Lettercollum Kitchen Project

We were back on the roasted fennel last night. I was going to make a fennel salad but when it began to rain it lost it’s appeal and we ended up eating cooked food. The rice and lentil recipe is from the Moorish cookbook and is a little more upmarket than the name suggests. Puy lentils are cooked with a cinnamon stick, onion and bay leaf and then dressed with some olive oil and the rice is cooked risotto style with onion, white wine, vegetable stock and Parmesan cheese. The two are then gently mixed together and we ate them with roasted the fennel and tomatoes. It was sublime. It’s a surprisngly elegant dish.

We had green beans dressed with a lemony vinaigrette on the side.

Yesterdays dinner was a mobile one. We spent the day at the lovely Liss Ard estate where the annual music and arts festival was in full swing.
We left home in our wellies, armed with raincoats, blankets to sit on and a sweet potato fritatta in our backpack. The wellies were vital as it was very muddy after all the rain we’ve had,the fritatta was a very welcome snack which we ate sitting on a wall in the sunshine listening to stand up comedy and we didn’t need the raincoats! Quite amazing and such a treat.
Liss Ard is a beautiful old estate and the festival is laid out on a rolling hillock which makes a natural ampitheatre with food stalls all around the perimeter and the main marquee is down the bottom which meant we could sit on our blanket and get a great view without actually sitting inside.
We arrived in time to enjoy the lovely West Cork Ukelele band and then wandered on listening to stand up comedians in the literary tent,to watch cookery demos in the Theatre of Food and more music. The Ceili All Stars absolutely rocked and Toots and the Maytals are still the original reggae kings.
I did a little beer tasting with The Eight Degrees Brewing company and watched Mei Chin create some Asian Irish Fusion Food in the Theatre of Food. Mei’s Asian Cole slaw and Chinese spiced ham was served in “slider’ – a New York style mini bread roll. I tried the cole slaw in the ‘slider’ but had eaten it all before it occurred to me to take a photo! As everyone else had wolfed theirs down before I cottoned on we have no pictorial evidence.
Moving on we followed up with a falafel plate from the Lebanese Food Company and washed everything down with some Portuguese Douro wine from one of the wine tents.
All in all a great day out.

our falafel plate

This is a dinner that is very fast to make, just the thing when you’re feeling absolutely pooped after a day at work. We did have to run up to the garden for the courgettes but otherwise we had everything else in the house!

Tagliatelle with Courgettes and Saffron

500g tagliatelle
4 –5 small courgettes
200g mushrooms, wild if possible
25ml olive oil
25g butter
A pinch of saffron
Small glass of white wine (optional)
400ml cream
Salt and black pepper
Parmesan cheese to serve

Put a large pot of salted water on to boil. Cover with a lid. This will speed things up.
Pour a little boiling water over the saffron and leave to infuse.
Cut the courgettes into thin slices on the diagonal.
Slice the mushrooms
Read the cooking instructions on the pasta. The sauce takes 8-10minutes to cook so try to coordinate the two.

Put a large sauté pan or frying pan on the heat.

When the water for the pasta boils, add the pasta and start to cook the sauce.

Put the olive oil and butter into the pan, turn the heat up and when it bubbles up add the mushrooms and courgettes. Keep the heat high, season with salt and black pepper and keep shaking or stirring. After 3-4 minutes the vegetables should be just cooked. If you are using wine, add it now. Let it bubble up and reduce, then add the saffron and cream and bring to the boil. If you don’t have wine just add the cream and saffron. Cook rapidly until the sauce reduces by about half, season and remove from the heat.

Drain the pasta and toss in the sauce.

Serve with lots of grated Parmesan

We have fennel ready in the garden at the moment. We  missed most of the last crop as we didn’t pick it quickly enough and it bolted. One week it was looking perfect and a week later it was shooting for the sky. We can’t make the same mistake this time so it looks like we’re in for a bit of a fennel eating orgy.

Tonights dinner was fennel, which I blanched and the roasted together with baby tomatoes. I had bought some brill in the market so I pan fried the fish and then balanced it on top of the roasted fennel/tomato combo, poured the roasting juices over, then scattered basil on top. We ate it with charlotte potatoes on the side.

Here’s the recipe – you can make it with any white fish, just take the size of the fish into consideration for the cooking time.

About 150-200g fish per person – I used brill

1 medium or 2 smaller pieces fennel per person

7-8 small/cherry tomatoes per person

a good glug of olive oil

salt and pepper

a handful of shredded basil

Pre heat the oven to 200c.

