“If Marxie Heller is so fuckin’ smart, how come he’s so fuckin’ dead?”

This reminds me of elderflower and the Irish. Because we love going off and telling the world and his uncle about how amazing we are. But if the Irish are so fucking smart, how come we don’t have shitloads of elderflower farms everywhere?

Here is something that is effectively a weed. It is seriously robust and will grow anywhere in the country with zero help from fertilizers or pesticides. And it produces a summer flower that makes an amazing cordial and in the autumn, it gives us a the vitamin C packed super fruit, elderberries. Of course in countries that have proper intelligence in the populace, such as Sweden, Norway and England – there are elderflower and elderberry farms. You can go into IKEA anytime you want and they’ll have elderflower cordials, elderflower and orange marmalade and little capri sun stylee elderflower kiddie drinks. The Brits have Belvoir cordials that include elderflower from their own farm and even the French have cashed in on it by creating St. Germain, an elderflower liqueur.

So why aren’t the Paddies coining it in with the elderflower buzz? Because we’re stupid saps who do things like build more and more gaffs even when there were 200,000 vacant homes in the country. What we should have been doing, was planting elderflower farms. Ireland could be the elderflower and elderberry capital of the world right now.  We should be manufacturing cordials, wines, ice creams and liqueurs with this shit and out there flogging it with the expediency and ruthlessness of a Mexican cartel.

Being somewhat obsessed with mixing local ingredients with the auld gargoyle, I can give you a myriad of ways of bringing elderflower into cocktails. But like most things that you consume, they are best paired with other produce from the area. So it should come as no surprise that elderflower goes stupendously well with homegrown whiskey. And not only that, you can make large quantities of it into a rather nice punch.

We are about to come into primetime for elderflower season. Get your heads round it and get out there and pick some. Click this recipe here to learn how to make some cordial. It will keep for ages if you refrigerate it.

I will be up at the Inishfood Festival this weekend continuing this rant and showing guests how to use wild Irish elderflower in other cocktails as well as more wild Irish mixed drinks. Myself and Hayden Lambert from one of the world’s greatest cocktail bars, The Merchant Hotel in Belfast will be making up a big batch of the aforementioned elderflower whiskey punch for guests to enjoy before the European Rugby Cup Final. If you fancy a trek up north, come join us. And don’t forget , right before our demo, myself and the For Food’s Sake crew will be on hand to host a discussion about the future of Irish fish. Click this here for full details. It’s gonna be a wicked weekend, I can’t wait to get stuck in.

So anyhoop, here’s how you make the punch.

ELDERFLOWER & IRISH WHISKEY PUNCH

INGREDIENTS:

1 bottle of Jameson or Power’s or Paddy or Tyrconnell

250 ml of elderflower cordial

3 lemons

300 ml of Highbank Orchard Apple Juice – if you can’t get this, too bad for you, it’s the best apple juice in the world. Try another proper Irish apple juice like Karmine if you can’t get Highbank Orchard.

150 ml of sparkling water

METHOD:

Rinse your lemons and go over them with a hard vegetable brush. The chances are there’s gonna be wax on your lemons. Doing this will take off some of it at least.

Take out a vegetable peeler and peel the lemons. Put the peel in a pestle and mortar and muddle them with about 30 ml of the cordial. Warning, the outstanding aroma that this produces may leave you somewhat aroused.  Just sayin’.

Leave the peel to sit with the cordial for about an hour so. Squeeze the lemons. Put it all into a big jug with the whiskey, lemon juice, the rest of the cordial and apple juice. Give it a good auld stir for at least a minute.

Strain the lot into a punch bowl and add in the sparkling water for a little fizz. Ladle into iced glasses or cups.

So anyhoop,  this is a dish that takes bugger all time but it’s cool if you can marinade the chicken thighs overnight. It’s got a nice kick from the ginger, the cooking wine gives it depth, the mushrooms give it an earthiness and the sweet potatoes balance all that out. Egg noodles or a bit of brown rice work well with it too but only in small doses as it is quite filling.

CHINESE CHICKEN AND SWEET POTATO HOTPOT

INGREDIENTS:

750 g of chicken thighs – get your butcher to take the bones out. If you can’t get thighs, fillets will suffice

3 tablespoons of Chinese cooking wine. Every house should always have a bottle of this at hand

2 sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced

1 tablespoon of soy sauce

2 tablespoons of peanut oil

1 teaspoon of sesame oil

5 cm piece of ginger, shredded

a good fistful of dried Chinese Mushrooms – get the ones that are quite wide

3 scallions, coarsely sliced in diagonals

150 ml of good chicken stock

3 teaspoons of corn flour

METHOD:

Pat the chicken dry with some paper towel. Mix the soy sauce and cooking wine and put it in a bowl with the chicken. Cover it up and refrigerate overnight.

Soak the mushrooms in a glass of water for half an hour. Drain them over a bowl and retain all the liquid. Squeeze them dry keeping all liquid and then pat them dry with paper towel.

Drain the chicken and keep the marinade. Heat half the peanut oil in a big fuck off pot and start frying up the chicken. Don’t overcrowd the pot. When each piece is a little crispy, lift it out with a slotted spoon and put it aside.

When the chicken is done, stick in the remaining peanut oil and all the sesame oil and fry the ginger for about ten seconds with a quick stir. Then you add in the mushrooms and fry until they colour. Once they’re done quickly fry the scallions then add in the marinade, mushroom liquid and chicken stock.

Bring it to a very high heat, then put the chicken back in along with the sweet potatoes. Put the heat on low, stick the lid on and leave it for about 15 minutes or so. When the sweet potatoes are soft, it’s done.  At this point take 2 ladles of the cooking stock and mix that in a bowl with corn flour. Stir that up real good and lash it back into the stew with a careful stir.

Place some noodles or rice at the bottom of a nice serving bowl, pour the stew on top and garnish with more scallions and s0me toasted sesame seeds. If you have any Tsingtao left, now would be a good time to demolish them.

