Sunday Business Post
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Jack McCarthy’s handmade Irish Haggis also features and is served as a starter with a brown onion puree, roast garlic and a wild mushroom and Bushmills sauce for €8.95.
Month: June 2011
Eammon’s Black Pudding
Eamonn Gleeson’s Kanturk “Boar’s Head Pudding”, Green Onion, Potato Cake, Soft Poached Eggs and Frizzy Onions.
Set right in the heart of Roscommon town, overlooking the square, Mary and Eamonn Gleeson’s townhouse and restaurant provides just what every visitor requires: a warm welcome, comfortable rooms and first-class food.
Black Pudding that is fit for a Queen
It was with some excitment that Jack and Tim received the news that their pudding was to be served to Queen Elizabeth on her visit to Ireland. The State Banquet took place at Dublin Castle on 18th May 2011 and was prepared by award winning Michelin star restaurant Chapter One in Dublin. The restaurant prides itself not only on its food but also the hospitality it offers.
Head chef Ross Lewis focuses on local & seasonal produce to create an array of modern dishes with a combination of robust flavours. For the Queen Chapter One were looking for the best product from some of the richest land in Ireland. Tim took on the challenge and created the pudding to end all puddings. The recipe is a secret known only to Tim himself, but here are a few of the main ingredients.
Chapter one presented the dish to the Queen as a black pudding and veal sweetbread boudin with smoked bacon and organic quail’s egg poached in red wine, parsnip puree and horseradish glaze. Sound absolutely a dish fit for a Queen.
Unlike most butchers McCarthys do not used dried blood in their puddings, instead they use fresh blood from free range pigs. Combining this base with top quality Cork products, oatmeal from Macroom, special reserve whiskey from Midleton Distillery and fresh Cream and Butter from the North Cork Dairy in Kanturk.
You can buy “Boars Head” Kanturk Black Pudding in the online shop.
Welcome to McCarthys of Kanturk, Online Artisan Butchers
Buying meat online is a new idea, but supplying quality meat is a tradition for McCarthys. McCarthy’s is one of the most celebrated and respected butchers in Ireland. The family butchers shop has been supplying Kanturk with top quality meat since 1892. Visit the Online Shop to browse our top quality meat, delivered anywhere in Ireland.
When you order from one of Ireland’s finest butchers you are not only assured a prime cut from the butcher’s fridge but you are guaranteed value, convenience and the assurance that your order will be delivered to your doorstep within 48 hours in prime condition. The choicest of cuts will be chosen for you after you select them, vacuum packed where possible, labelled and dispatched to your address within 48 hours in a temperature controlled insulated food box. All the butchering and preparation techniques have been developed by this exceptional family over three centuries and five generations.
Orders over €100 euro are delivered free anywhere in Ireland.
Not only will you find amazing quality cuts, recipes, hampers and charcuturie but amazing value on a range of locally sourced free range meats.
Rozanne’s Corned Beef
Many thanks to Rozanne Stevens for allowing us to use this recipe. As well as being a regular guest on the Pat Kenny show Rozanne Stevens writes a column in The Health and Living Supplement of the Irish independent and she has been Head Tutor in Cooks Academy in Dun Laoghaire over the last 4 years.
1.5kg piece of Corned Beef
Peppercorns
Bay Leaf
Juniper Berries
Whole Cloves
Creamy Mustard Sauce:
Butter
Flour
600ml chicken stock
150ml cream
100ml milk
sp horseradish sauce
Pepper
Method
1. Simmer the beef in a large pot pf water with the spices for 30 minutes
per 500g. Remove from poaching water and allow to rest for 10 minutes before carving.
2. The sauce: melt the butter in a pot, add the flour and stir for a minute. Gradually add the stock and stir to bash out any lumps. Stir in the milk, cream and horseradish sauce. Season and adjust the amount of horseradish, it should be subtle.
3. Serve hot with the sauce, or cold on sandwiches
.
Annette’s Spiced Beef Salad
A wonderful unusual salad which includes spiced beef, pomegranate, and farmhouse cheddar cheese. Got to be tasted.
