Food and Drink Spotting

Food and Drink Spotting

Kate Lawlor's Spiced Beef, Horseradish Croquette

Get Cooking

Well done to Margaret Smith and Goodall’s on publishing A Modern Irish Cookbook in double quick time. Well illustrated and uncluttered, it is packed with recipes provided by dozens of bloggers and it neatly divided into sections: Light Bites, Brunch, Dinner, Bread and Sweet Things.

Lots of us don’t like Raw Oysters but have you ever tried them grilled. Zack has just the recipe for you: Grilled Oysters with a Bacon and Blue Cheese Crumb. Many eye catching pics in the book and one features Potato Cakes with Smoked Salmon and Hollandaise by Donna.

Lots and lots of Dinner recipes including Potato and Scallion Strudel with Local Pork and Apple Velouté by Fritz, the chef proprietor of County Down’s Strudel Bistro. From Kildare’s Kenny’s Kitchen comes a tasty looking Sausages with Lentils.

Some really promising looking bread recipes including the famous one by Avril of Rosscarbery Recipes titled: Cheddar, Stout and Black Pudding Bread.

Hard to resist the Sweet Things, especially the Plum, Cardamom and Almond Cake by JensKitchen and the Beetroot and Orange Blossom Fudge by Kate from Fenn’s Quay, known as FQChefess on Twitter.

I even got roped in – hard to say no to Margaret! You’ll find my Marinated Mushroom Salad on Page 9. The trick here is to skip the marination, entirely possible if you live in Cork. Just go to your local market and buy a jar of the delicious marinated mushrooms by Ballyhoura Mountain Mushrooms, remove the top and pour them out onto your salad. Top class and no bother at all!

But do take a look at the book. Check it out on the top right corner of the screen and, remember, that proceeds go to two charities, including Cork’s own Penny Dinners!

Time for Port

I’m partial to a glass of Port at any time of year but know that many prefer it during the winter season and particularly at Christmas time. Some of you will have a favourite but, if not and even if you have, why not try the Taylor’s First Estate Reserve available at €11.99 from Bradley’s in North Main Street. It comes in a full bodied traditional classic style and is an excellent introduction to the Taylor’s style.

It is blended from young red wines and then mellowed for several years in oak casks and is a lovely after meal drink. Use it on its own or as a match with a salty cheese. The Taylor Port website is a very enjoyable one, with lots of information laid out in a simple clear way – see the entertaining section on Port traditions, for example.

Panama Joe

My current coffee is the most recent offering from the Robert Roberts’ Club and is a relative rarity in that it comes from Panama.

Gareth Scully says that coffees from Panama are few and far between and are highly sought after in the US and Germany. “Rancho Gotta Coffee Estate has been producing specialty coffee since 1985 and now produces solely Arabica coffee. The harvest is all done by hand. Rancho Gotta Coffee was one of the few coffees used at the 2011 World Coffee Tasters Championship in the Netherlands. I roasted this one to a medium level which is always important to make sure all the flavours in a coffee like this come through.”

“The medium roast compliments all the unique flavours, with strawberry, peach and dark chocolate notes. Among other things, are hints of blueberries as it cools. An incredible body to this coffee with a butterly feel to it too. Poetic license I know, but another great example of what specialty coffee should taste like….. Enjoy!”


Shorts
David Hohnen, who visited Ballymaloe last month,tells us about his Margaret River Porkers

Christmas offers from Amandine Confectionery 

Blair’s Inn nominated for Good Food Ireland Award!

What to Eat. This book might change me! You?

What to Eat

What to Eat (Joanna Blythman), Eason’s €20.40

What to Eat is the title of the latest eye-opening book by experienced food writer Joanna Blythman and comes highly recommended.

Darina Allen: “A badly needed encyclopaedia of facts and common sense on food and nutrition fro which I am truly grateful.”

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall: “Joanna Blythman has one of the sanest heads in the western world – and this brilliant book encapsulates her admirably clear thinking in a wonderful accessible, entertaining way.”

