A Tagine on a Tuesday!.....Sweet & Spicy Pork Tagine

Tagines are the simple yet complex flavoured one pot dishes of Morocco, a country in Northern Africa. Over the centuries the foods of Morocco have been influenced by both its natives, and its invaders. The Berbers were the indigenous peoples of the region, but the country has been influenced by the Bedouin nomadic tribes of the dessert, the Arabs, the Ottomans, the Moors from Spain, Sephardic Jews and finally the French. Yet among all this dilution of their culture, the original Berbers managed to maintain their cultural origins and right proud they are of them too.

The Tagine is a classic Berber dish, it is also the name of the pot the stew is cooked or served in.

A Tagine is basically a glorified stew of either meat, fish or vegetables, but it is a stew that is aromatic and thick, filled with the scents of sweetness and spice. The meat is tender, the fish, melt in the mouth, and the vegetables more flavourful than any curry. Tagines will also have the addition of fruits such as apricots, dates, prunes, olives and preserved lemons, with lots of strong flavours such as coriander and harissa, but also the sweetness of honey.

Bagging A Lidl Bargain......the 49c Butternut Squash!

I do love a bargain, and in my life there is no room for 'supermarket snobbery' as I call it!
If I see an offer on things I know I will use then off I will trot, regardless of the establishment!
You may be of the opinion that Lidl does not offer the 'bells and whistles' of other supermarkets, and if you are thinking in terms of self service automated checkouts (which I detest) and butchery counters (where the meat has arrived vacuum packed anyway) then you are correct, but Lidl does what it does in a way that I, as a chef, cannot argue with...... and at a significant lesser cost to the buyer! so much so that there are other supermarkets that I simply do not bother to frequent any more.
Hot off the shelves this week, amongst other great bargains, were the 49c butternut squash...yes...49c for a butternut squash and no, they weren't tiny! they were of standard size and a great buy.

Blue Monday after 'Black Friday'.... Smoky Fish Cakes with Dill & Caper Cream

The United States of America has been a great influence in my life, not only on my ancestral heritage, but on many of my attitudes, beliefs and ideals, I am a 'Disney' child after all, a member of that first generation to be raised on a diet of mass media, the target of global corporate marketing techniques, and consistently force fed a mantra of 'thou shalt consume'.

I have never really been one for regular shopping as the majority of the population seem to do, and unless I've been in dire need of something, I tend to avoid the 'shopping mall'.....and yes! I DID need that set of double sided plain and fluted pastry cutters I bought last week, but my obsession with cookie cutters is another story!.......
Instead of queuing for the latest 50 inch screen 4K television or mobile phone with the gadget thingy that can turn your oven on and compile your weekly shopping list by talking to your refrigerator, when it comes to shopping, I am the one making a beeline for the kitchen equipment and home-ware department, and if I do buy something, I will always make good use of it!

Bakewell Bundt ....with cherry & pear

Following on from my previous post of pear tart, when you've got a handle on a basic recipe such as the frangipan, it is amazing how much further you can expand on it by using your imagination.

For this recipe I increased the quantities of the basic frangipan recipe and made one and a half times the recipe amount, then I decided to add 2 pear halves that I had left over from the pear tarts, and, because I love cherry bakewell tart, I simply had to have some glace cherries in the mix....the pears, cherries and ground almonds give a deliciously moist cake.
I added a little orange extract to the mix too as I am of the opinion that orange goes very well with almonds....call it the Mallorca effect!.....the island of Mallorca is famous for almonds and oranges.

Just to make my cake a little more exciting and aesthetically interesting I have used a medium sized bundt cake tin. You can get bundt tin in small individual sizes like a muffin cup....I found some wonderful silicon ones in Lidl, other sizes are available in most good cook shops or online.....medium sized tins are around 7 inches across and 4 deep, or you can get the classic bundt tin which is anything from 8 to 10 inches wide and very deep like, 6 inches or so, but that's an awful lot of cake, unless you are having a party or have a big family to feed!
As I am using cherries, poached pears and orange extract, I have reduced the amount of castor sugar needed as there will be sufficient additional sweetness from the cherries etc.

A Pear Tart From A Pear Tree

The harvest season has almost passed us by, and apart from the root vegetables still snug in their clay beds and the wintering cabbages which are in their youth, the poly-tunnel has pretty much given up its goods.
The bean plants which have dropped most of their leaves are beginning to shrivel but there is still the odd bean hanging around here and there, the tomato plants which eventually turned into a jungle, are still laden with fruit but it looks like we will be having fried green tomatoes or green tomato salsa as there ain't no way on earth they are going to ripen at this point!.

