Lovely Lamb

In my food column this month for The Gloss magazine I write about Spring lamb and a time for learning.

New born lambs are appearing in the fields around our house. This happens just as my friends and neighbours bear the weary eyes of long nights in sheds with bawling ewes, or bottle feeding the unwanted or third in a triplet set in the kitchen.

The valley I live in is mountainy marginal land and has very few cattle anymore. Most of the sheep farms have consolidated into a remaining ten to twenty farmers with their own home farm and sheds, who rent extra land from families that have left farming. Close to us the Hogans, McKees and Keegan's of @waterfallfarm shop are in the thick of the lambing season. In a fickle marketplace it's a business with price rises and crashes like everything else. Sheep are also notoriously tricky to rear and I've witnessed myself the old adage - the first indication of illness in a sheep is mortality. Yet the farmers still stay up all night, both men and women, to lamb ewes, to get the newborn started on feeding and nurse the ones not thriving.

Lambing season here is something both myself and my children delight in. The squeals of delight in response to newly born lambs bucking and skipping on their first day out on grass say it all. It's a pity that as a foodstuff in Ireland we are eating less lamb and it's now purchased by mainly older consumers. I love lamb. I buy half a lamb from the farm across the lane every year and for me it tastes like home.

 

This Edible Life  March 2014

One of my Spring pleasures - holding a new born lamb is unfortunately contraindicated to eating one. Not only are they too cute with their little velvet muzzles, early lamb can have a jelly-like texture and is much better killed at about five months old. While the garden eases into Spring I´m still cooking plenty of dark cabbage and have successfully converted all cabbage sceptics with my fabulous Gnocci with Savoy cabbage and Wicklow Blue or fried off with chorizo and garlic for an easy soup with vegetable stock and cream.

Around Dublin I´ve fallen in love with The Green Bench cafe on Montague Street (as if those pesky Dublin 8-ers aren´t served with enough great spots for a quick lunch). The serve lovingly-made take out for at your desk or if you´re like me - on the run from one venue to the next.  Super moreish is their wrap of citrus marinated feta with avocado, olive tapenade and hummus.

Not far away on Stephen´s Street, P. macs is a more comfy version of the cocktail zinc bars populating the South William street area. There´s lampshades straight from your grandmothers, patchwork armchairs and if you don´t feel like wearing towering heels it’s cosy for a quiet drink in the snug and some decent pizza. Another dress-down hide out for early evening is open downstairs on Dawson street. FAATBAAT serves a multitrip of cuisines – everything from Japanese ramen dishes to Malaysian “Drunken Prawns”. Their Go Go Bar is what this place is all about though with great tunes and decent cocktails.

Always a hot social ticket, the best food producers in the country compete on the 12^th March for a gong from my own parish – the Irish Food Writers Guild. The awards will be hosted by Derry and Sally-Ann Clarke in the wonderful L´Ecrivain. We have some stunning food and drink entries, all Irish artisan-produced but I am sworn to secrecy. Follow the winners and recommendations from the day at twitter @foodguild.

 

No better time than Spring to sharpen cookery skills. To mark her new book The Extra Virgin Cookbook, Susan Jane White is hosting an evening of cooking and tasting at Fallon and Byrne on the 12^th. Countrywide, it´s great to see many people I admire in food offering their expertise. JP McMahon, Michelin-starred chef and owner of Aniar in Galway has day workshops this month in “Nose to Tail Eating” and “The Whole Hen”. Down in Thomastown the inspiring Mag Kirwan is holding classes in smoking at her Goatsbridge Trout Farm.

Close to the beautiful beach at Termonfeckin in County Louth, the Tasty Tart Tara Walker has classes in cooking fresh fish landed at nearby Clogherhead and Foods of the Middle East, timely with the huge popularity of Ottolenghi. If you have a few bob ditch Ottolenghi and go to Beirut, one of my favorite cities for food - figs, hummus fatteh, baba ghanoui… Or closer to home check out Silvena Rowe´s cooking in at Quince in London´s Mayfair Hotel and her gorgeous book Purple Citrus and Sweet Perfume: Cuisine of the Eastern Mediterranean

Want gorgeous food this Christmas? Here's my December This Edible Life column from The Gloss magazine. Foodie heaven awaits...

As the C word gets nearer by the minute I’m taking cooking inspiration from the great and the good. Over at the The Fat Duck in Berkshire, Heston Blumenthal is serving Christmas tree on the menu alongside partridge, snail porridge, gold, frankincense and myrrh. Phew, nothing to live up to there. 

