Sea Water

Everyone likes to bring home bits and bobs from the seaside. It's primal. It's instinct. Beach combing is one of life’s greatest pleasures. Our garden, certainly, is full of yellow buoys and lengths of rope, eerie driftwood and wave sculpted glass.

So, next time, how about bringing home some seawater? It’s a fascinating substance, part water, part earth’s crust, part dissolved gasses and a fair bit of minerally salt. We written already about freeing sea salt from its grasp, but the liquid itself is also great to cook with.

Nothing tastes nicer than a new potato, dug from the garden and simmered in seawater. Just try it with beetroot, or any type of shellfish.

Apparently scientists have tried taking apart seawater, and then putting all the components back together again, putting the various elements into fresh water. And the funny thing is, the fish can tell. Put a sea fish into a reconstituted tank of sea water, and even if all the components are there to give it life, it will still die.

Seawater is a magical liquid, the ultimate foraged food. You can't fool the fish.

Nettle Yoghurt Cheese

One of the dishes we made at a recent course studying Yoghurt, Butter and Cheese in the Ballymaloe Cookery School, was Labneh, or strained yoghurt. My goodness it is divine! It's easy to make, and can be used in cooking or served just as it is. It's delicious with some good olive oil, made into a sauce, in a dessert with fruit, or eaten like a soft cheese.

Labneh is simply strained yoghurt, left in muslin overnight to remove the whey. So much whey comes out, you wonder how there could be anything left, and this whey makes the best bread.

You can flavour the labneh with fruit and honey and other sweet foods. Or make it savoury. Salt it, and I added some nettles.

The nettles here are dried, but thanks to the suggestion of my Twitter friend @ZwablesIE, I first blanched them to remove the sting. Another twitter buddy @modernfarmette introduced the idea of nettle salt, and these blanched nettles would work for that too. Have the water on a rolling boil. Dip in the nettles briefly, strain and put the leaves into a bowl of very cold water. Drain again and spin immediately in a salad spinner, and then dry. You can use a dehydrator (the best), or dry in a very low oven.

Thanks to Eddie O'Neill, Dairy Artisan Food Specialist from Teagasc and to Darina Allen from the Ballymaloe Cookery School for the specialist course, which runs in Ballymaloe three times a year and is much recommended.

Hunter Gatherer Diet - Offal

There was a time when we were all a bit nervous about cooking fish. Fish was saved for the restaurant experience, because we trusted that only a chef could do it right.

There was a time when our mothers cooked lambs’ hearts and liver and kidneys because it was easy and cheap. Many of us were reared on these.

Nowadays the fish queues at country markets are always the longest wait, and offal, in the butcher’s counter, is squeezed aside by plump breasts of chicken and other value-added products. And with its disappearance on the counter, we’ve lost our confidence in how to cook it.

So, it’s great that our confidence has grown with cooking fish, but we mustn’t lose site of offal, and of what the Americans call “organ meats”.

For foragers, and people who believe in the whole hunter gatherer experience, offal is not only tasty, it’s essential. Organ meats offer a huge store of food that boasts both fiscal and health benefits. Offal is packed with vitamin B12, as well as the A vitamins, folic acid and iron. And it’s cheap.

Here are some simple offal recipes to build up confidence.

To prepare heart, just pull away the fat and any tough vessels attached to it, split in half and dice or slice. Liver, once properly prepared by a good butcher needs only be sliced thin. Kidney needs a similar treatment to heart, just free it from its fat, and trim. Finally, cut in half and snip out the inner core.

Offal Brochettes
Trim heart, liver and kidney, or any combination, and cut into small dice. Thread onto skewers, brush with oil and grill for about four to five minutes. Turn the kebabs only after the offal has browned, and is no longer sticking to the grill. Serve with crusty bread, harissa and a salad made from fresh herbs (pictured: dill, coriander, dandelion, chive, parsley and flowers of chive, dandelion and ladies' smock) Add some sliced fresh tomato and toss in a vinaigrette.

Lambs' Kidneys with Juniper, Mustard and Cream
This is a Joyce Molyneaux recipe from The Carved Angel Cookbook

8 lambs' kidneys
8 juniper berries
salt and pepper
25g butter
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
150ml double cream

Skin and halve the kidneys and snip out the inner cores. Slice each half in two, horizontally. Pound the juniper berries with the salt in a mortar with a pestle and sprinkle over the kidneys together with a generous twist of pepper.
Melt the butter in a pan and sauté the kidneys gently for about 4 minutes, then add the mustard and the cream. Increase the heat and bubble the sauce until it thickens. Serve immediately.