But back down on Planet Earth, where such a notion as complete harmony in the home place is rarely found, the best that us mere mortals can work towards is the quiet life. In my estimation, that amounts to simply doing whatever I’m told when I’m told and to always make a consistent effort in keeping the gaff clean.  And that’s why I decided not to knock up this week’s recipe in the club and not at home, where I usually make a gargantuan mess even if I’m just lashing out a slice of toast.

I also thought that I would have to be boiling up rhubarb for an hour or so to make up some cocktails, but then I remembered – muddling fresh rhubarb is a whole lot nicer than using the stewed stuff that your granny would give you on ice cream. This week’s recipe is a martini using wonderfully fresh local and seasonal rhubarb. When you balance it out with sugar and whack it out with the botanicals you get in gin – it’s really spot on.  I never bother with rhubarb unless it’s Irish and in season. Now is the time to grab some.  We’re selling a rhubarb, honey and Jameson cocktail in The Sugar Club this weekend that is lurvely.  I am getting even deeper into the mode of going Irish and local as I prepare for my maiden journey to Donegal to partake in The Inisfood Festival. Saturday will be a busy day for me.  At 2.30 pm in Harry’s Restaurant I will be with the For Food’s Sake crew hosting a discussion and tasting called “The Future Of Irish Fish.”  There will be a kick ass panel with all sorts of sectors involved, all of whom will be kept in order by my trusty colleague Aoife Carrigy. Then afterwards, myself and Hayden Lambert from The Merchant Hotel will both be doing a cocktail demo specifically using Irish ingredients. This I regard as a real honour. The Merchant Hotel has been awarded best cocktail bar in the world many times over. I’ve been on benders with some of their bar crew and heard a great talk from one of the their finest mixologists Sean Muldoon.

Check out this link for full deets on the festival. There’s a wicked amount of stuff taking place including a Celtic themed shindig on the Sunday to close it all off  called Féile Grianán Ailigh. I for one can’t wait to go and god help me, we’re bringing the whole family. Now if ever there was a surefire way to test domestic bliss….

IRISH RHUBARB MARTINI

No that is not a bottle of poppers next to the Martini glass as was thought by the lovely lady who first sampled it. She shall remain nameless.

Here’s another crap iPhone photo. I’m still waiting on a camera angel to make that donation. Anyone??!

INGREDIENTS:

50ml of Cork Dry Gin

35 ml of sugar syrup

a 4 inch piece of fresh Irish rhubarb – thinly sliced

1 dash of creole bitters – this gives a tiny hint of background spice. If you prefer something more floral try a couple of drops of orange blossom water. You can buy it in Asian Stores.

METHOD:

Chill a martini glass with some ice and water.

Muddle the rhubarb a cocktail shaker with half of the sugar syrup. Give it a good auld pounding for about 20 seconds or so.

Add in the remaining sugar syrup, gin and bitters. Shake it for a good ten seconds.

Remove the ice from the glass and double strain the drink.

Garnish with some rhubarb.

For eager and ambitious comics seeking fame and fortune, Edinburgh is their Mecca. The annual fringe festival can literally make or break an aspiring comedian.  So when I caught up with the wonderful Isy Suttie whose “Pearl & Dave” show stormed it last year, I requested some advice for Edinburgh bound funsters. “Don’t stay on a campsite to try and save money, as you will get hammered and miss your show because you can’t charge your phone and your alarm doesn’t go off. Do go and see stuff other than comedy to remind yourself there’s a whole festival on” Wise words.

Many of you will recognize Isy from her role as Dobby in Channel 4’s Peep Show but it is her own creation Pearl & Dave that has garnered much deserved praise. A true life, bittersweet modern tale of how a friend of hers found love online and her part in it all. Should she wish to turn her hand to a more auto biographical performance, she could perhaps include how her own boyfriend named a certain dish after her. One from quite a small culinary repertoire actually, “I can only cook two things and that’s one of them, so if someone who comes round who doesn’t like Isy’s Salmon or chicken Kievs, there’s trouble.” Future dinner guests, you have been warned.

ISY SUTTIE’S ASIAN SALMON STIR FRY

INGREDIENTS:

2 wild Salmon fillets

1 packet of thin noodles

12 baby spinach leaves

1 tablespoon of freshly chopped coriander

6 baby corns

12 mange tout

2 garlic cloves

2 red chillies

1 tablespoon of freshly chopped coriander

1 tablespoon of sesame oil

1 tablespoon of soy sauce

1 teaspoon of oyster sauce

1 teaspoon of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce

1 lime

METHOD:

Cook your noodles according to packet instructions, drain and let them sit in iced cold water to prevent further cooking. Rinse all the veg and coriander and pat it dry. Finely slice the garlic and chillies and then cut the baby corns in half, vertically. Heat the oil in a hot wok. Fry the salmon fillets skin side down until crispy and then flip them over and cook on the other side. When they’re done, put them on a plate to rest with a cover over them to keep them warm.

Start frying the veg with the corn and mange tout with a 30 second stir. Then add in the garlic and chillies and stir for another 30 seconds. Bring all the liquid ingredients and combine with veg. Strain the noodles again and bring them into the wok, stir in the spinach and coriander. Plate it all up into two portions and place a salmon fillet on top of each serving. Garnish the salmon with lime wedges and some more freshly chopped coriander.

Isy Suttie takes her Pearl & Dave show to The Black Box in Belfast on May 17^th and to The Sugar Club, Dublin on the 18th of May.

^{PS Doing this recipe was a real treat. Peep Show is my all time favourite TV comedy. I won’t accept that Curb Your Enthusiasm or any other show is better so don’t try to argue with me – Peep Show is the bollix. End of story. And that scene with Dobby and Mark in the stationery cupboard is GOLD!}

^{This recipe can also be read in today’s copy of The Irish Times.}

Of course it doesn’t end there. Making your own pizzas can be grand if you’ve just bought the bases but if you make your own dough, fuhgedaboutit. If you don’t have a bread mixer you will have to bust your chops kneading the dough for at least half an hour and your first few attempts will always disappoint. The dough is bound to be either too thick or too thin or you will fuck up the cooking of it and be left with a half arsed calzone.  The challenge of attempting a take away is never easy. It is with those sentiments in mind that I received a call from The Tom Dunne Show on Newstalk 106 when they asked me could I attempt an Indian Take Away.  In typical idiotic form, I agreed to it.