Elderberries

We have reached the end of our growing season so now we will be concentrating on preserving as much as we can to enjoy during the dark winter months. Apples have been made into pies and frozen, spiced apple chutneys, apple sauce, and apple jellies have been bottled, jams have been made, pears have been 'put up' as they say in the preserving community, and the other day I noticed the elderberry bushes are heavily laden, their fruits just ripe for the picking, so that will be my next project.....I feel elderberry cordial or ice-cream coming on.

Even if you have no growing space and have to get your fruit from the supermarket, it is a great idea to have some preserved fruits on hand, be they bottled as jams, frozen 'au naturel', cooked in syrup or even preserved in alcohol...bottles of which make great christmas gifts by the way......have you ever had peaches in brandy?  hashtag YUM!
Make the most of those 49p or 49c supermarket offers when you get them. If you see pears or apples, or any other sturdy fruit, and I do see them on offer quite frequently where you can get about 6 pieces of fruit in a punnet or a bag for 49p, then make the most of these offers by buying in bulk and doing something with them......no one said you were only allowed to eat them fresh from the fruit bowl!

Something Old, Something New! A Recipe For Perfectly Sweet, Sweet Pastry

When I first started out on the road to becoming a chef.... and I still haven't reached my destination yet by the way!.....like any other chef, as I began to gather skills and experiences from other more skilled professionals, I also began to gather recipes, but this as far as I can tell is normal practice in our profession. Ask any chef and they will probably have their own favourite recipes too, those tried and trusted basics that they can rattle off the list of ingredients to and most likely make with their eyes closed. These are the recipes we know are fail-safe and will never let us down, even during the busiest of services.

I too began my own compendium of recipes and tips. Some were truly reliable and others I altered from their original source to suit my own tastes and needs. Eventually through years of experimentation I developed what I classed as my own creations, they may be called classic names but the quantities of ingredients and how I treat them are pretty much unique to me. Every chef will for example make pastry in their own way. Yes we may all rub fat into flour but we all feel our ingredients differently....some may like their butter to feel firmer, some softer maybe more towards room temperature. Some like the feel of a coarse flour, some a fine flour. No two chefs will rub butter into flour to the exact same point, as we like all humans, we see and feel things differently too.

Christmas is coming...Time to bake that cake!

I am of the opinion, and you may be too, that anyone who says they dislike Christmas cake has simply never had a good one!
Too dry, and you need a gallon of tea to wash it down, too wet or under-cooked, and the stodgy mass resembles the pudding you had for dessert.
Some people dislike the fruit, some the nuts...myself included as I can't abide walnuts...instead I use pecans...problem solved. But the high quantities of dried fruits required means there are no alternatives if you want your cake to be authentic, but still, choosing your proportions of fruits correctly, and choosing good quality, plump fruits, can make a huge difference.

There is something ritualistic and spell binding about the making of the christmas cake, certainly in our house where the task falls to myself and my mother, just as it did to her and my grandmother. It is a joint effort of sorting, cleaning and soaking of fruits, chopping of pecans and cherries, buttering and lining of cake tins and of course....baking not only the cake, but two tiny muffin sized cakes for us to enjoy after our efforts.....the cooks reward!

As we get older and we become ever more health conscious, our appetites seem to decrease as do the size of our Christmas cakes. Last years cake was much shallower and this year I believe I will be on the hunt for a cake tin that is no bigger than 7 inches.....making our cake in a loaf shape doesn't have quite the same appeal so the tin I buy must be round.

For the first time in our living memory, our family Christmas cake, made using a recipe handed down through the generations, will most likely be served without any icing, marzipan or buttercream of any sort.......the last time this happened was probably during rationing in world war II....and why are we leaving it bare? well, as none of us are very fond of royal icing or that paste you can roll out, I tend to ice the cake with a butter icing naughtily spiked with a little Baileys Irish cream liqueur....needless to say butter icing does not last very long and one feels obliged to scoff the cake before the icing becomes inedible....our ageing digestions simply cannot cope with such richness day after day and leaving our cake naked means we can continue to enjoy it well into January!

As we are now well into the first week in November it is time to start planning the baking of your own Christmas cake. The optimum time to bake a fruit cake and ensure it is well matured by Christmas is within the next week or two, anytime after the 20th of November and you are dicing with danger!

For my 'Mary Poppins' as I like to call it, Christmas cake....as in a cake that is practically perfect in every way, we will need pull our socks up and get the ball rolling.....you can find my Christmas Cake recipe HERE!

If you really can't get over your hatred of Christmas cake then never fear, over the next few weeks I will come up with some delightful alternatives that can make your post Christmas lunch cup of tea so divine you won't feel you are missing out.

Happy Halloween!..... An Excuse For Vegetable Soup!

I haven't been feeling the best for the last couple of weeks hence the lack of attention to my blog, and having contracted some sort of bug in my large intestine, I could hardly bear to look at food let alone cook anything interesting so I'm sure I can be forgiven all neglect.