Sautéed Lambs' Hearts and Liver
This is inspired by a recipe from Richard Olney's Simple French Food

4 tablespoons olive oil
2 or 4 lambs' hearts, halved and cut into thin strips
200g lambs' liver, sliced and cut into thin strips
salt, pepper

handful chopped parsley mixed with 1 or 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
half a lemon

Sauté the heart in the hot oil over a high heat for about a minute, then lower the heat and toss for a further 2 to 3 minutes. Turn up the heat, and add the liver. Sauté for about a minute and then add the parsley mixture. Squeeze over lemon juice and serve directly from the pan.

Declan Power's Mother's Stuffed Lamb’s Hearts
Thanks to our friend Declan for sharing his mother's lovely recipe.

3 shallots
50g butter
1 rasher streaky bacon
2 cloves garlic, minced
6 sage leaves
50g breadcrumbs
4 lambs’ hearts
half cup stock
half cup red wine
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

First make the stuffing: chop the shallots finely and cook in the butter until golden, then add in the chopped rasher of streaky bacon, the garlic and the chopped sage leaves. Off the heat, add in the breadcrumbs, and toss all together to get a moist, buttery stuffing. Season well.

Trim any exterior fat from the hearts, and rinse well to ensure there are no blood particles in the hearts.

Pack the stuffing into the hearts and sew up the top with string. Pack the hearts into a tight-fitting caserole, then pour over the stock, wine and balsamic. The mixture should cover the hearts by about two-thirds. Cover with foil and place the lid on.

Cook in an oven heated to 180C for two hours. Serve with some mashed turnip.

Goats' Milk Yoghurt

Source of inspiration

Why make yoghurt? The yoghurt we can buy locally is so good. Bantry Country Market is where Valerie Kingston first started to sell her Glenilen yoghurt. I think we probably bought the first batch!

The yoghurt we can buy locally, however, is cows' yoghurt. Tasting some Aniar sheeps' yoghurt at a demo at the Galway Food Festival reminded me that sheeps' yoghurt has a particular sparkle. One taste and my mind is back on a boat on the Bosphorus river, buying Turkish yoghurt from the yoghurt hawkers. Sheeps' milk yoghurt is a magic food.

Sheeps' milk in Ireland is almost impossible to find. But there's plenty of reasons to make goats' milk yoghurt. Goats' milk is whiter than cows' milk – technically because all the beta-carotene is converted into vitamin A (thank you google!). It's a lighter milk which is easy to digest. Home-made yoghurt has a much more interesting texture than most commercial yoghurts. I think this is because, in their wisdom, yoghurt producers think we want a more homogeneous character. We don't.

Amazing food fact: Milk is considered a drink, but it really should count as a food – milk has over 12% total solids. Tomatoes and carrots, for example, can contain as little as 6% food solids.

To make yoghurt, first bring two litres of milk to a point just before it begins to boil. The reason for doing this is to zap all the organisms that might compete with the yoghurt bacteria. As you heat the milk, stir regularly with a slotted spoon, to stop the skin forming and distribute the heat evenly.

Next, let the milk cool. It needs to go back down to just above body temperature – about 42º. A thermometer is good, but a clean finger held for ten seconds in the milk, will also tell you that it is a few degrees warmer than blood heat. Keep up the stirring now and then, once again to stop a skin forming, and regulate the heat. Now to inoculate the milk with the yoghurt bacteria. Do this by simply stirring in two dessertspoons of natural yoghurt.

Cover the pan – a Le Creuset is best because it retains the heat – first with its lid, and then wrap in a towel.

Now leave the yoghurt in a warm place for about 8 hours, preferably overnight. My first batch of yoghurt didn't work, but I now realise I just didn't give it enough time. Also, don't be tempted to sneak a look. Opening up the yoghurt will release the heat and slow the process considerably.

After trying now, many times, I have found the best place, for me anyway, is wrapped in towels, in the hot press overnight.

Finally, pour into glass jars and chill the yogurt in the fridge.

If you want a thicker yoghurt, add two tablespoons milk powder to the milk as you first heat it. Otherwise, strain the yoghurt in muslin to remove some of the whey. This gives you a Greek-style thicker yoghurt, and is recommended for goats' milk, which is a thinner yoghurt anyway, and benefits from removing some of the whey.

The whey, incidentally, along with any failed yoghurt makes a soft bread that is ideal for sandwiches.