As I always say cooking is simply just using the mistakes of others,  so if you want to make something like a Chicken Tikka Masala, learn from the following errors I’ve made:

- Don’t use any type of oil when frying up your sauce. The ideal product to use is a clarified butter called, ghee. Of course even saying the word in a food store will bring you endless child like pleasure but it has other uses. The strong dairy taste off it is one of the defining tastes of a tikka masala. If you can’t get any ghee (insert immature giggle here), just use some good butter.

- If you want to try to emulate that great tandoori flavour you will need to barbecue or at least grill your chicken. Don’t fry it. That tastes lame.

- When I was checking out recipes, most sites seemed to overlook having to add some kind of sweetness yet they all featured turmeric. The great thing about this spice is the rich colour but for me it always sucks any sugars out of a dish. You need to counteract that with ideally coconut powder or a bit of golden sugar.  But coconut powder was revealed to me by a few different sources and it’s wicked.

- Should you wish to recreate that seriously red, gloopiness that you get in more dodgy massalas then don’t try to do it naturally with tomato paste, it’ll only end up tasting like a bad ragu. If you really want that mad glow in the dark orangey red, just use food dye.

MY ATTEMPT AT A CHICKEN TIKKA MASALA

INGREDIENTS FOR MARINADE:

6 cubed chicken fillets

250 ml of plain yoghurt

2 teaspoons of chili powder

2 tablespoons of grated garlic

2 tablespoons of grated ginger

1 teaspoon of garam masala

1/4 teaspoon of turmeric

the juice of 1 lime and half a lemon

1/2 teaspoon of liquid smoke – I got this in the states and it’s deadly. Buy it online here. It helps to give the tandoori buzz.

1/2 teaspoon of salt

Combine the whole lot up and lash it onto the cubed chicken. Let it marinade overnight.

1. INGREDIENTS FOR SAUCE:

1.5 tablespoons of ghee (get this in any good Asian store, if you can’t get it then just use 2 tablespoons of butter)

2 tomatoes, blanched and then skinned, deseeded and finely chopped

1 finely chopped onion

1 teaspoon of grated ginger

1 teaspoon of grated garlic

1/2 teaspoon of garam masala

1 tablespoon of tomato paste

1 teaspoon of ground coriander

1.5 teaspoons of coconut powder (get this in any good Asian store)

500 ml of cream

1 tablespoon of fresh chopped coriander

METHOD:

Skewer your chicken and barbecue or grill it until golden and slightly charred.

Heat up your ghee (insert more immature giggles here) and fry up the onions until soft but not caramelized. Add in the tomatoes and paste and gently fry it up for a minute or so. Then add in the garlic, ginger and spices and stir for another 5 minutes on a low heat. If it gets too dry and starts to stick, lob in a tablespoon of water. Stir in the coconut powder and then about half of the cream. If you like the consistency of your sauce to be smooth, then blitz it with a soup blender. Once you’re done, throw in the rest of the cream and stir until it’s nice and hot but don’t let it boil. Drop in the chicken, heat that through and serve it up. Garnish with some freshly chopped coriander. Serve with some rice and a decent smooth beer.

I didn’t have the time this week to attempt the onion bhaji, but I’ll be giving it a lash this weekend and sticking it up on this post on Monday. Stay tuned to Tom’s show when I’ll be chatting to himself about the whole exercise. If you genuinely follow these instructions you will be grand, I made a good few fuck ups to get it down but I’m happy with the final outcome.

ONION BHAJI

Having never made on onion bhajii before, I had to throw out the net and ask for tips on this one. The wonderful Aoife McElwain whose food blog contains some amazing and very well executed recipes was a big help.  This is her original recipe here and half of what I did came from it.  And the chef and caterer Aine Maguire asked a Bangladeshi restaurateur friend of hers for some inside tips. That info turned out to be great. So basically Aoife & Aine sorted this one out for me as it’s a mish mash of both their efforts. Many thanks!

Any of the ingredients that you don’t recognize can be purchased at The Asian Food Store on Drury Street

INGREDIENTS:

1 large Spanish Onion

125 g of gram flour

1/2 teaspoon of baking powder

3 tablespoons of dried fenugreek leaves

1 tablespoon of ajwain seeds

1 teaspoon of ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon of salt

175 ml of cold water

Vegetable or Sunflower Oil for frying – deep fry if you can. Otherwise pan fry with about half an inch in the pan.

METHOD:

Sieve the flour and baking soda into a mixing bowl. Grind the ajawain seeds in a pestle and mortar for about a minute just to activate their flavours, which incidentally are amazing. Never used them before, a real revelation. Combine the cumin, salt, fenugreek leaves and ajwain seeds into the bowl and mix. Then you add in the water and beat it all into a batter.

You then need to get a mandolin to thinly slice the onion. When that’s all done, squeeze out the moisture from the onion by placing them onto paper towels. You then drop the onion into the bowl and mix it all up with the batter.

If you don’t have a mandolin to slice the onion, sort it out and buy one. They’re brilliant but take care when using. They can be quite lethal as both myself and my Uncle Jimmy can tell you – he ended up in A&E after a nasty cut.

Start making the bhajis into the size you want. If you can, use a deep fat fryer as it’s a lot easier and more consistent. With a deep fat fryer, turn it up to 180 and fry til golden. If you’re pan frying, heat it up on a medium level with about half an inch of vegetable or sunflower oil. As always with frying roadtest the heat with whatever you’re cooking – drop a bit of battered onion into the oil to see how you’re doing.  Not too hot or cold.

A couple of completed onion bhajis garnished with more fenugreek leaves and lemon.

