Ballymaloe Day 45, March 10th - Fish Fest

Last day of the week here in Kitchen 3. Before I had any time to dwell on another week over I had Brioche to roll out and put into tins to rise again, soda bread to bake, then filleting a flat fish, one of my favourite things to do here, this time I tackled a plaice. I made some mushy peas as well to go with the fish, not my favourite veg but cooked this way and blended in the food processor with butter and mint they were really tasty. I also turned out one of my yoghurt creams from yesterday which had by now set in its mold. I garnished it with pink sweet geranium leaves, looked amazing! The kitchen was chaos today with everyone frying fish and chips, there were fish everywhere, cod, plaice, monkfish, they came in on a trolly and we were all given one to fillet, batter and fry up for lunch. It's great to have these ingredients fresh out the sea for us to use. I also found the time to make a spiced Moroccan lentil soup, not sure how that happened!

Plaice before...

My cardamom cream

My White Soda Bread

My Mushy Peas

My Spiced Moroccan Soup

Plaice after!

My Brioche!

For the afternoon we were shown some more meringue recipes, including a chocolate and rum cream one, then lots of different bruschetta and crostinis. The main course was roast duck. I for one am just desperate for a rest but no sign of that anytime soon…

Ballymaloe Day 44, March 9th - Goaty and Fish and Chips

In the kitchen today I began stage 1 of making Brioche, like many things here it is a two day affair. You have to hover over the food mixer adding one cube of butter at a time for half an hour till it is all incorporated into the dough. While the mixer was on I also made some cheese biscuits. I was cooking dessert today, a delicious cardamom yoghurt cream served with a pomegranate and rosewater. Again using gelatine, it hadn’t quite set in a couple of hours, so I will turn out the rest tomorrow. I was also looking after the cheese board, setting out the goat’s cheeses on parchment paper on a board and making the little signs for them. I also added a small posy of herbs and flowers; if I could have got my hands on a toy plastic goat or two that would that would have been perfect! I got a few compliments on it too, sadly I have only one not so great picture of it:

My Goat's Cheese board

 More importantly the cheese and the biscuits were delicious!

My Cardamom & Pomegranate Cream

In the afternoon's demonstration Rachel made fish and chips and some orange and white chocolate mousses. She also made some chocolate cups and decorations from melted chocolate. Then in the evening we had a wine revision lecture, wrote loads of notes but also had a great English sparking rose wine, it was very quaffable. There is really no let up here, and good though it is to be immersed in all these things it's also very tiring. Literally the best bit of the day is when I collapse into my cosy bed at night!

Rachel's White Chocolate Mousse

and Tangerine Mousse

Fish and Chips

Fish Canapes

Ballymaloe Day 42, March 7th - Eggs 70s

Week 9, Day 2 and I was cooking the Cumberland Sauce, Bacon with a sugary pineapple glaze and Eggs Mayonnaise. I also practiced another brown soda bread. As ever easier than it sounds, the bacon took forever to cook as it simmered on the hob. It only goes into the oven to brown up but by the end of it I was getting sick of the dish. The Cumberland Sauce too took a long time and just didn’t go very well, too watery, then too overcooked, tricky to master. The Eggs Mayonnaise involved boiling 10 eggs (double the recipe) which I also failed to master, then making mayonnaise in the food processor and adding that to the sieved egg yolk. You then put it with some chives back into the halved egg whites and serve with a garnish. Easy, no? I swear this will be coming back into fashion if it hasn’t already! I also made some vanilla ice cream today, made by the method of pouring syrup onto the egg mixture. It was really sweet and tasty!

My Bacon and Cumberland Sauce, and a garnished Egg Mayonnaise

My Eggs Mayonnaise, 70s revival on the cards

 

The demonstration today was good, there was a spectacular ciabatta bread which is a two day job, a lamb curry and accompaniments, melon cocktail, sorbets, stuffed dates and a cardamom cream with pomegranates. It was a great feast; the blood orange sorbet was especially good and had an amazing flavour.

