there. You should get about 1/2 cup after straining.

Add 2 teaspoons sugar to the strained puree and set aside.

In a mixer, beat four egg whites until they begin to thicken. Continue to beat the whites while you slowly add 1/4 cup sugar. Mix until egg whites form stiff peaks and are glossy.

Add 1/3 of the egg whites to the puree and slowly fold in. Continue by adding the remaining egg whites, folding in until no white streaks remain. Don’t over do it though, keeping those air bubbles is crucial.

Spoon the soufflé batter into the ramekins, filling to the top and leveling off with the back of a spatula.

Put about an inch or so of hot warm water into a baking tray. Place filled ramekins into the baking tray and bake on a rack positioned in the bottom 1/3 of the oven.

Bake for 12 – 15 minutes or until the souffle rises a few cm above the rim.

Serve immediately with a sprinkle of powdered sugar and some frockens sprinkled on top.

The prepped ramekins, I fucked up a little by not keeping them neat on top. Neatness is not my forté.

The finished soufflé. Worth breaking public park by laws for.

Don’t forget that I’ll be down at The Leccie Piccie on Saturday at 6pm in The Theatre of Food. Myself and the good folk from The Ticket will be hosting a burger cook off between Phantom FM’s Michelle Doherty vs the Kiwi comedian Danny Dowling. I will be joined by my auld pal Clint Velour, it’s gonna be gas – come join us!

Give  Michelle some support by mailing the station on live@phantom.ie

Send Danny Dowling a tweet on @dannydowling

To the tune of Underworld’s Born Slippy – “Burger – Burger – Burger – MORE CHIPS”

In association with the good people in The Ticket, we  will be showing our love for the pattie by staging a burger cook off between the comedian Danny Dowling and the broadcaster and radio DJ Michelle Doherty.  The winner of the cook off gets to pick a song for the loser to sing karaoke style.  There will be musical interludes from Clint Velour, there will be a blind taste test for the audience to get involved in and there will be burgers.  To give you a sneak preview, here’s what the two contestants will be cooking.

MICHELLE DOHERTY’S BEEF BURGER WITH PINEAPPLE SALSA

She has a daily show on Phantom FM, has hosted two TV music programmes and seems to pop up at every gig and festival in the entire country. Michelle Doherty is most definitely, the unofficial Rock Queen of Ireland. That gives her perfect credentials to be able to put together the most commonly found food item at a concert. But don’t expect a greased out burger of cardboard and gloopy ketchup from Michelle – hers contains a tropical salsa and as it has no accompanying bread, is a low carb option. Who says Dr. Atkins and Rock Chicks have to be mutually exclusive?

BEEF BURGER INGREDIENTS: MAKES 3 PATTIES
1 x white onion – finely chopped
fresh breadcrumbs
1 x egg
400g lean mince meat
salt
black pepper
chilli flakes
flat Leaf Parsley

Pineapple Salsa Ingredients:
1 x pineapple – finely diced – about a third of the whole pineapple
2 x ripe tomatoes – chopped
1 x fresh red jalapeño chilli – deseeded and finely chopped
1 and a half inch piece of cucumber – finely diced
2 tablespoons fresh coriander – chopped
2 teaspoons of clear honey

Fresh Iceberg lettuce to serve

Burgers – combine the mince with the onion and egg. Add enough
breadcrumbs so that the mixture isn’t too sloppy. Add in the chopped
parsley and chilli flakes. Season with salt and pepper. Form the
burgers in your hands and place on a hot barbecue until cooked through.

For the salsa, mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. Taste and
season if necessary. Cover and leave for as long as possible for the
flavours to develop.

To serve – place a lettuce leaf on a plate, sprinkle a teaspoon of the
salsa on top, place the burger on this and top with more salsa.

Michelle will be broadcasting live all weekend from the Electric Picnic with Phantom 105.2.