Serve this as a starter with a squeeze of lemon and some mango chutney on the side. Winesnobs would have you drinking some full bodied red. The only full bodied red you should be enjoying with an Indian is the Ginger you’ve got in the sack with you afterwards, or during if you like mixing your pleasures. I love Indian meals with a stiff gin beforehand and some cold beers or ales with them.  Try some O’Hara’s Pale Ale with your next Indian, real smooth.

]]> http://www.rockcookbook.com/the-indian-take-away-challenge/feed/ 0 http://www.rockcookbook.com/pink-chocolate-salty-balls-stick-em-in-your-mouth-and/ http://www.rockcookbook.com/pink-chocolate-salty-balls-stick-em-in-your-mouth-and/#comments Fri, 13 Apr 2012 12:56:19 +0000 admin http://www.rockcookbook.com/?p=1881 Most men will pretty much do anything to get laid.  While this  has been documented many times over, my favourite demonstration of this massive failing in the male character, is  depicted beautifully in a particular episode of Peep Show. The show’s two main characters Mark and Jeremy are both very keen on a couple of ladies and are prepared to endure a horrible new age dance workshop where their female targets will be in attendance. Mark’s total lack of affiliation with anything to do with sensitive, tree huggers leads him to an embarrassing incident, where he makes a complete dick of himself in front of the whole class.  He does however, make a very impressive plea to the beatnik flower children:

“I’m sorry if you presume I eat red meat and don’t necessarily think money or Tony Blair are a bad thing. But if there isn’t room here for people who stand against everything you believe in, then what sort of a hippie free for all is this?”

This is a sublime piece of writing and a line that pops into my head all the time, especially when I’m trying to force myself to keep an open mind on something.  Like, what in the fuck is so special with pink Himalayan rock salt? And what in the fuck can I do with it?  I mean, we all know that salt with lots of minerals in it is meant to be good for you and all, but why bother with something so plain as salt when it has to travel so far? Well I’ve come up with a perfect use for it.  If you put some on top of white chocolate you can make something that looks a lot like a nipple. Thus giving you free reign to be extremely childish and name a dish called:

PINK CHOCOLATE SALTY BALLS

INGREDIENTS:

2 Bars of daycent white chocolate

1 teaspoon of Himalayan pink salt

Any excuse to try out new choccie is good in my book. This is great gear. Couldn’t find any Irish white choccie though?

METHOD:

Put some water into a pot and place a glass or stainless steel bowl on top of it. Make sure the bowl is bone dry.

Break up the chocolate into little bits and begin the process of melting it all by turning the heat onto a low level.  Meanwhile, take a confectionery tray that has nice round molds in it (I bought one for a fiver the other day in Kitchen Complements on Chatham Street) and olace a tiny bit of the pink salt into each one.

Your nipple like salty balls are nearly there

Stir the chocolate consistently until it’s all melted and smooth. Then pour it into your molds and stick the tray in the fridge. Within about an hour your pink chocolate salty balls are good to go.

Stick ‘em in your mouth and suck ‘em. I know this looks like something from Eurotrash but I personally don’t have a problem with that.

]]> http://www.rockcookbook.com/pink-chocolate-salty-balls-stick-em-in-your-mouth-and/feed/ 0 http://www.rockcookbook.com/water-chestnut-barbecued-chicken-noodles/ http://www.rockcookbook.com/water-chestnut-barbecued-chicken-noodles/#comments Thu, 05 Apr 2012 19:51:23 +0000 admin http://www.rockcookbook.com/?p=1863 The day that my daughter got the manageress of The Asian Market on Drury Street to actually, smile.  I remember it like it were only yesterday. As any other regular customer from there would tell you, this dragon-lady  is so mean and scary, she’d make Myra Hindley look like a Bolshoi ballerina. So on the greater scale of things, it is one hell of an achievement when your buggy bound two year old waves hello to said battleaxe and she waves back with a massive happy grin. Of course, as soon as she saw me she reverted back to demon woman of the Orient. But it was a touching moment nonetheless.

Not that I would ever let overly irritable, frightening females ever put me off somewhere. I am in The Asian Market at least once a week. And to be fair, the dragon- lady is actually quite cool once you get over the fear factor.  Provided she knows what you’re saying, she’s always quickly on the ball to help you. Yet due to the shop’s pretty vast size, there are always a large number of items there that will illicit the question: WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT? And due to the language barrier that will invariably exist between a gwilo like me and the staff there, you can’t really go around asking them all what everything is.  So you can imagine my delight when myself and a few others were given a guided tour of the Market, by someone whose parents are Vietnamese but was raised here in Sunny Dublin. Someone who knows what all those exotic bits and bobs are but also knows how terribly lost they are on clueless but greedy numpties like me. It was a brilliant experience that took about 1.5 hours and left a fairly profound but totally unregrettable  dent in my wallet.

We started at the fruit section and worked our way round from aisle to aisle til we hit the spice and rice section at the end.  I won’t bore you with the myriad of new tips I picked up and what went into the two stuffed bags I brought home with me. Instead, I will say 3 words that have been stuck in my brain ever since: Fresh Water Chestnuts.  They were a real revelation for me. Ordinarily when they are served in Western countries they come out of  a tin and offer only a bit of crunch to a dish but zero flavour. That aint the case for the fresh ones, they have a lovely sweet earthy taste and can bring a serious uniqueness to a stir fry. Here’s one I lashed out last weekend.

WATER CHESTNUT AND BARBECUED CHICKEN STIR FRY

The finished stir fry. I know I’m a muppet taking photos with my phone but I’m too broke to buy a posh camera. Anyone willing to give me one? Go on for fuck’s sake. I’d be wicked at food porn.

INGREDIENTS: SERVES 2

10 fresh water chestnuts

2 chicken fillets

2 large pak choi

2 thumb sized pieces of fresh ginger cut into matchsticks

5 cloves of roughly sliced garlic

2 scallions, sliced

2 servings of noodles. Whatever size you’re into. Cook them beforehand and let them cool.