Serve the yoghurt sweet, with fruit and a sprinkling of honeycomb. Or use it in a savoury sauce, which could be as easy as adding a squeeze of lemon, some chopped garlic and some olive oil.

Gary O'Hanlon's Honeycomb Recipe

"100 ml water, 400g sugar, 100g honey, 2 table spoons liquid glucose. Bring all ingredients up to 160 degrees C on a sugar thermometer then remove immediately. Add 2 tea spoons of Bi-Carbonate of Soda and pour into a pre oil greased tin or tray. Leave to cool and chop up with a sharp serrated knife. Add broken pieces to ice cream, yoghurt or cheesecake mixtures and my favourite, coat two or three times with milk chocolate and make your own crunchies.!! Enjoy. I wanna see pictures Sally :)"
 – OK Gary :D

Tomato-flavoured yoghurt dressing

2 tomatoes
handful of fresh herbs (parsley, dill, coriander, or a combination)
1 cup yoghurt
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
seasoning

Skin and seed the tomatoes, and roughly chop. Place all the ingredients into a food processor and process to a fine dressing.







The Sheeps' Milk used by Enda McEvoy in Aniar comes from www.cratloehillscheese.com
Ballymaloe Cookery School have a half day course in yoghurt, butter and cheese, next Wednesday, 9th May

Dingle Pie

Myrtle Allen first documented the Dingle Pie in her classic book The Ballymaloe Cookbook. The pies, she recorded, were made for special occasions in Dingle, Holy Days and Fair Days when "nobody had time to sit down to a proper meal, but pie shops flourished." Dingle pies were simply made, to be eaten hot or cold. Mrs Allen continues: "Fishermen brought them to sea in a can and heated them up in the stock over a little fire made in a tin box, at the bottom of the boat. A cold baked pie was better for the farmer's pocket." The Dingle Pie begot the Spiced Mutton Pie, and it is this, spicier version that is cooked now, often using lamb rather than the traditional mutton, and flavouring with cumin seed.

600g lamb, taken from the shoulder, diced
1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots, diced
1 teaspoon ground cumin
quarter teaspoon cinnamon
knob of butter
1 tablespoon flour
 300ml stock (vegetable, lamb  or chicken) or water

450g plain flour
260g butter
175ml water
salt
1 egg, beaten with a fork

Saute the lamb in the butter until browned. Remove from the pan and add the onions, carrots, cumin and cinnammon. Saute the vegetables until the onions soften. Return the meat to the pan and sprinkle over the flour. Add the stock stirring to combine with the flour. Simmer the mixture for one hour.

To make the pastry: sieve the flour and salt into a bowl and make a well in the middle. Heat the butter and water in a saucepan until the butter melts. Pour the liquid all at once into the flour and stir to bring together. Let cool then roll out.

Reserving a third for the lid, line four small or one large pie dish(es) with the pastry. Fill with the lamb, top with pastry, pinch edges with a little water. Brush with egg and bake for 40 minutes at 190ºC

Nettles

Nettle Filo Pie

Once you get your head around the notion that this plant is going to bite you back, the nettle is an adaptable kitchen ingredient with a lovely aroma and earthy flavour.

Herbalists tell us it is a plant ruled by the planet Mars, linked to the Roman God of War no less. The nettle is a formidable herb that delivers a great punch of trace minerals that stimulate – not for nothing is it known as the ginseng of the West – and cleanse. The nettle's, shall we call it, counter-irritational qualities make it good for eczema and arthritis and gout. It’s full of iron and the butterflies love it. I’ve also come to love its sweet elder-like smell. And you can do so much with it.

If you are lucky enough to have some in your garden, know that it is because you have healthy rich soil. Historians have been known to identify ancient dwellings simply from a crop of nettles, which can persist for centuries, and love the enrichment of soil that occurs when human life was present.

If you want to use the leaves throughout the year, then keep cutting it. Once it goes to seed, you can eat the seed heads, but they aren’t so suitable for the leafy recipes that are so good to make at this time of year. Right now, there is plenty of it about - use only the tips, the younger leaves. Make sure to wash it well, and don't pick it where you think someone might have sprayed with pesticide.