DANNY DOWLING’S WILD VENISON BURGER: MAKES SIX PATTIES

The Kiwi comedian, Danny Dowling recently competed on Come Dine With Me Ireland where his outrageous pie fight and outstanding menu of wild pheasant, home bred pork and a sloe gin compote gave him all the right ingredients to win in Galway. At this time of year in his countryside home, he can hear the roar of young stags raising their heads scenting the air for willing does. It is that same urge to merge that he expects to hear under the Stradbally night sky, which is why his burger is all about the venison. And not tofu. Nothing about tofu makes you think about mating.

INGREDIENTS FOR BURGER:

800 g of shoulder cuts of minced wild venison

4 smoked streaky rashers

15 ml worcestershire sauce

4 g chopped parsley

2 g sage

1 crushed Thumb sized ginger

1 clove of Garlic

2 banana Shallots

salt and pepper to taste

1 egg, beaten to mix

6 ciabatta Buns

a handful of rocket mixed Leaves

INGREDIENTS FOR RELISH:

10 ml of balsamic vinegar

5g brown sugar

red onion

2 handfuls of Stradbally wild blackberries

splash of sloe gin

METHOD BURGER:

Cut the streaky smoked rashers into small strips and heat until they sweat.

Chop the shallots up finely length ways and heat them till they soften up.

Get a big arse bowl out, throw the following in and combine: venison, bacon, parsley, egg, sage, salt, pepper,  cooked shallots, minced garlic, juice from the ginger (do this by crushing it with a garlic mincer), Worcestershire sauce and a glug of olive oil. Make your patties and bang them in a fridge if you can to let them set.

RELISH:

Chop the red onion up nice and fine throw in a pot along with the brown sugar, balsamic vinegar and the Blackberries and a splash of Sloe gin.

Heat the grill, put them bad boys on there and go for it. While they rest, toast the ciabatta bread and drizzle a little olive oil on them. Smother on the blackberry relish, drop some rocket leaves in, throw the pattie in and roar to the stars!

Danny Dowling is onstage at 2pm in The Comedy Tent on Saturday.

Booking The Cooks @ Electric Picnic also takes place on Saturday at 6pm in The Theatre of Food in the Mindfield area. Do come along. Feel free to roar drunken obscenities or even words of encouragement to our burger chefs!

Should you ever find yourself taking the almighty plunge of doing an Irish stay-cation, keep one thing in mind: it will rain like fuck, constantly. There may be lingering shreds of optimism that could lead you to make unnecessary purchases like sun block and beach towels. Take those shreds of optimism and shove them up your gick,  where they may be used for another occasion. Because if you go on holiday here, the weather will be diabolical. Fact.

The single greatest facebook group ever is: I LOVE SUMMER IN IRELAND, IT’S MY FAVOURITE DAY OF THE YEAR It’s funny/not funny, coz it’s so bloody true. I recently just returned from a stay-cation in the not so sunny Sligo. A week in Enniscrone. Being the eternal idiot that I am, I brought a picnic mat, bermuda shorts and flip flops. What I should have brought with me was water resistant goretex socks, jocks and disposable willy warmers.

But I would be an even bigger fool, if I were to let something so trivial as the weather get me down when I’m on me hols. There was plenty of craic to be had down in the town where The Black Pig Festival was taking place and there’s always a healthy dose of surfers in Enniscrone to keep it lively. And besides, I have good friends there, who for years have done their utmost to keep me safely away from them. They were finally due a visit……

It was there that I was introduced to the wonderfully zingy, wild horseradish. My friends live right behind the beach in Enniscrone and reef out the horseradish from the sand dunes.  It’s the roots you’re after, in much the same way as ginger. It is cleaned, peeled and then put through a coffee grinder so it can be shredded. To preserve it, you place it in a jar with some white wine vinegar.  I was very kindly given some as a parting gift and I did my best not to put it into a drink. But I fucked up and stuck it into a Bloody Mary.  Having said that, it’s pretty bleedin’ tasty.

THE BLACK PIG BLOODY MARY

Isn’t this a lovely photo? Barbara McCarthy took it!