A few slugs of Golden Mountain soy sauce – a Thai soy sauce. Buy it. It rocks.

1 tablespoon of peanut oil

1 tablespoon of lemon juice

500 ml of chicken stock

1 teaspoon of sesame seeds, toast them on a dry pan

2 teaspoon of pumpkin seeds, toast them on a dry pan

The water chestnuts before they get peeled.

METHOD:

You’ve gotta start with making the sauce. Boil up your chicken stock and stick in 4 cloves of garlic and the ginger. Let that simmer for half an hour.

Meanwhile, marinade your chicken in the lemon juice and a good slug of the Golden Mountain soy sauce.  When the sauce has cooked for 30 minutes, remove the garlic and ginger and throw in a couple of good glugs of the soy sauce to your own taste.  Leave the sauce on a low heat in the background.

I have a barbecue in my garden right outside my kitchen door so I tend to grill al fresco quite a lot.  If you don’t have that luxury, just stick your chicken fillets under the grill. When they’re done, let them sit while you crack on with everything else.

No doubt there is a better more efficient way to prepared water chestnuts but I just cut them with a knife to remove the outer husk while I sliced them into decent bits.  Quite often I steam pak choi and leave it whole but for this dish I cut them into quarters and put it into the wok. So once that’s done, you heat your wok up really high and throw in the oil. Once it starts to smoke carefully drop in the water chestnuts and start stirring them up.  Once they colour a little, lash in the pak choi. After a minute or so of more stirring, bring down the heat and add in the sauce, remaining garlic, scallions and noodles and whirl them into everything else.

While that heats through, slice up your chicken and introduce it into the wok. Stir for another minute. Sprinkle the seasame and pumpkin seeds into the wok and then serve.

Many thanks to Nguyen for taking the time out of her schedule for giving us such a wicked tour.  It was really cool of her. And many thanks to Sinead Ryan from Presence PR for organizing it all.

]]> http://www.rockcookbook.com/water-chestnut-barbecued-chicken-noodles/feed/ 0 http://www.rockcookbook.com/paul-daniels-baked-eggs-with-spicy-spuds/ http://www.rockcookbook.com/paul-daniels-baked-eggs-with-spicy-spuds/#comments Fri, 30 Mar 2012 10:26:45 +0000 admin http://www.rockcookbook.com/?p=1854 Those of you of a certain age, will recall that magicians who wanted to entertain the masses didn’t have to be suspended for days on end from glass cubes or enforce a hunger strike on themselves in blocks of ice. In the not so distant past, all that was required of them was a sharp wit, a charming (usually female) assistant and of course, the ability to perform the odd illusion or two. Paul Daniels was one such trickster. Not only did he tick all those boxes, but he had some damn fine catchphrases too. And if you thought that this more old school approach to showmanship wasn’t drawing crowds anymore, then think again. Paul is still packing them in and even after many decades in show business, continues to win praise from his peers and public.

Indeed when you are granted an opportunity with someone who has such a respected legacy under their belt, there was no way I could not ask him about the wildest trick he’s ever seen.”The production of a donkey and an elephant on an open stage by the late great Harry Blackstone.  No trapdoors, no cover, and there they were. Quite wonderful!”  And who was the greatest magician that ever lived?,“Merlin (if he ever actually lived) because people are still talking about him after hundreds of years.” That’s all very epic, but when it comes to food, Paul’s tastes are definitely more grounded. He may be a household name who has entertained millions, but serve him up some humble egg & chips and as he has says himself, “I am in heaven.” Sitting alongside Harry & Merlin perhaps?

PAUL DANIELS’ BAKED EGGS WITH SPICY SPUDS

INGREDIENTS, SERVES 2:

4 medium sized maris piper potatoes, washed and peeled

4 free range eggs

4 grilled rashers

6 cherry tomatoes, sliced

1 teaspoon each of smoked paprika, mustard powder and garlic powder

½ teaspoon each of salt and pepper

1 tablespoon of butter

2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

METHOD:

Heat your oven to 180 degrees. Slice the potatoes lengthways, repeatedly to create evenly sized wedges. Lay them on a baking tray and then coat them in the olive oil. Combine all the dry ingredients and sprinkle them all over the spuds. Stick them in the oven for 45 minutes and shake the pan occasionally to prevent them from sticking.

Meanwhile,smear the butter all over the inside of two ramekins. Place 3 sliced cherry tomatoes on the bottom of each ramekin then put a rasher in each one. Carefully break an egg over each ramekin, taking care to let the white fall in first and keeping the yolk intact. Place them on a baking tray and bake for about 10 -12 minutes, until the egg has settled. Serve straight away with the spicy spuds.

Paul Daniels and Debbie Magee are doing a six date tour of Ireland that kicks off on May 1^st.

This piece can also be read in far more reputable publication, The Irish Times where I have a monthly column in the cultural and entertainment guide, The Ticket.

If I were to adopt the same provincial attempts at pride myself, I’d be lashing out a big filthy Guinness stew this week. But I believe that all that needs to be said about our fair capital city was perfectly articulated by Dublin’s favourite wit, raconteur and all round pain in the Swiss, Mr. Eamonn MacEamonn, when he uttered the words,

“St. James’ Gate – the only place in Dublin, where the smell of Guinness is stronger than the smell of shite.”

In the interest of greater harmony amongst the counties, I have made a big fuck off pot of Irish beef stew with O’Hara’s Red Ale, a beautiful elixir that is brewed in Carlow. And that gives me a great opportunity to plug the Irish Craft Beer Festival which is taking place right now down at The IFSC until Monday. It’s a fantastic way to experience the amazing range of micro brewed and craft beers, ales and porters we make here. If for some reason, you haven’t had the chance to taste  these guaranteed Irish bevvies, you seriously need to get your hoop down there.

I myself have been very much enjoying the O’Hara’s range. All of them are lovely.