Put a large pot of water on to boil. Wash and trim the fennel bulbs then cut them into halves or quarters lengthwise, depending how big they are. When the water boils add half a tsp salt and the fennel. Cook the fennel for 4-5 minutes then drain, toss in a large glug of olive oil,  salt and pepper and put into the oven.Roast for about twenty minutes then add the tomatoes, sprinkle with a little salt and roast for a further twenty minutes.

Ten minutes before the veggies are ready put a heavy pan onto heat. This will probably take about five minutes.Have the fish ready to go, trimmed and seasoned. Pour a little olive oil over each fillet and place oil side down on the hot pan. Cook at a high heat for three-four minutes, depending on the size of your fish then rub the topside with a little olive oil and carefully flip it over. Cook for a further couple of minutes. The fish is cooked when it firms up, i.e. is no longer blobby, so if you have bigger fillet of fish give it a gentle push to feel if it’s ready.

Scatter the basil over the fennel/tomato mix and spoon a heap onto each plate. Balance  a piece of fish over the veggies and pour the juices from the pan on top. Serve with lemon wedges.

Last nights dinner wasn’t so much for us, it was for the Clonakilty Waterfront Festival.

The festival kicked off last night with a Taste of West Cork and Con and I took our big paella pans for the cook up.

We made two versions, a chicken and chorizo paella and a vegetarian paella made with veggies from our garden.

The meat one was the first to go, naturally enough but word got around and we soon had everyone tasting the veggie version. This was made with all the usual ingredients, tomatoes, peppers, saffron and rice with broad beans and artichokes poked in. It was a wonderful evening, all the people of Clon dressed in their glad rags, sampling the wares of the local restaurants to the accompaniment of the Cafe Orchestra and the rain held off until everyone arrived! Here’s a domestic version of the chorizo paella. It’s great one pot dinner for feeding a crowd

Chorizo Paella

2 medium onions

about 100ml olive oil

2-3 celery stalks

2 peppers –green, yellow or red

1 leek, white part only

4 cloves garlic

2-3 fresh chorizo

1tsp smoked paprika

300g calaspara rice –or use Arborio if you don’t have/can’t find

1 can chopped tomatoes

1 glass white wine

900ml vegetable or chicken stock

salt and pepper

Peel and chop the onions. Heat a large heavy pan and add enough olive oil to cover the bottom. Add the onions and stir. Season with a little salt.

Cut the celery into 2 or 3 strips lengthwise then dice into small pieces. Add to the onion in the pan and continue cooking. It’s important that the vegetables are sizzling away without browning so maintain the heat so that you can hear everything cooking and stir frequently.

Deseed the peppers and chop into a large dice, add to the pan, season with a little salt and give a stir. Chop the leek and add to the rest of the vegetables. Give a good grind of black pepper and check the seasoning. Add more salt if necessary. Peel and chop the garlic and add to the pan then cut the chorizo in half lengthways. Chop the chorizo into equal sized chunks and add to the pan. Cook until the oils from the chorizo are released.

Stir in the rice and cook for a couple of minutes then add the tomatoes, smoked paprika and white wine. Bring the temperature up so that the alcohol burns off then stir in the stock. Taste and adjust seasoning then once all the ingredients are cooking turn the heat down to maintain a slow bubbling pot. Now stand back and do not stir. Cook gently for about fifteen minutes then turn the heat off. Cover with a piece of aluminium foil and leave to relax for five minutes.

Serve with lemon wedges.

The thing about making polenta is that if you don’t have a large family or invite all your friends round you will have to eat it twice. This is not a hardship. It’s really easy to make and can be reconstucted in many ways.

We grilled some little chubby courgettes from the garden, an aubergine and the slices of polenta and then we stacked them together with slices of buffalo mozzarella and basil. Whilst that was going on the cherry tomatoes that we had tossed in olive oil were roasting in the oven.

This was all surprisingly fast and easy – we were eating the polenta that we made the day before, and it was absolutely delicious.

Polenta is ground maize/corn and in these recipes it’s cooked like a porridge.  poshed up with parmesan cheese and butter and spread out on a tray to cool. We then slice it into wedges, rub it with olive oil and grill it on a cast iron grill pan. Its delicious eaten with salads or as a main dish.

The rainy weather is great excuse to hang around the kitchen with cookbooks dreaming up what to cook next.