I’ll be cooking for eight and have sourced my turkey from two fields away where he is currently pecking about under the trees oblivious to the Victorian delph platter that awaits. Jamie Oliver’s Dublin eatery may be so so, but his delicious Brussels sprouts recipe never fails – roasted with garlic, bacon lardons and cream. To start I’m serving Mag Kirwan’s smoked Goatsbridge Trout with wasabi and for sparkle, a scattering of her Trout Caviar. Pudding will be the traditional French Galette des Rois – more strictly for the epiphany but we love it at Christmas – puff pastry, almonds, cream and a secret hidden jewel.

There are gorgeous gifts for Foodies this year including hand made serving boards for cheese and antipasti from Terry Cullen who makes Fallon & Byrne’s beautiful examples. The effervescent Birgitta Curtin’s Burren Smokehouse offers online ordering for her award-winning smoked salmon, cheeses and chutneys.www.burrensmokehouse.ie  For decandent foodies, white truffles from Alba have outstandingly deep flavour and can be bought from www.buywhitetruffles.co.uk.

Foodie books this Christmas are all about bandwagons and jumping on them.

 50 Shades of Chicken features recipes for Dripping Thighs and Mustard Spanked Chicken.  And in case you thought vegetables weren’t sexy, its rival 50 Shades of Kale promises “Fifty new pleasing ways to partner kale, including Thai’d up Roughage”. Oh yes, yes, YES!!

If you’re on a tight budgets check out Aldi’s Christmas offerings. Their Christmas pudding just beat Fortnum and Mason’s in a taste competition and I happen to know some great Irish cheeses sold there under private label. Keep a secret? Me?

Waterfall farm shop

If you fancy a free range turkey they can be ordered at Waterfall Farm Shop outside Enniskerry. I’ll be at their Christmas Food and Crafts Fair and will try to not to leave this time with a baby goat. If we don’t stop borrowing things from the neighbours (last week it was a gigantic John Deere), we’re going to get a reputation to add to the one we already have.

The Cellar Bar in the Merrion Hotel

On my pre-Christmas eating plans are The Good Food Ireland dinner at the Shelbourne and lunch at The Cellar Bar at The Merrion Hotel for Jane Russell’s organic pork sausage and their doesn’t-

taste-skinny skinny soup. Churpy Strahan’s Lolly and Cooks makes a hip pit stop at Georges Arcade for a warming chorizo and lentil stew and if you’re rushing in Dublin’s Southside try Urban in Cabinteely for decent coffee in New York inspired surroundings.

For #dudefood a la the US I’ll be visiting just-opened Asador on Haddington Road from Eric Mooney (ex One Pico) and Shane Mitchell (Peploes). On their massive grill are meats from artisan producers and if you’re planning bodice ripping high jinx later, there’s Irish lobster, and Champagne of course.

Let them eat caviar

Yes we're in a recession, so how about some caviar? Last week Mag Kirwan from Goatsbridge farm launched her new baby on the marketplace; a trout caviar. Having had a sneak taste at her farm a few weeks ago, I have to admit it's pretty damn good. A lot of people blanche at the thought of fish eggs rolling around their mouth, but generally if you like seafood or shellfish, it's just more of the above, only better.

Mag and her husband Ger farm trout in Thomastown in County Kilkenny. After selling trout roe to Polish and Eastern European customers, they figured trout eggs were an obvious but unexploited business opportunity. So they developed a caviar, with eggs harvested from their live two-year old mature female trout. These are really lovely fish. They dive about in their freshwater ponds looking the picture of health, and more importantly, they taste fantastic.

No surprise that the caviar is also pretty good - I ate it on a water cracker with no accompaniment. It has a subtle rather than strong fishy flavour, with a light saltiness and whisper of the sea.

Regular caviar comes from the sturgeon which is a fish that lives in various parts of the world but caviar by and large is harvested from black sea sturgeon. It's so expensive because sturgeons take decades to mature and are relatively scarce. Caviar from other fish have to have the prefix "trout" etc to distinguish it from it's crazy expensive cousin (the big lad pictured below).

If you fancy tasting Mag's trout caviar you'll soon see it on high end restaurant menus across Ireland and in speciality food stores. It's a great product and judging by the early feedback it's sure to be a huge success. If you're interested in hearing more on trout, my report on Goatsbridge farm (before the trout launch) and women in rural food businesses can be heard at the link below. http://www.rte.ie/radio1/countrywide/18022012.html