O’ HARA’S RED ALE  BEEF CASSEROLE WITH DALKEY MUSTARD  GNOCCHI

FOR THE CASSEROLE:

INGREDIENTS:

3 Pounds of Round Steak. Cut it yourself into bite size chunks. Trim off excessive fat but don’t throw that out.

1 Packet of Celery, washed and cut into 2 inch diagonally pieces

2 large onions, cut into ringlets (the Spanish ones are usually big enough)

6 Carrots, washed and cut into 2 inch diagonally pieces

1 litre of Beef Stock.  I think those jellied ones that Knorr do are doing pretty’ good. The rich beef one especially for a stew like this. I know it has a celebrity chef on it, but they’re still good.

2 bottles of O’Hara’s Red Ale

1 tablespoon of chopped fresh thyme

1 heaped tablespoon of freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons of Olive Oil

1 tablespoon of tomato puree

3/4 cup of plain flour

1 teaspoon of Wexford Honey

METHOD:

Pre heat your oven to 180 degrees.

Heat your oil in the big fuck off pot. If you don’t have a big fuck off pot just use two normal ones. Throw in that bit of fat from the round steak. Fry it until it browns then throw it out.

Fry the beef until it’s brown and then remove with a slotted spoon and place in a bowl to cool off.

Fry the onions until they go a little translucent, then throw in the carrots, celery, thyme, tomato puree and fry it all up for about five minutes.

As you cook the veg, check the beef to see if it’s cooled down. If so, then throw it into a clean plastic bag with the pepper and then lash in the flour on top of the meat by dropping it slowly through a sieve, so it doesn’t just fall into lumps. Then tie a knot in the bag at the top and swing it round so that the flour covers the meat.

Add the meat to the pot and again stir it for half a minute.

Pour in the stock and Ale and stir.

Bring to the boil on the stove with lid off. When it’s really hot put the lid on and then throw it into the oven @ 180 degrees for two hours.

When it’s done let it set for five minutes and stir in the honey. While that’s happening boil your Gnocchi. When they pop to the top of the pot, they’re done. Strain them and then lash them into your stew.

FOR THE GNOCCHI: CLICK HERE TO A RECIPE I KNOCKED OUT BEFORE

I see this as perfect Paddy Fodder for general, acting the maggot Paddy Whackery bad behaviour this weekend. This batch will serve at least 8. Give it a go and don’t forget to check out the Beer fest.

You will find much wankology with chefs when they try to make something like roast beef and Yorkshire pudding sorbet. It can also be prevalent even in something like a staff uniform where a hotelier might bring in some arsehole fashion designer to make all the reception staff look like crew members of the Starship Enterprise. Obviously, it can also be found behind the bar, like when some bright spark decides it would be a great idea to serve all pints out of pink crystal glasses.

So you can imagine my trepidation when I decided I would use spherification in a Havana Club Cocktail competition. After all, anything that is associated with molecular gastronomy could very easily be seen as total wankology and should therefore be quickly disregarded. But I just couldn’t help meself. I have become addicted to caviar and it aint the fishy egg kind. It’s the little caviars of booze that explode in your mouth upon the slightest touch.  They give a wicked texture to a drink and offer a brilliant way to introduce a new taste.

Thankfully this competition has fuck all to do with a facebook popularity contest so you needn’t worry about me plaguing you looking for votes.  The prize is to represent Ireland in Cuba in an international Havana Club Rum Grand Prix competition. With the hope of representing Ireland, I thought it might be best to do that with the best local Irish flavours that work with Havana Club Rum. After weeks of excruciatingly difficult and backbreaking labour of tasting and more tasting, I decided that the nicely acidic Highbank Orchard Apple Juice from Kilkenny, Ed Hick’s Wild Damson Syrup and old school Bunratty Mead would work well together.  I called it Havana Hibernia.  Here’s how:

INGREDIENTS:

35 ml of Havana Club Especial

50ml of Highbank Orchard Organic Apple Juice

35ml of Wild Damson Syrup

INGREDIENTS FOR SPHERIFIED CAVIARS:

90ml of low calcium water such as Deep River Rock

1.6 g of sodium alginate

35ml of Havana Club Especial

105 ml of Bunratty Honey Mead

500 ml of low calcium water such as Deep River Rock

2.5 g of calcium chloride

200 ml of sparkling water

METHOD:

-          Use a soup blender to combine the 1.6 g of sodium alginate with the 90 ml of Deep River Rock. Let it sit with a lid on, overnight to allow the air bubbles to escape.

-          Add the 35ml of Havana Club Especial and the Bunratty Mead to the alginated water by gently stirring it in to avoid creating any bubbles.

-          Use a soup blender to mix the 500 ml of Deep River Rock water to the 2.5 g of calcium chloride to create a calcium water bath.

-          Chill a martini glass with some ice and water.

-          Use a syringe to suck up 25 ml of the alginated Mead and Rum water and carefully drop it into the calcium bath, drop by drop making sure that each drop is of uniformed size.

-          As that cooks in the calcium bath, combine the 35ml of Havana Club especial, with the Highbank Apple Juice and the Wild Damson Syrup by stirring them all in a slim jug.

-          Strain the Mead and Rum caviars from the calcium bath and place them in some sparkling water. Let them sit there while you add three ice cubes to the rum and juice mix and stir for 10 seconds.

-          Pour the ice from the Martini glass and place the spherified caviars of Mead & Rum into the chilled glass.

-          Pour the ice from the Martini glass and strain the slim jug into the chilled glass with a julep strainer.

-          The caviars will rise to the top of the glass. Sláinte.

Apparently 45 bartenders from all round the country entered this competition. This makes me happy. There is a vibrant cocktail culture coming through in Ireland. It should be a vital part of any country’s culinary make up, finally we are starting to see that we need one here. Best of luck to all the competitors!

Fans of cured pig meat, should be aware that there is an actual higher level to which you can bring this humble offering. It aint just there to grease up your fry or pimp out your pasta – to truly elevate your rasher, you need to get your shit together and make a Big Fuck Off Bacon Bomb.