INGREDIENTS:

1 teaspoon of pickled wild Horseradish

50ml of ABSOLUT vodka

100ml of tomato juice

2 sweet cherry tomatoes

1/2 teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce

INGREDIENTS FOR GARNISH:

1 circular slice of  pan fried black pudding

1 cherry tomato

1/2 teaspoon of celery salt, spread on a saucer to go on the rim of the glass

METHOD:

Chill your glass with some ice.

Muddle the cherry tomatoes with the horseradish in your cocktail shaker, til the tomatoes are nicely squashed.

Throw the vodka, tomato juice and Worcestershire sauce into the shaker with some ice. Seal it and then shake it up.

If like me, you like a drink with bits in it, then do a single strain. If you like it clean and smooth, then muddle the tomatoes and horseradish a bit more and then do a double strain.

To garnish, gently pierce the black pudding with a bamboo skewer and push it through so that it stays on the stick. Then stick a cherry tomato on top of that. Place skewer into the drink.

P.S. I would like to thank everyone for voting for me in The BarSmarts Mix With The Best Competition. I won! The judges gave me their vote in the end. I’m heading off to NY at the end of September to attend a master’s cocktail course taught by the Jedi Master’s of the business.  Plus I will be able to see my American family for the first time in over 2 years. Very happy camper!!

If you fancy having a look at my winning cocktails, here they are.  They all contain wild Irish ingredients.

Fay was reviewing the TV3 show Celebrity Head Chef that featured the two personalities.  I think I would have preferred to pick out my arsecheek  hairs with a blunt tweezers than watch that garbage, even with my beloved Wagner in it.  It was all about some kind of cooking contest that the schlebs had to be involved in and Gallagher was their mentor. Twink won it. And it has spurred on a renewed interest in the cult that surrounds her. A very small, but exceptionally vocal minority would like to see her in the Aras and not just for a panto photocall.  They want Twink aka Adele King, to be the next president of Direland.

For some people,  there just wouldn’t be enough glamour in potential candidates like Dana or Gay Byrne.  And I would be very much in agreement with them. I for one would happily give Twink my vote. What this country truly needs as a head of state,  is a no nonsense, brass necked and sharp tongued PR Monster. Someone who can get out there and rustle up some international headlines. It matters not how or why she may get Eire into the news – just as long as we’re mentioned.  If she were to conduct another Mickeygate with the likes of Berlusconi or Pope Benedict – billions of tourists would flock here  in search of the Golden Girl herself, Barbie’s Granny – our one and only Twink.

Now that Norris is out of the race, she has to be a defo to be our next prez. And that is why, she is now residing in my attic making icing  sugar sculptures where she will remain until all you lot vote for me in The BarSmarts Mix With The Best Challenge.  If I win the online ballot, I’ll be sent to NY to attend a master’s cocktail course and see my American family.  If I don’t win the online ballot, Twink will forever remain a captive in my gaff where she will spend her remaining days making icing sugar sculptures and baking pink glittery cupcakes.

So the choice is yours. Vote for Oisin Davis and The Sugar Club  in the cocktail competition and I’ll release Twink to let her for the presidency.  Or you can choose not to vote and leave her in the icing sugar sculpture fortress in my D 12 attic.

Joking and fabricated stories of kidnapping aside, I would greatly appreciate your vote in this competition. You vote for me by downloading the app, sharing my drinks selection on your wall and putting up a comment. And if you do that, I will enter you into a draw to name a Sugar Club cocktail after you AND give you a pair of tickets to see SMASH HITS play on August 26th.

PLEASE TAKE SPECIAL NOTICE OF THE BIT THAT SAYS “YOUR NAME HERE”

Here is yours truly making one of the cocktails I entered into the competition, which incidentally, all contained wild Irish ingredients. It is called Ed Hick’s Whiskey Elderflower and it’s dead easy to make.