I’ve seen the accessible bit questioned elsewhere because, amazingly, the almost 400 page book has no overall index. True, each chapter starts with a list of items to be found there. That helps but an overall index would have been so much better.

That quibble aside, this is an enormously helpful book about “Food that’s good for your health, for your pocket and plate”.

The title is, by the way, a statement, not a question. Basically, Joanna sets out her food philosophy in the introduction which features “The 20 principles of eating, made simple” and “10 ways to save money on food without compromising your principles”.

The sensible principles include:

-       Get your food variety over the year, not in a week.

-       Understand the benefits of organic food.

-       Don’t eat foods that trash the planet.

Principles sometimes lead to an uncompromising rigidity. Not so with author Blythman: “You don’t have to get hung up on eating 100 per cent organic though. There are many high-quality, wholesome foods around that do not come with organic certification – such as grass-reared meat, game, wild fish and hand-made cheeses.”

She then moves on to what Darina rightly terms the “encyclopaedia of facts and commonsense”. Chapter headings are: Vegetables, Meat, Dairy, Fish, Fruit, Larder.

Each food gets its own few pages, Take the humble spud, for instance. There is a general discussion, also helpful hints on “how to buy real spuds, not duds” and a variety of ways on how best to use them.

Virtually every food item (I’ve used potatoes as an example below)  in the book is treated in the same manner and the very detailed info comes under various headings:

-       What to do with potatoes

-       Are potatoes good for me

-       How are potatoes grown

-       Are potatoes a green choice

-       When and where should I buy potatoes

-       Will potatoes break the bank?

Quite a lot of info in the 400 pages and all delivered in a clear style and in some detail (potatoes, for instance, get six pages to themselves).

This hard cover un-illustrated book cost me €20.40 at Eason’s. I reckon it is very good vale indeed.

THE BOOK ON RIOJA

RIOJA: THE BOOK
The Finest Wines of Rioja and Northwest Spain, by Jesus Barquin Luis Gutierrez and Victor De La Serna.

While vines have been grown in the north west of Spain since Roman times, the wines only came to international prominence after the French were hit by phylloxera in the middle of the 19th century and the Bordeaux negociants crossed the border in search of replacement wines.

The new trade led to surge of prosperity in the area and the town of Haro, the centre of the Rioja trade though not the region, was one of the first areas in Spain to get electricity.

But the good times didn't last and decline had set in even before the devastating double whammy of the Civil War and World War 2. Then, a few wrong turns (including the use of “international” grape varieties) wasted further decades and it is only in relatively recent times that Rioja has regained its leading status while neighbouring Navarra is still trying to shed its mistakes.

The details of all these developments are listed and discussed in this fascinating new book (2011) by a trio of well qualified authors. “Lavishly illustrated with photographs of the people and of the landscape and with detailed maps, this guide ranges over a diverse area, including not only Rioja but Navarra, Bierzo, Galicia and the Basque Country as it explores winemaking from the ancient to the traditional and modern.”

“.. It provides insider information on a region that is home to Spain’s finest Tempranillo, its exciting Albarino, and many other indigenous grape varieties, such as Garnacha, Mazuelo and Viura.”

“The authors look in depth at topics including climate and soil, grape varieties and viticulture, and they profile more than 85 individual wineries. They also include information not available elsewhere, several top ten lists plus secret addresses for the best restaurants and shops in which to find aged and historic vintages of Rioja.”

Indeed, they do and then they also provide quite a lot of detail about the individual wineries and of the people that run them. The likes of CVNE, Lopez de Heredia/Tondonia, Bodegas Faustino, and Telmo Rodriguez (Spain’s “most famous itinerant vigneron”) are among those profiled.

Each winery’s best wines are listed. There is a year by year account of the vintages from 1990 to 2010, a chapter on the magic of aged Rioja and one on the best restaurants in the area. I just can't wait to visit Haro and its vineyards and this 320 page book will be coming south with me in 2012.