750g Guinness & Cider Spiced Beef
Crisp rocket leaves
Baby spinach
Flat leaf parsley
A celery stick
4 pears
Large shavings of Hegartys cheddar
Seeds from 1 Pomegranate
Icing Sugar
90 ml extra virgin Olive Oil
30 ml Sherry Vinegar
Salt and cracked Black Pepper
Spiced beef needs to be cooked long and slow. Put the beef in cold water with an onion, celery stick and carrot. Bring it to the boil slowly, turn down the temperature until the water is just trembling. It will take up to 3 hours to cook the beef. It will be done when a skewer can be pushed into the piece of meat with ease. Allow the meat to cool in the cooking liquor for best results.
The Hegartys cheddar has a sweet nutty flavour and contrasts very well with the spiced beef. The celery adds crunch to the salad and the pomegranate seeds add colour and extra flavour.
Roast Pears: Peel, quarter and core the pears. Heat a small roasting pan, add a little olive oil and then the pears. Colour them a little then sprinkle with a little icing sugar and then roast in a hot oven at 180C/356F for 10 minutes or until golden and tender. Ideally add to the salad whilst still warm.
Salad Dressing: Whisk oil into the vinegar and season with salt and cracked black pepper
To Serve: Put two slices of the cold spiced beef on a plate. Combine the salad ingredients in a bowl and dress with a little salad dressing and place on top of the beef. Serve with crusty white bread.
Hegarty Farmhouse Cheddar
An aged Cheddar made by Dan Hegarty.
White Church Foods
Church Road,
Whitechurch,
Co. Cork
021 4884238
Recipe courtesy of Annette Flanagan of Jacobs on the Mall, a 130 seat contemporary style Restaurant in the heart of Cork City’s financial district, with its own private dining room and piano bar, serving modern European food, with an emphasis on locally sourced free range and organic produce.;
Annette’s Crispy Bacon Salad
A delicious salad with a tasty dressing courtesy of Annette Flanagan of Jacobs on the Mall
16 slices of Dry Cured Spiced Streaky Rashers
2 bulbs of Fennel
1 small Red Onion
4 Scallions (spring onions)
250g salad leaves (including flat leaf parsley)
For the Dressing:
135 ml of sherry vinegar
1 Tsp whole grain mustard
1 Tsp maple syrup or honey
Salt and black pepper
Salad Dressing: Whisk all the ingredients together just before serving.
Put the bacon slices on a tray under the grill to cook.
Meanwhile thinly slice the red onion and spring onions. Trim the fennel and with a sharp knife cut into thin circles. Split the avocados in half lengthways, peel and remove the stone and cut into strips. Place all the ingredients into a large bowl.
When the bacon is crispy, drain on kitchen paper. Cut half of the slices into thin strips and mix with all the other ingredients in the bowl.
Finally add the salad leaves and parsley, dress with enough salad dressing to coat the leaves.
Serve immediately in large bowls and top with the remaining crispy bacon.
Jacobs on the Mall is a 130 seat contemporary style Restaurant in the heart of Cork City’s financial district, with its own private dining room and piano bar, serving modern European food, with an emphasis on locally sourced free range and organic produce.
Annette’s Roast Pork
Honey Cured Roast Pork with Roast Potatoes, Glazed Swede & Apple Puree
Recipe courtesy of Annette Flanagan, Head Chef from Jacobs on the Mall. Jacobs on the Mall is a 130 seat contemporary style Restaurant in the heart of Cork City’s financial district, with its own private dining room and piano bar, serving modern European food, with an emphasis on locally sourced free range and organic produce.
750g Joint of McCarthy’s Honey Cured Pork
1 Onion
4 Carrots
6 large Rooster Potatoes
1 bulb of Garlic
1 sprig of Rosemary
Olive Oil
Swede
Butter
Granny Smith Apple (s)
Sugar to Taste
Honey Glazed Roast Pork: Season the meat well and place on a roasting tray with some roughly chopped carrot and onion underneath the meat. Place in a hot oven at 220 C/428 F for 20 minutes. Then reduce the heat gradually to 180 C/356 F to allow the meat to continue to roast without it becoming over coloured. Baste from time to time. Allow approximately 25 minutes per 500g plus an extra 25 minutes. Roast pork must be well done, to test if cooked, press the meat firmly to squeeze out some juices, they should be clear in colour. Allow the meat to rest for approximately 15 minutes before serving.