]]> http://www.rockcookbook.com/vote-for-me-or-twink-gets-it/feed/ 1 http://www.rockcookbook.com/maykays-2-course-dinner/ http://www.rockcookbook.com/maykays-2-course-dinner/#comments Thu, 04 Aug 2011 22:02:15 +0000 admin http://www.rockcookbook.com/?p=1382 There is no point in talking about food with Rockstars unless you can bring up the topic of hangover cuisine. MayKay of Fight Like Apes has an extremely enlightened view on the subject, “Healthy people don’t drink, because healthy people won’t lower themselves to a true hangover meal.” For the record, she should know that when women make these kinds of statements, men fall in hopelessly in love with them. Fact.

But her culinary repertoire doesn’t begin and end with black pudding and streaky bacon. MayKay has been on a bit of a mission of late to expand her gastronomic experiences by cooking more at home. Her favourite meal of late consists of two very civilized courses of food, a smoked fish pate followed by a citrus filled chicken dish. She has taken the time from an exceptionally busy summer festival tour to share the recipes with us.

SMOKED MACKEREL PATE:

INGREDIENTS:

2 x smoked mackerel. You can get these really cheaply in Aldi, and they’re boned which makes things a lot easier

100g cottage cheese

120g soured cream

Juice of 2 lemons

Ground nutmeg

Salt and pepper

METHOD:

* This is really easy, take all the ingredients and put them in a blender. The amount of each is just down to personal preference, depending on whether you like a thicker or more liquid texture.

* Serve with well toasted granary bread, watercress and wine. I’m not going to pretend to tell you which one.

LEMON CHICKEN AND PILAU RICE

INGREDIENTS:

6 Chicken Thighs

3 lemons

Half a teaspoon each of Rosemary and thyme

Tablespoon of Butter

Pinch of Pepper

* Marinade chicken thighs in lemon juice, zest and herbs for a couple of hours.

Put thighs in a roasting tin and rub with butter. Roast until the skin is as crispy as you want it to be. Add the marinade in if you like, it can turn into a very nice sauce at the end.

For the pilau rice you need :

Basmati rice

Vegetable stock

Butter to cook

3 Cardamom pods

4 Whole cloves

Saffron threads

Cinnamon stick

Bay leaf

1 onion

A handful of chopped coriander

* Chop the onion well and add sweat in a good bit of butter until it’s soft.

Add the rice and coat in the butter and onion. Add a few cardomom pods, a cinnamon stick, a teaspoon of saffron threads, a few whole cloves and a bay leaf. Stir in to the rice.

Add the stock and boil until the rice is done, whatever you consider ‘done’ to be. Serve with coriander.

If you would prefer to be seen reading a more intelligent publication so that you’re not shown to be skiving off in work and acting the maggot, you can read this same piece in today’s copy of The Ticket in The Irish Times.

Throughout the ages, there have been many ways to measure the full extent of one’s manliness. For some reason or other, they have usually involved mass murder.  Like how many enemy scalps  could an Apache Warrior muster up on the battlefield. Nepalese fighters used to collect the severed heads of their foes, until they became too cumbersome, so they decided just to chop off their ears.  There is a village in Colombia where teenage males have to fuck a donkey if they are to prove themselves as real men. I shit you not.

Round these parts, in today’s age anyway, it’s a whole lot easier.  A boy becomes a man when he drinks his first flagon and can pretty much maintain that honour, provided he supports an English soccer team/watches Top Gear and fantasizes about airhead wags. For many others such as my dear self, who don’t like Limey footie and Jeremy Clarkson, there are other ways to suss out one’s blokey skills. Like, can you get some lumps of minced meat and magically turn them into something delicious? That’s why I thought it would be a bit of craic to stage a burger cook off, to test the nouveau geezer skills of two lads by the name of Eoin Butler and Niall Byrne. The fact that one from was from The Irish Times and the other from The Indo made it all the more interesting. A Broadsheet Burger Battle Royale, as it were, except the two lads were far too sound and civilized for it to get really nasty. Maybe next time I should stage a healthy salad cook off between U Magazine and Woman’s Way – that would be a savage bitch slap.