This dish incorporates pretty much everything that I love about anything edible – barbecue sauce, loads of spicy American style seasonings, the combination of beef and pork mince and of course, shitloads of bacon. It requires that you make a lattice/plaid of bacon that you stuff with the mince and whatever else you reckon you can squeeze in there.  Not a huge amount to it, but it looks the bollocks and let’s face it, Bacon Bomb has got to be one of the coolest names of any dish ever.

INGREDIENTS, MAKES 2:

30 thin cut strips of Bacon. I would as always, recommend Hick’s – www.hicks.ie

1 pound of  beef mince

1 pound of pork mince

1 teaspoon of garlic powder

1 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of smoked sweet paprika

1 teaspoon of mustard powder

1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper

A jar of your favorite barbecue sauce or relish, if you want you can whizz up some of my rib basting sauce that I put together on a previous recipe, check it out here.

1 bulb of garlic

1 green pepper

2 small onions

METHOD:

Spread some olive oil on the garlic, onions and pepper and roast them on a 220 degree oven.  They’re done when they’ve coloured nicely and softened up.  Chop and slice them all up accordingly and put it aside.

Combine the dry ingredients for your spice mix.

Combine the beef and pork mince in a big bowl. Take out half and flatten it in a rectangular shape. Dust the either side with your spice mix then place half the roasted veg along the centre of the meat. Fold either side of the meat into the other tightly so that you have a big sausage looking thing.

Do the same thing all over again so that you have two. You now have to start assembling the bacon lattice. Do this by laying out odd numbers of rashers right next to each other, say 7 for a decent sized one. You then place 2 rashers in the centre of that and start folding the odd number of rashers into the centre rashers. Once they’re in, bring them back and then place another 2 rashers right next to the centre 2 and repeat the process so you have the plaid/lattice thing going on and you basically have a carpet of bacon. This video does a far better job of explaining the whole thing, it’s worth watching, although his Aussie accent is exceptionally annoying.

Again repeat so that you have two. Then what you do is, you get your meat roll, tuck the edge of the bacon lattice underneath it tightly and start rolling it all so that the bacon eventually covers it all up. Keep it as tight as possible as you’re rolling. If it aint tightly held together when you cook it, it will just turn to shit.

You then paint on your barbecue sauce and lash them both in the oven for about an hour and 15 minutes at 220 degrees centigrade. I recommend basting more sauce whenever you think it’s needed.

If you want to give it an extra bit of smoke, lash them on the barbie for a couple of minutes.

Let them sit for ten minutes before you carve them up.  The centre will have the roasted veg surrounded by juicy spicy meat and then the outer layer will be a barbecued piece of crunchy goodness. Seriously, what’s not to like? Give it a go lads.

Myself and the For Food’s Sake crew had a wicked time last night in The Science Gallery. If you were among the capacity crowd that came along, many thanks for making it! Aoife put together a brilliant set of panelists to cover discussions that ranged from cooking it yourself, doing it yourself and growing it yourself. All of that worked beautifully within the context of what we were trying to explore, “What Will Your Future Taste Like?” If you weren’t there last night then do yourselves a favour and check out these links: http://www.giyireland.com/ http://www.natashaslivingfood.ie/ http://www.settfoodclub.com/

http://igniteshow.com/videos/diybio Loads of really interesting bits and pieces there lads, check them out.

We also had a brilliant demo on how to skin a rabbit from Ed Hick and Chef Shaun Hanna from The Oarsman in Carrick On Shannon made a deadly salad that contained some amazing dehydrated ingredients.  I was on hand myself showing everyone how to make a smoked Bloody Mary by using the very cool Smoking Gun device. And as I had promised the week before I also made a special Cosmopolitan with spherified caviars of Grand Marnier.  Should you want to attempt such a cocktail, go purchase a spherification kit from these lads here and then do the following:

INGREDIENTS:

1.6 g of sodium alginate

100 ml of low calcium water, such as Deep River Rock

140 ml of Grand Marnier

2.5 g of calcium chloride

500 ml of Deep River Rock water

1 shot of ABSOLUT Citron

2 shots of cranberry juice

a squeeze of lime juice

METHOD:

Get a soup blender out and blitz the alginate with the 100 ml of water. Let it sit with a lid on it, in a fridge overnight. This HAS to happen as you need to let the air bubbles escape.

The next day, you add in the Grand Marnier by gently stirring it in. You then blitz the calcium chloride into the 500 ml of water bath to create your water bath.

Take your syringe and suck up about 15 ml of the alginated mix. Place the syring about 6 inches above the water bath and start dropping it in bit by bit. Keep a steady straight hand so that your shapes are even.

Leave them in there for no longer than 2 minutes so that the reaction can take place, ie the calcium makes an outer filament around the Grand Marnier and you still have liquid on the inside of it. While that takes place, stir your vodka with the cranberry and lime with some ice. You then strain the caviars from the water bath and place them in a glass with some fizzy water to wash them. You then strain them and put them into your cocktail glass. Then you pour the booze on top. You should be left with something like this.

Aoife McElwain very kindly took that shot. She was one of many who gave us a dig out last night. Big shout out to her too! For Food’s Sake is really just about talking about and tasting food. Look us up on the auld buke or follow what myself and Aoife Carrigy have to share about it all. The more the merrier.

I think that particular day  of note came when I was about 22. And there have certainly been quite a few since, like the time when I couldn’t get out of bed because of a banjaxed back and more recently when I purchased an electronic scales and didn’t even get one raised eyebrow from the staff.

Urban degenerates such as my dear self are more than aware that 99.9% of electronic scales are NEVER in fact used for catering. They are usually the necessary gadget for those who choose to make their living from peddling drugs.  Yet there I was, only a couple of weeks ago, bucking all consumer trends by kitting out The Sugar Club with a battery operated weighing device so that we could learn more about the wonderful world of Molecular Mixology!