It's Halloween here tonight and really Ireland goes all out when it comes to this ancient festival which was celebrated even before Christianity and St. Patrick arrived. For the first time in as long as I, and the kids, can remember, I have not done any baking of treats for this spooky celebration and have been entirely lazy. I went to the supermarket and filled my supermarket trolley with all those unmentionables that fill me with horror at any time of the year, stuff I would normally turn my nose up at....but yes that's how bad it is! I certainly won't be partaking in any of it...I'll just be passing it off to all the children in the neighbourhood.

The celebration of Halloween signifies the true start of winter for me and I look forward to evenings with the open fire blazing and a deep bowl of chunky soup or a heart warming stew to keep the chill out. But even though I feel under the weather, I can always be tempted with a bowl of my vegetable soup. Made with a good chicken stock, it is mild enough for the tenderest of digestions and is filled with the life giving and healing properties that naturally occur in chicken.
As I am typing this, I have a pot of it bubbling away on the stove top and in about 5 minutes I will be diving into a big cup....care to join me?

You can find my Chunky Vegetable Soup recipe HERE!

Your Health in Your Hands! ....The basics of Food Hygiene & Enjoying Your Food Safely

As someone who loves food, I am sure you would agree that the worst thing that can happen to you is getting yourself a dose of FOOD POISONING!

FOOD POISONING! It sounds very dramatic and somewhat lethal when you say it out loud, but we are not talking Agatha Christie here, no one will die at dinner! at least we hope not, as the food poisoning I am talking about is completely unintentional and accidental 90% of the time.

Me Oh My, I Love Pie! .... Speedy Chicken Pie

The simple things in life are the best and you know what? I think they are right, because this chicken pie is one of those simple classics that just warms the cockles of your heart, especially on a blowy, wet October day.
If you have chicken that is already cooked, and a store bought, pre-rolled sheet of puff pastry, then so much the better as this speeds things along, and speed is the name of the game for this dish!

Beauty is in the eye?...... Pan Fried Pork, Creamy Oyster Sauce, Spiced Rice

There are times when things you cook may not turn out as aesthetically pleasing as you would want,  but.... boy do they taste dam fine!
This pork dish is a prime example...it's not the prettiest thing you've ever seen on a plate and doesn't photograph to it's advantage, but the flavours are fab!

The ingredient at the heart of this dish is OYSTER SAUCE. What is oyster sauce?....does it actually come from oysters?...the answer is yes. Personally I can't stand oysters, I tried them once and never again! yes they may taste sensational, but the sensation I get when trying to swallow one?....well, I think I'd rather swallow a snake! I'm shuddering just even thinking about the cold, squishy, sliminess....if you have the nerve I highly recommend giving them a go, at least you'll be able to boast that you actually ate oysters, even if you only ever forced down one! but back to the oyster sauce.....

Oyster sauce is a thickened caramel sort of liquid to which the essence of real oysters has been added. It is mainly used in Asian cuisines, most regularly when stir-frying.
It does have a unique but delicious flavour, and I have found that adding it to a casserole or a quickly pan fried steak or breast of chicken with the addition of a little white wine and cream makes a scrumptious stroganoff type of dish.
When buying oyster sauce, do try to go for a brand that is MSG free.

Learning to Vegetate!......... Aubergine, tomato & goat cheese bake

Breath the words 'vegetarian or vegan', especially to a chef, and you may be treated to a roll of the eyes and deep sighs. At best vegetarians / vegans, are viewed as tree hugging, sandal wearing individuals with flowers in their flowing hair, scampering naked through the forest at full moon as they worship mother earth.....at worst, they and their eating habits are viewed as a nuisance and greeted with disdain. 

But sorry to throw rain on your parade of condescension if this is also your opinion, the reality is very far from the truth, for vegetarians and vegans are normal people like you and me...they just have a little bit more of a conscience and are a lot more health savvy!

Many chefs hate to see vegetarians or vegans coming into the dining room because in the world of the chef, meat is still king! and they just aren't geared up (due to laziness mostly) for the vegetarian or vegan customer. A lack of research and ignorance of the 'lifestyle' is generally the cause for such hate filled reactions. But really, there are a myriad of cookery books out there if they could just be bothered to read them! and actually cooking a vegetable based meal is a lot quicker and more cost effective....someone should tell them that!

But putting all ethical and philosophical reasons aside, there is NO DENYING that a move towards a plant based diet will do you nothing but good! In fact, if you believe all the latest research, it could actually save your life! helping you loose weight, regulating your blood sugars and increasing insulin sensitivity thereby able to actually turn the clock back on  Type 2 diabetes diagnoses, improving bowel function, helping to reduce your risk of cancers, and...it's good for the environment!...but shush we don't want anyone from the multi billion euro a year meat industry to hear us as all will be denied and they will vehemently tell you that you cannot live without meat in your diet.