The Cook Off was all part of last night’s For Food’s Sake event. It was a lot of fun, the next one is on September 29th and we’re gonna screen another movie – suggestions welcome!

Myself and the two lads during the cook off. It was emotional.

Niall Byrne (Nialler9) had the winning burger and it was excellent, although I would have happily devoured Eoin’s one too – but as he was the loser his forfeit was to sing a Karaoke song in front of the whole audience. It was “Saturday Night” by Whigfield, and there was barely a dry eye in the house.

Anyhoop, Niall was good enough to share his winning recipe.  I would recommend a nice classic daiquiri to go with it. Here’s me showing you how to make one in under 2 minutes.

NIALLER9′S LAMB BURGER

INGREDIENTS:

From my own experience, when you hand a mic to a chef in front of an audience, one of three things will happen:

1. They will be shy as fuck, stumble over every word and make a complete dog’s mickey (or should it be dinner?) of their speech.

2. They will be a wee bit tipsy/blind drunk and suddenly realize that the sound of their own voice excites them as much as seeing their name on a menu and won’t shut the fuck up.

3.  They will go on a total promowhore-fest by listing off every single item on their menu and tell everyone about the price of  every  special offer they’ve ever done.

Most of the chefs who spoke that night fell into one of the 3 categories. Except for a certain Waterford lad named Paul Flynn of The Tannery Resturant & Cooking School.  After he briefly told everyone about the soup he made (chilled almond and garlic) he thanked the Association for giving him the opportunity to cook that night for such an esteemed crowd and then said:

“Now that I’ve got your attention folks, I would really like to take the time to share with you, some deep and meaningful thoughts that have kept me going throughout the years….”

He then launched into:

“We don’t have to take our clothes off, to have a good time. (PAUSE) We can dance and party, all night (PAUSE) and drink some…cherry wine.  (LONG PAUSE) Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-Na- (PAUSE) Na – Na- Na-Na-Na.”

Never before, have the words of Jermaine Stuart ever had such a poignant resonance.  There seemed to be a few in the room who didn’t get it. I guess there’s no accounting for those who don’t know their 80’s tunes. Losers.  But the point is, Paul Flynn is fucking deadly. He stole the show by cracking a particularly good gag.

His Dungarvan establishment is well known, not just for it’s fine cuisine but for the many who picked up excellent cookery lessons there where he is known for imparting love and knowledge for fresh, well made Irish fare. And you can see that in his latest RTE 1 programme, Paul Flynn: Irish Food. It’s been on the last few weeks at 7pm and I for one have been really enjoying it. There’s no bullshit with him. The food is all really appealing, yet very approachable and affordable.  Highlights for me so far have his lamb shank stew and the iced meringue cake with lemon curd.

He’s also shown the viewers how to take classic Irish meals and give them a modern twist, as you can see from his recipe below for bacon collar. Anyhoo, he’ll be in The Sugar Club next Thursday for the third installment of For Food’s Sake – a bi monthly night of food tasting and discussion. Paul will be on a panel that includes: Helen McDaid, Food and Hospitality Innovation Manager, Failte Ireland, Birgitta Curtin, Burren Smokehouse, Burren Eco-Tourism Network & Burren Slow Food Festival Hugo Arnold, food writer, restaurant consultant & advisor to Good Food Ireland. The topic of discussion will be: FOOD TOURISM – Can Ireland eat it’s way out of trouble?

After the discussion, Paul will be chatting to the food writer Aoife Carrigy about his life’s work and continues to inspire him.   There will also be loads of tasty FREE food to be had at the back of the club and I will be staging an Irish Times vs Irish Independent Burger Cook Off.

It would be great if you could join us. It’s only a fiver in and kicks off at 7pm. Facebook invite here.