 Nettle Filo-Pie

Nettle Pasta with Mushroom Sauce, Garlic and Cuckoo flowers

This is based on Claudia Roden’s classic version of Spinakopitta.
750g spinach
250g nettle leaves
1 onion, finely diced
4 spring onions, finely sliced
olive oil
4 tablespoons dill or parsley
4 eggs
200g feta cheese
50g ricotta cheese or cream cheese
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan
nutmeg
500g filo pastry

Wearing gloves, wash the nettles carefully and remove any stalks. Wash and de-stalk the spinach. Sauté the onions and spring onions in the olive oil and, when soft, add the dill or parsley. Add the greens, and stir until soft. Now you can take the gloves off. The nettle will surrender its sting at the first sign of heat.

In another bowl, beat the eggs and mix with the feta and ricotta, or cream cheese. Allow the spinach/nettle mixture to cool slightly, and then spoon into the eggs, removing as much liquid as you can from the greens. (Don’t throw this liquid away, use it for soup, or drink it down there and then - it’s precious stuff).

Line a baking tin with half the filo pastry, brushing generously with olive oil between each layer. The filo should be slightly larger than the tin, overlap the extra bit, and, after placing the nettle mixture into the tin, fold over, brushing again with oil as you do. Top the pie with the remaining filo pastry, again brushing liberally with oil between each sheet and folding over the excess between more brushes of oil.

Cut the pie into squares, but don’t cut all the way through, and bake for 1 hour in a preheated 190ºC oven.

Nettle Pesto

about a colander full of nettle tips
3 sprigs fresh mint leaves
100g pinenuts
70g grated Parmesan
olive oil to taste

Remove any stalks from the nettles (wearing gloves!) and place leaves and tips into boiling water to blanch for about a minute. Immediately refresh in iced water, then strain.

Put through a salad spinner, or press in a tea towel to remove the moisture. Place everything except the oil in a food processor and process. Drizzle in oil to taste. I add enough to make it quite thick and granular. It stores well in the fridge with a light topping of more oil. Every time you use some, just replace with a film of oil.

Suggestions for the pesto:

• Make into a school lunch salad with cooked pasta, chick peas, garlic flowers, tomatoes.
• Bake a potato. Take the flesh out and mash with some pesto. Return to the potato skin and bake until hot again, and slightly crispy on top.
• Use in sandwiches.
• Use to garnish a soup.
• Use to make a nettle pasta - add thick nettle pesto to the pasta dough.

Pasta and Chickpea Salad with nettle pesto

Perfectly cooked?

What do many of the current line-up of superchefs have in common?

I’m thinking here of a piece of fish cooked by Graham Neville, of Dublin's Number Forty One; a tranche of venison cooked by Mickael Viljanen of The Greenhouse, or a loin of rabbit cooked by David Hurley of Gregan’s Castle. All these dishes, that I’ve been lucky enough to try this year, had in one thing in common: they were cooked at very low temperature.

It’s hot to cook cool right now.

At a talk given in the Tannery Cookery School, Mickael Viljanen confessed to never turning the oven up beyond 90ºC. But, he explained, to achieve this delicate tightrope between something being à point, or just dangerously undercooked, you need a little bit of gadgetry.

Cooking this cool needs a temperature probe that can stand the heat of the oven. It needs to have a coated cable which lets you pierce your meat, fish or fowl at the beginning of cooking, and then just leave the probe in there in the oven, while the beast cooks.

Lucky enough for us, in Bantry we have a superb kitchen shop, www.cookware.ie, and within a very short time thanks to Maria and Andrew in this estimable establishment, we were equipped with the necessary tool, and so set about learning how to cook at low temperature.

Meat was the easiest thing to cook on low. We just cooked it for longer, and as soon as the temperature probe beeped, out it came to rest. Sometimes we would finish it off with a blast under the grill to crisp the outside, or we glazed it first in a slightly hot pan. This well hung rib of beef from O’Flynn’s of Cork cooked to perfection. We had success cooking pork this way too.

Chicken, as in the whole roast, was a disaster. The probe seemed to get very confused, and we over-cooked the bird, reverting to the old press-it-and-see, pierce it, does it run red?

It didn’t: we had passed the point of no return, and the dinner was dry.

The most fun we had was cooking with fish. John found a fascinating video on the New York Times, and we followed it with both salmon and with hake. It involved a home-kit of sous vide where we put the fish in a ziplock bag, and held the bag in warm tap water. Sounds unappetising, doesn’t it? But the result was silky fish flesh that we glazed in a warmish pan to take away that anaemic colour of just-cooked fish.

Owning an oven-proof temperature probe has certainly changed the way we cook.

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2012/01/17/dining/100000001265554/in-the-kitchen-with-nathan-myhrvold.html