Roast potatoes: Peel the potatoes and cut into four, place on a roasting tray and drizzle with some olive oil, enough to coat the potatoes. Break up the bulb of garlic and mix in with the potatoes (skin still on the garlic). Roughly chop the rosemary and sprinkle over the potatoes and garlic. Season with some salt and black pepper. Cook in a hot oven at 180 C/356 F. Move the potatoes around every now and then with a spoon to ensure an even colour. Cooking time approximately 30 to 35 minutes.
Glazed Swede: Peel the swede and slice the swede into rough cubes. Place in a saucepan and add some cold water 1/3 the way up the swede, (you are steaming the swede , not boiling it) and a large knob of butter. Cover with a lid and cook, stirring every now and then, again until it is cooked. Remove from the heat and strain off excess water.
Apple puree: Peel, core and roughly chop the apples (granny smiths). Place in a saucepan with a small drop of water to prevent burning. Cook slowly on a medium heat until it is a puree. Add a little sugar to taste and pass through a fine sieve.
All right on the night
The Irish Examiner
By Pól Ó Conghaile
Behind the clockwork-efficiency of the state dinner for Queen Elizabeth lay tales of last-minute mercy flights to Dublin, six-hour dashes across the country with smoked salmon and ‘forever secret’’ ingredients. Pól Ó Conghaile gets the real story
AS DINNERS go, it will take some beating. On May 18, 172 guests — their names reading like a who’s-who of Irish society — filed into Dublin Castle for a black-tie banquet with Queen Elizabeth.
Liam O’Flynn played the pipes, the queen addressed “a Uachtaráin agus a chairde”, and the crowd was wowed by a sensitive speech and a dress embroidered with more than 2,000 hand-sewn shamrocks.
In the headiness of the moment, of course, it was easy to overlook the food on the plate. Organised by the Department of An Taoiseach, the state dinner menu was designed by Ross Lewis of Michelin-starred restaurant Chapter One, and catered by corporate banqueting company, With Taste.
The menu showcased a stellar range of Irish food and producers, and it was only shortly before the event that many suppliers learned they had made the grade.
THE BURREN SMOKEHOUSE
“What an opportunity,” was Birgitta Hedda-Curtain’s reaction when Lewis called her at the Burren Smokehouse, asking if she would smoke some salmon for the occasion. “I was excited but you have to keep yourself contained and get it right. It was a great adventure.”
Birgitta and her husband Peter set up their smokehouse in 1989, and have since watched the Lisdoonvarna-based business grow into one of the most successful smokeries in Ireland. Products are mailed all over the world and, as of this year, are stocked at Fortnum & Mason in London.
As fate would have it, the morning before Lewis phoned, Birgitta had been speaking with one of her salmon suppliers, Barbara Grubb of Dromana House in Cappoquin, about wild salmon.
The window for netting this year’s strictly-controlled quota on the River Blackwater had just opened.
“It was unbelievable,” Birgitta recalls. “I drove three hours down and three hours back to get it. The draft netting season started on May 12, and I brought it to Dublin four days later. It was gorgeous fish. Ross wanted wild salmon because, flavour-wise, it’s the best you can get hold of.”
In total, she smoked eight fish for the state dinner. “It was only the queen’s salmon in the oven. When it came out, I did nothing to it. No vacuum-packing, no pin-boning, nothing. It was virginal. I drove it straight up to Dublin and hand-delivered it to Ross in the catering kitchen.”
When her salmon arrived, Birgitta recalls, the chefs immediately went about trimming it, pin-boning it and taking off the smoked skin. At the state dinner, it was served as a cream in the starter course, along with cured Clare Island salmon, lemon balm jelly, horseradish and wild watercress.
“Ross and I both tasted it, and it was fabulous,” she says. There’s a mischievous reaction when I ask whether the queen enjoyed it. “Of course she did — there wasn’t a spot left on her plate!”
GLENILEN DAIRY FARM
Meanwhile, in Drimoleague, Co Cork, an email pinged into the inbox of the Kingston family, requesting samples of unsalted butter, milk, cream and crème fraîche for a top secret event in Dublin.