PAUL FLYNN’S BACON COLLAR WITH SOFT MASH AND AUTUMN VEGETABLE SLAW

Ingredients for the Bacon:
1.5kg bacon collar
1 onion
1 carrot
1 bay Leaf

Ingredients for the Mash:
Potatoes
Milk
Cream
Butter
Freshly grated nutmeg
Salt & pepper

Ingredients for the Slaw:
1 carrot
1 red onion
3 sticks celery
Half fennel bulb
Half raw beetroot
150ml vinaigrette (Basic vinaigrette is 3 parks sunflower oil, 1 part olive oil, 1 part vinegar, mustard & honey)

Method

Method for the Bacon: Place bacon, onion, carrot, bay leaf & peppercorns in a large pot and cover well with water.

Bring to the boil then reduce to a simmer and cook for 1.5 to 2 hours until a knife can be inserted without too much resistance.

Method for the Mash: To make the soft mash, prepare mash as usual but be more generous with the cream and butter to achieve a rich and soft mash.

Method for the Slaw: For the slaw thinly slice all the vegetables and dress with vinaigrette and season.

Allow to infuse for 20 – 30 minutes.

Porn stars probably look at sex toys and ponder, “Would this vibrating pink leather whip make my next scene look more kinky?”

I often see ingredients on a shelf and think to myself, “I wonder would that work in a cocktail and how fucked up would it make me?”

Not so long ago, I started having more and more of those types of thoughts. They were brought on by an encounter I had with the chef, Enda McEvoy. He heads up The Cook Wild Project, where people get together to forage for fresh ingredients round Ireland and cook them up in wicked meals.

Enda also had a stint in Noma in Copenhagen, now regarded as the world’s no. 1 restaurant. Every morning, all the chefs hit the local woodland and beach areas on the hunt for produce that they use that very day on the menu.

Back in May, Enda was invited to The Sugar Club by the For Food’s Sake crew to give a chat about his work in Noma and what he’s been up to since then. When he started talking about the large array of local wild produce here, I said to meself, “I wonder would that work in a cocktail and how fucked up would it make me?”

So when the time came for me to come with up five cocktails for a competition, I decided I would endeavour to find some wild Irish ingredients and incorporate them into some tasty mixed beverages. Yet when you’re a total urban degenerate such as I, there were certain restrictions. Like how the hell am I gonna be able to find wild, unfarmed delights when I’m stuck in town 99% of the time? But luckily for me, help was at hand with some great friends. Ed Hick had given me a 2 litre bottle of elderflower cordial recently. He had picked the flowers around Bray head. He also gave me some wicked Sloe gin with sloe berries that were picked in Inismaan back in October and had been sitting in the gin since then, drool…..! And as if that weren’t enough, he had just been down in Wicklow picking wild frockens, otherwise known as wild bilberries or blueberries and gave me a big punnet of them. I had never tasted these before and it was a revelation, they’re like more intense blueberries and right now is the perfect season to pick them, all round Ireland. Free blueberries that normally have to be flown in from Chile? Nice!

I also badgered, pestered and seriously wrecked the heads of my For Food’s Sake colleague Aisling Rogerson, Karen Liston, Liam @ Evergreen, the aforementioned Enda McEvoy and many, many others on Facebook and Twitter. Between all of them, I managed not just to get fantastic advice but I scored some Juniper berries and pine needles from Tipperary and home grown rhubarb from Rialto.

Once I had all ingredients at hand, I set about fusing them all with lovely bits of gargoyle – namely ABSOLUT Vodka, Jameson Whiskey, Cork Dry Gin, Havana Club 3 Year Old and Mumm Champagne. I am quite chuffed with the results. Meeting Enda and learning about his approach to food was very enlightening.  All I wanted to do with the drinks below was to incorporate some of what he had imparted onto us that night and celebrate amazing wild Irish produce.

LOUGH DERG MARTINI

Apparently the juniper berries and pine needles I used in this wee drink,  came from trees along the shores of Lough Derg in Tipperary.  I hope that’s nowhere near where Féile used to take place, as that area must be still be an environmental catastrophe.

Half the berries were soaked in Cork Dry Gin and the other half were pickled in malt vinegar. The pine needles were infused with sugar syrup, they counteract the coriander syrup really well.