This afternoons bake up involved the soft fruit from the garden and we’re making raspberry and white chocolate muffins and a summer fruit cheesecake. If they pass the neighbourhood tasting test we’ll move the recipes onto the shop. As I type this we have a small mountain of muffins – our muffin tins were obviously very small as a recipe that should have made twelve muffins actually made 24- but they’re looking good and the cheesecake is in the oven.

The muffins were made with spelt flour as we realised we had run out of ordinary flour, it turned out to be a happy accident . We invited the neigbours round for a muffin tasting session and they gave them the thumbs up. Expect to see our latest muffin addition in the shop soon!

Tonight we ate tomato, bean and basil salad with roasted beets and polenta. Mainly because we wanted to take a photo of the bean salad. It was another very variable weather day. As soon as we installed ourselves outside, so it rained and vice versa. As soon as we got stuck inside, in the tunnels so the sun came out. This movement back and forth decided the diner menu. Whilst we were sheltering in the tunnel we pulled some carrots. Beautiful stumpy Chantenay carrots. Like bullets with intense carrot flavour. The sun came back out and I found myself on the sod sofa muching on one of these taste explosions mulling over dinner possibilities. The bright orange of the carrot led to our multi jewelled collection of beetroots . In the end I roasted the two together, earthy and sweet, and we ate them with grilled slices of polenta and yoghurt olive oil sauce. The bean salad was a very tasty side kick.  Here are the photos

When you have your own vegetable garden there’s always something coming out of your ears.

Right now, with us, it’s cabbages and beetroots, which are lush and large after all the warm, wet weather. Luckily they hold quite well so we don’t actually have to eat them all at once and they are supplying a steady supply of cole slaws and beetroot salads to the shop.

When we get a little sunshine at this time of the year it really shifts things along and when it happens it’s woompf, everything ripens before our eyes.

Sunshine also has a great impact on flavour, which is why a locally grown and ripened tomato is going to taste so much better than a tomato that has been picked under-ripe and then travelled hundreds of kilometers in refrigerated trucks. Hopefully by the time that you read this, the tomatoes will be ripening at a fantastic rate and they will be available in the farmers markets and local shops. Vegetables that ripen at the same time usually make great partnerships and this months recipe is simple assembly of ingredients, French beans, tomatoes and basil, tossed with a tasty vinaigrette. It entails virtually no cooking, and is suitable for all occasions. Even if the weather is still under performing you will taste summer on your plate.

Follow the directions to cook the beans carefully as it’s important that the beans are not overdone.

Green Bean Salad with Tomatoes and Basil

450g French beans

250g ripe tomatoes, any shape or size

1 red onion, peeled and finely sliced

1 clove garlic

75ml olive oil

25ml sunflower oil

1 tbs white balsamic or white wine vinegar

1 tsp Dijon mustard

50g coarsely grated Parmesan cheese

Salt and pepper

a large handful basil, roughly chopped

Peel and finely slice the red onion. Rub a little salt into it and break up the rings. Leave aside while you prepare the rest of the recipe and this will soften the onion.

Put a large pot of salted water to boil. It needs to be large pot full of water so that when the beans are put in the temperature of the water doesn’t drop drastically. The quicker the water returns to the boil the squeakier your beans will be

Top and tail the beans and when the water is boiling add the beans. When the water returns to the boil cook for about 4 minutes. Test a bean by biting into one. The beans should squeak when you bite and be barely tender. If they are ready strain and plunge into cold water. This will stop them from

cooking further.

Wash the tomatoes and chop into small chunks, about a centimetre each if possible or if you use cherry tomatoes cut them into half.

To make the vinaigrette chop the garlic finely and mix together with the Dijon mustard and vinegar. Whisk in the oils in with a fork or a small whisk. Taste, and season with salt and pepper

Drain the beans and cut into roughly 5-6cm lengths..

Put the beans and tomatoes into a bowl. Sprinkle with a little salt then add the onion, basil and coarsely grated parmesan. When you are ready to eat toss everything together with the vinaigrette and serve immediately

The schedule for the autumn cooking classes is now ready and we will be beginning with a Harvest cooking class at Lettercollum on Saturday 15^th September which will have plenty of simple seasonal recipes for soups, salads and easy dinners. Our website www.lettercollum.ie has the full autumn programme.

On a final note we would like to thank everyone that helped us to clean up the shop after the flooding earlier this month. The kitchen is now fully functioning and we’re happy to be back in business.