“We were told what they were being used for but it was confidential,” recalls Valerie Kingston, who runs Glenilen Dairy Farm with her husband Alan. “We were told not to tell anyone because the suppliers wouldn’t be announced until the dinner was served. It all just added to the buzz.”
Shortly after receiving the samples, Ross Lewis confirmed that Glenilen had made the cut. For Valerie and Alan, it was a highpoint in generations of family farming. They went about assembling the order. Everything went to plan, until a crucial item was left behind.
“The products were to go up on the Friday before the dinner, and everything went up except the butter,” Valerie laughs. “Alan came into me on Saturday morning and said that the butter never went. He thought he was going to have to go all the way up to Dublin with it.
“Thankfully, my brother and sister-in-law had visitors down from Belfast, so we asked would they mind taking the samples up.
“Several phone calls and passwords had to be related, and I think the box even had to be opened to confirm the contents, but everything got delivered anyway.”
Glenilen Farm has come a long way since 1997, when Valerie began making cheesecakes for the local country market.
This year, the family won an annual contract worth €500,000 to supply Tesco UK with its homemade cheesecake, enabling them to hire more staff in the recession.
At the dinner in Dublin Castle, the Kingston’s milk and cream featured in a carageen set west Cork cream served with strawberries, fresh yoghurt mousse and soda bread sugar biscuits, and Irish apple balsamic vinegar meringue.
“I suppose it’s the honour of it,” Valerie reflects. “It puts our products and west Cork products on another plain. To be able to say they were fit for the queen … the menus are like gold dust but if we do manage to get a copy I’m going to frame it.”
Though the state dinner was assembled in a matter of weeks, and devoured in a matter of hours, the evening had been generations in the making for many of the producers.
McCARTHY’S BUTCHERS
Take McCarthy’s in Kanturk, the butchers that supplied the black pudding for the canapés.
Today, the business is run by Jack McCarthy and his son Tim, but their story goes back five generations to 1892, when a local baker swapped his dough hook for a meat cleaver.
As the story goes, the baker, Callahan McCarthy, was disappointed with the quality of meat available to him at the time, and vowed to do something about it. Almost 120 years later, McCarthy’s pudding had won a prestigious gold medal at La Confrérie des Chevaliers du Goûte Boudin, and was served to Elizabeth II.
“Everything was hush-hush,” Jack McCarthy recalls.
“Tim made up a special batch of pudding the Saturday night before. I asked him what was in it, and he said it was the same base ingredients as always — local pork, dry-cure bacon, local onions and herbs, butter and cream from North Cork Co-op and Donal Creedon’s Macroom oatmeal.
“I asked him was there anything special added, and he said there was ‘a touch of Cork magic!’. I think he added a drop of Midleton whiskey! I can’t prove it though, because he won’t tell me.”
When he first heard the queen was coming to Ireland, McCarthy says, he was sceptical.
But the proof was in the pudding, and he sees the state dinner as a supreme vote of confidence in Irish produce and suppliers that are fast making a name for themselves on the international stage.
“We’ve got the water, the air, the grass and the environment,” McCarthy says. “It’s pristine. Why we’re being fed by foreigners I don’t know. We should be feeding the world.”
How Irish suppliers served up dishes deemed fit for a queen
The Menu
Cured salmon with Burren smoked salmon cream and lemon balm jelly, horseradish and wild watercress, Kilkenny organic cold pressed rapeseed oil
Rib of Slaney Valley Beef, ox cheek and tongue with smoked champ potato and fried spring cabbage, new season broad beans and carrots with pickled and wild garlic leaf
Carrageen set West Cork cream with Meath strawberries, fresh yoghurt mousse and soda bread sugar biscuits, Irish apple balsamic vinegar meringue
Irish Cheese Plate
Tea and Coffee
Château de Fieuzal, 2005, Graves Pessac-Léognan
Château Lynch-Bages, 1998, Pauillac
The suppliers
Smoked salmon — Birgitta Hedda-Curtin, Burren Smokehouse, Lisdoonvarna, Co Clare
Salmon — Clare Island organic salmon, Clare Island, Co Mayo
Lemon balm — Paul Flynn, The Tannery, Dungarvan, Co Waterford
Organic cold-pressed rapeseed oil — Kitty Colchester, Drumeen Farms, Co Kilkenny
Wild watercress, cabbage, carrots, chive flower and garlic leaf — Denis Healy Farms, Co Wicklow.