INGREDIENTS:

- 5 gin soaked juniper berries

- 5 pickled juniper berries

- 50ml of Cork Dry Gin

- 50ml of de-carbonated Schweppes tonic water

- 15ml of coriander seed syrup

- 15ml of pine needle syrup

- Maldon smoked sea salt

METHOD:

- Chill martini glass.

- Lightly muddle juniper berries with the two syrups, just for about 10 seconds.

- Rim the martini glass with some pine needle syrup and then some smoked sea salt.

- Add the gin, tonic and some ice into the shaker. Shake vigorously.

- Double strain into the glass, serve.

ED HICK’S WHISKEY ELDERFLOWER

A week rarely goes by in my house where we don’t dine on some of Hick’s pork products. Ed and his brother Bren make the best sausages in Ireland and cure and smoke amazing bacon and ham. Ed is also mad keen on wild Irish ingredients. This is what I did with the elderflower cordial that I didn’t demolish after Body & Soul.

The Bunratty Mead is a honey based liqueur. Together with the elderflower they balance the sharp, salty preserved lemon. The whiskey gels it all together to make a very Irish, sweet and slightly savoury  cocktail.

INGREDIENTS:

- 35ml of wild Irish elderflower cordial (you can buy some if you can’t pick the flowers and make your own)

- 50ml of Jameson

- 25ml of Bunratty Mead

- 1 slice of preserved lemon (you can get these in Halal shops)

METHOD:

- Chill a martini glass with some ice.

- Cut the lemon into small pieces, remove any pips.

- Place lemon in shaker with elderflower cordial and stir quickly.

- Pour the whiskey and mead into the shaker, drop in some ice and shake vigorously for about 30 seconds.

- Strain and pour. If you prefer not to have any little bits of lemon, double strain it.

WILD IRISH DAIQUIRI

The people of Ireland have been enjoying frockens/bilberries/fraughans for centuries. In fact, there is an old Pagan tradition to go foraging for them on the last Sunday in July, when they are at their peak. That’s only a week away folks, so you have been warned.

I am happy to say that they go beautifully with Havana Club 3 Year Old rum. Ordinarily, one would use a sugar  to sweeten a daiquiri but for this one, I stayed more local and opted for Highbank Orchard syrup. Aisling practically lived on this gear when she did the Eat Only Irish Week, it tastes fucking deadly and made with their own homegrown apples.

INGREDIENTS:

- 2 tablespoons of frockens (they are all over Ireland at the moment)

- 35ml of Havana club 3 Year Old

- 20ml of Highbank Orchard Syrup

- 10ml of freshly squeezed lime juice

- honeysuckle to garnish

METHOD:

- Combine all ingredients in a blender with about 4 ice cubes. Blitz and pour.

- Garnish with some fuchsia honeysuckle.

INISMAAN SLOE GIN PUNCH

Sloe berries that were picked on the Aran Islands back in October and immediately placed in Cork Dry Gin. If the very thought of that doesn’t give you a mouth-gasm, then go fuck a duck.

I was extremely careful about how to approach this AMAZING Sloe Gin. The teeniest drops were added to various bits and bobs, eventually I discovered that it compliments nice cloudy apple juice really well.

INGREDIENTS:

- 50ml of Sloe Cork Dry Gin

- 5 gin soaked sloeberries

- 25ml of ABSOLUT

- 50ml of Highbank Apple Juice (or other Irish pressed apple juice)

- 10 ml of Highbank Orchard syrup

METHOD:

- Muddle two sloe berries with the syrup very lightly for just a couple of seconds in your shaker.

- Combine with ice and all other ingredients.

- Shake for 30 seconds.

- Pour into a small rock glass and garnish with 3 speared sloe berries.

RHUBARB AND ELDERFLOWER BELLINI

This was as local as I could get for a champagne cocktail – rhubarb from a garden in Rialto and elderflower from Bray. There’s a little bit of ABSOLUT in there to liven it up a tad.  In fact, adding vodka to anything is always a capital idea in my book.

There will be enough here to do you for the whole bottle of bubbly.