This latest form of getting locked, was something that tweaked my interest after I found out about an exhibit currently taking place in The Science Gallery, called EDIBLE. It’s covering a wide array of topics such as what we can learn from modern technological breakthroughs in food production and how we as eaters of food influence the planet’s biological and ecological landscape. With what myself and the happy crew behind For Food’s Sake get up to, EDIBLE seemed like the perfect platform for us to lash out our first event of 2012 from. So on Feb 23rd from 6pm we will be running amok in The Science Gallery with a food discussion and tasting night called: ” What Will Your Future Taste Like?” You can hit that link for full details but essentially, we are breaking it down as a quick series of chats and demos all around the themes of Do It Yourself, Cook It Yourself, Find It Yourself and Make It Yourself.  There are some extremely knowledgeable people participating both as speakers and giving demonstrations.  It’s only a fiver in and as always with For Food’s Sake, we will have some very tasty free food for you all to sample.

So as a way for a total Scientific failure such as moi to embrace what the future can bring, I decided I would give this molecular mixology a go by trying to learn all about spherification.  This is an extremely precise method of making slightly jellied pearls of liquid to serve on food or indeed on cocktails. It was initially rolled out by Ferran Adria in El Bulli Restaurant so as you may well imagine, it aint bloody easy to pull off.  What happens is, you mix a powdered alginate (a natural substance that makes a type of jelly) into whatever liquid product you so wish to use – e.g, liquidized olive or even something boozy – like Cointreau.  You then deftly drop the alginated solution into a water bath that you mix with a calcium powder. The calcium rich water reacts with the alginated liquid by creating an instant outer filament around the drop of liquid.  Out of nowhere a little sphere will appear in the bath that looks similar to a gel capsule but is extremely soft on the outside, so that it when goes in your mouth you have a mini explosion of liquid that is released by the exertion of the tiniest bit of pressure.

Anyhoop, there is no great secret to any of this malarkey if you fancy giving it a go, but there a shitload of mistakes you can make that are very annoying and time consuming. I being of feeble mind, have made pretty much made all of them.  Having said that, when you do get spherification right, it’s absolutely deadly.

THE FLASH GORDON COSMO

This is a sci fi, pimped out Cosmopolitan with spherified gems of Cointreau. Various online recipes that I researched were all wrong. In a first for this auld site, I will not be sharing the recipe and all the million and one pitfalls you can avoid to getting it down. Instead, if you pop along to The Science Gallery on Thursday I will be giving a quick demo on how it’s done. I can’t guarantee a Gaybo with one for “everyone in the audience” but sure, it’ll still be some craic.

FOR FOOD’S SAKE AND EDIBLE ASK: WHAT WILL YOUR FUTURE TASTE LIKE? THE SCIENCE GALLERY-  FEB 23RD  - 6 – 8.30 PM – €5

Alternative Miss Ireland is by far the most glamorous and spectacular of annual Irish pageants, leaving the likes of The Rose of Tralee looking more like The Lovely Girls Contest on Craggy Island. Operating as a non profit collective, it raises much needed funds for Irish HIV/Aids organizations – over €335,000 to date. Out of 18 AMI’s that have taken place, Panti has hosted 17 of them. And as we bid it farewell, I had to ask her about some of her AMI highlights. One incident definitely stands out as quite uinique. “The cabaret singer and chanteuse Agnes Bernelle, entered her dog in one year, that was the only animal contestant we’ve ever had.” Other noteworthy incidents have included, the all too many falling off stage accidents brought on by awkward costumes and “the time Veda threw her flowers and second prize trophy at the judges table when she didn’t get first. That was funny.” Apparently with everybody knowing that this is their final attempt at glory, competition has never been fiercer and outfit preparations are hitting extreme levels. So how will Panti keep up appearances and standards as the compere? What can we expect the hostess to be donning on the night? “I’ve had three different gowns especially made. One is best described as space glamour and the other two will have a more old school black + white movie, monochromatic look to them.” Contestants beware. You definitely need to up your game.

Valentine’s Day for Panti sounds like a slightly more dressed down affair, with every pun attended. Her ideal Valentine’s meal is breakfast on February 15^th.  But should any aspiring handsome studs want to make it that far by cooking her dinner the night before, here are some food related suggestions that may act as deal breakers. If you really want to impress Panti with a 3 course culinary feast – there should be calamari to start, a Japanese dish called Katsudon as a main and a freshly made apple crumble for dessert. Or if you want to go all out, you could make some of these divine little cupcakes she’s become so fond of after becoming a fan of the BBC TV show, “The Great British Bake Off.” With a velvety smooth texture and a luxuriously rich and creamy topping, they would definitely be a beautiful ending to any dinner. And what’s best to serve them with I asked, “A nice pot of tea of course! You have to have tea with cupcakes! ” Well, you can take the lady out of Ireland…

PANTI’S VALENTINE VELVET CUPCAKES

INGREDIENTS, MAKES 12:

2 eggs

150g of softened butter

350 g of sugar

450g self raising flour

2 tablespoons of cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

½ teaspoon of salt, 250 ml buttermilk

2 tablespoons of red food colouring

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

1 teaspoon of white wine vinegar

12 cupcake cases

Cream Cheese frosting (combine a packet of cream cheese with ½ cup butter, 2 cups sifted confectionery sugar and 1 teaspoon of vanilla)

Valentine’s Cake Hearts to garnish

Colour coordinating your evening wear to match your cupcakes – true class.

METHOD:

Beat together sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well in between. Sieve the dry ingredients into a bowl. Mix wet ingredients in a separate jug. Add alternate spoonfuls of each to mix, folding thoroughly after each addition until everything is combined.

Fill the dozen cases up to 2/3 with the mix and bake in a preheated oven at 150 degrees for twenty minutes.  When done, smother each one with a cream cheese frosting and sprinkle with lots and lots of love hearts!

Tickets are still available for Alternative Miss Ireland – this is your last chance folks. See you there!

This piece is also available to read in a far more reputable publication, today’s copy of  The Ticket in The Irish Times.

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.

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