Rib of beef — From a Co. Wexford farm, produced by Kettyle Irish Foods, Drumshaw, Lisnaskea, Co Fermanagh.
Ox cheek and tongue — M & K Butchers, Rathcoole, Co Dublin
Black pudding — McCarthy’s of Kanturk, Co Cork
Potatoes and spring onions — McNally family farm, Ring Common, Co Dublin
Butter, milk, cream and crème fraîche — Glenilen Farm, Drimoleague, Co Cork
Irish apple balsamic vinegar and apples — David Llewellyn, Llewellyn Orchard, Lusk, Co Dublin
Strawberries — Pat Clarke, Stamullen, Co Meath
Milk — Cleary family, Glenisk, Tullamore, Co Offaly
Dittys Irish oatmeal biscuits — Robert Ditty, Belfast
Stoneground wholemeal flour — Kells wholemeal, Bennettsbridge, Co Kilkenny
Buttermilk and butter — Cuinneog Ltd Balla, Castlebar, Co Mayo
Glebe Brethan cheese — produced by David Tiernan in Dunleer, Co Louth
Cashel Blue cheese — produced by the Grubb Family in Fethard, Co Tipperary
Milleens cheese — produced by the Steele Family in Milleens on the Beara Peninsula, Co Cork
Knockdrinna cheese — produced by Helen Finnegan in Stoneyford, Co Kilkenny
Black Pudding with Pears Flambé and Rosemary Cinnamon Carrots
This recipe is from the blog of Chef Bryce Collins, born in Northern Ireland, and who lived in the United States most of his life, serving in the U.S. Navy for 7 years. He recently repatriated back to Ireland to produce a new Culinary Comedy Musical Series, – P.R.A.C.T.I.C.E.
YOU WILL NEED:
Comice Pears, (One per dish), Not too ripe..
Cinnamon
1 cup sugar
Star Anise
2 Lemons
Cardamon
Rum
Irish Butter
Baby Carrots (3 or 4 per dish)
Cinnamon
Rosemary Chopped
Brown Sugar
Irish butter
Salt & Pepper to taste
Olive oil
Jack McCarthy’s Black Pudding {I used Kerry Style} – (If you’re close enough)
Parma Ham
Roquette
Malt Vinegar
Garlic (Finely Chopped)
_________________________________________________
1. Core and peel pears, and let them dry out in Fridge uncovered for a day so that they will dry out a bit and not disintegrate in the pan
2. On a hot pan add the sugar and be sure to spread it out over the pan evenly so it won’t burn in the corners.
3. Add 3 dollops of Irish butter and mix so the sugar won’t separate.
4. Add pears, Star Anise, Cinnamon, Cardamon to the pan.
5. Coat pears with the mix and add rum to flambé. Then add 2/3 of the juice of the lemons to bring down the sweetness of the mixture.
6. Remove pears and strain, set aside, Reserve liquid in a separate bowl.
7. In a separate pan, blanch the carrots in water with rosemary and cinnamon until soft. This can be done up to one day before hand and stored covered in the fridge.
8. Let water reduce or (place a few splashes of water) in the hot pan.
9. Roll carrots around in the pan while sprinkling cinnamon, brown sugar, and a dollop of butter.
10. Continue searing carrots, occasionally adding the brown sugar and butter to taste…
11. Remove the carrots and set aside…
12. Dump the excess of the pan, but don’t clean pan.
13. Season pudding with Salt and pepper
14. Add Olive oil to the hot pan that had the carrots on it.
15. Sear Jack McCarthy’s Award winning Black Pudding, 45 seconds each side. Remove from pan and dab.
16. Wrap the pudding in parma ham and return to fire for an additional 45 second each side and remove and dab
17. Season the Roquette with Salt & Pepper to taste along with the rest of the lemon & a light sprinkle of malt vinegar, and minced garlic.
18. Place pears on the bottom of the plate, then Jack McCarthy’s Award winning Black Pudding, slice and dress the carrots around and the roquette on top.
19. With the remaining juice from the flambé lightly drizzle and serve!
Garnish with Star Anise if you wish…