INGREDIENTS:

- 1 stick of Irish rhubarb, very much in season at the moment

- 70 ml of wild Irish elderflower cordial (you can buy some if you can’t pick the flowers and make your own)

- 70 ml of ABSOLUT vodka

- 1 chilled bottle of Mumm Champagne

METHOD:

- Get a blender and blitz the rhubarb, elderflower and vodka into a puree.

- Place a tablespoon of the puree into a champagne flute and top it up with the bubbly, a little bit at a time.

- Garnish each glass with a small stick of fresh rhubarb.

If you have any questions about any of these, do please let me know. I’d be happy to do my best to answer them or tell you to just hit google.

There will be a public vote on this cocktail competition, so be prepared for a fuckload of spam coming your way from me. Apologies in advance, but the prize is a week long intense training course with the Bar Smarts lads in NY. They are the world’s leading spirits experts and I happen to think they are legendary demigods. The course ordinarily costs $10k so it would be deadly to get it!

ALL PHOTOS WERE TAKEN BY BARRY EGAN (NOT THE ONE FROM THE SINDO)

]]> http://www.rockcookbook.com/five-wild-irish-cocktails/feed/ 7 http://www.rockcookbook.com/bressies-carne-asada/ http://www.rockcookbook.com/bressies-carne-asada/#comments Fri, 08 Jul 2011 10:59:36 +0000 admin http://www.rockcookbook.com/?p=1316 There is one question that I like to ask the featured acts for this site which is always guaranteed an amusing response, “What’s the worst thing you can eat before going on stage?” Bressie, the lead singer of The Blizzards who is now on a solo project at present, gave me the best reply so far, “I once cleared the entire front row of our show with a belch, from the result of a heavy pesto pasta dish. I disgusted myself and hence, never did this again.” Considering he used to play rugby for Leinster, I’d say his amplified burps could bring down the roof of a small church.

As a Leinster fan myself, the fact that he played for them further endears me to him and his music. His flair for Mexican food is pretty bleedin’ impressive too.

Bressie is a bit of a food fanatic by all accounts. This could be down to his stint as a professional athlete, or perhaps due to the fact that he used to live with a chef. When he’s hungover, he loves a nice bit of chicken and chorizo pasta with loads of garlic bread and cheese.  The only items that are ever off his menu are fish due to an allergy and oddly enough potato waffles which he has always hated. In fact, as a child, his sister would torment him by chasing him round the house with them. Freud might have said it was the waffles that drove him to be such a successful artist. Or perhaps it was, Captain Bird’s Eye?

BRESSIE’S CARNE ASADA

This is a Mexican recipe for marinated, grilled beef served in tortillas. It’s not your run of the mill taco, but a flavourful and delicious meal that is great for any occasion.
INGREDIENTS:
•    2 pounds skirt steak
•    12 flour tortillas
•    1/2 cup tequila
•    1/4 cup lime juice
•    1/4 cup lemon juice
•    1/4 cup orange juice
•    4 cloves garlic crushed
•    1 medium onion chopped
•    2 teaspoons black pepper
•    1/2 teaspoon salt
•    1 cup salsa
•    1 cup guacamole
•    2 teaspoons Tabasco

METHOD:
Mix juices, garlic, onion, tequila, Tabasco, salt and pepper in a bowl. Add meat and marinate both sides. Cover and refrigerate, turning meat over occasionally. Let steak marinade for 6 to 8 hours. Preheat grill. Place a few drops of water on each tortilla, stack and wrap in tin foil. Place on grill. Remove meat from marinade, reserving marinade. Place on grill. Turn steak and tortillas once during cooking. Brush steak with remaining marinade. Cook to your liking (12 to 15 minutes for medium-rare). Cut into thin slices. Place a few slices of steak on each tortilla with salsa and guacamole and serve.

You can catch Bressie live at Oxegen in the Heineken Green Spheres Stage at 4.45pm.

If you prefer not to be seen reading a site such as mine, this piece can also be read in The Ticket, the culture and entertainment guide of The Irish Times.