Tomorrow we have plenty on, a canapé demonstration, a talk on spices and freezing (not freezing spices) and then a visit up the road to Ballymaloe House.

Ballymaloe Day 41, March 6th - Duck, Panna Cotta, Buffet

Well this week (Week 9!) I was back in Kitchen 3, trying to remember where everything was. On the menu was pan grilled duck breast with Puy lentils and caramel panna cotta. I also practiced my brown soda bread to try and see some improvement on last week's.

The lentils are cooked up with some sacrificial vegetables and mixed with lots of herbs. The duck itself was simple but needs to be cooked on the skin side till the fat is nice and crispy, not flabby! Cooking the duck on both sides takes about 20 minutes, longer than you'd think. The panna cotta was my first time here using gelatine; they make it using the leaf gelatine to the milk, cream, sugar and vanilla. They don't bake it in the oven here, instead it sets in the fridge after adding the gelatine. The caramel sauce was the perfect addition, just the right side of bitter to balance out the sweet cream. The panna cotta itself tasted good but then it would, given the sum of its parts!

No pictures though today, but the afternoon's demonstration was the Ballymaloe House Buffet and there were huge platters of salads and roast meats. It was all pretty old school, but delicious nonetheless. It also included the rather wonderful Ballymaloe House Ice Bowl, which they use to keep ice cream cold. The ice bowl can be made with flowers and leaves and looks amazing, definitely one to try!

The Ballymaloe House Buffet

Roast meats

Buffet dishes

The Ice Bowl

Onions Moniegasque

Ballymaloe Day 40, March 3rd - Soda Bread, Mussels, Lamb

My final day in Kitchen 1 and I was ready to tackle some extra bread making. I rustled up a brown and white soda bread, both of which have room for improvement! I also made the white milk dough which is a softer, er milkier white yeast bread. I made one loaf and then made six rolls with the other which I shaped into a flower and topped with different seeds! They were a bit dense though, I could have made both smaller and got a third loaf out of it. Anyway, good practice and I will have another go at the soda breads next week.

The bad bread

My actual dishes for the day were Mussels with Coconut and Coriander and the Rack of Lamb with Fresh Apple & Mint Chutney. Preparing and French trimming the lamb was okay with a bit of guidance, I cut the feather bones and chine bone off with a saw, as you do, then trimmed it up and scraped down the bones. That bit took forever! The chutney was great, really tasty and quick in the food processor. The mussels looked great and the coconut broth with chilli and lemongrass was simple enough to prepare. Had to scrub the barnacles off the mussels but the whole thing was really tasty, I don’t know why I don’t cook them more often after this.

The lamb though was in an oven with someone else’s and I didn’t keep enough of an eye on it. The oven wasn’t hot enough and they just didn’t have enough colour on them. With everything else going on I didn’t think to keep them in for longer. Despite their smallish size they needed a lot longer and were too pink for my taste. It was ok, but could have been better!

A great demonstration in the afternoon with Squid, Panna Cotta and Roast Duck, all beautifully presented. It was the end of a long week though and I was so tired, there is no let up here at all!!

Ballymaloe Day 38, March 1st - Meat is Murder (Part 1)

Day 3

In the morning of this week’s theory day we had a massive vegetarian demonstration by Darina and Rachel. Morrissey would have liked it! There were dishes from all over the world, the Middle East, North Africa, Asia, Spain, America and so on. It was one of the tastiest lunches yet (even better when you haven’t had to cook). There were honestly loads and loads of things on the menu and so much of it was fresh tasting and healthy. There were lots of pulses, quinoa, tofu, baked aubergine and tabbouleh, everything had lots of flavour and was really delicious.

Darina in action and a huge spread of food

Pitta Bread

Yummy vegetarian food

All fresh and tasty

Nom nom nom

The afternoon was another wine lecture, we went through a huge selection from all over the world this week. We had wines from Austria, California, Spain, South Africa and Italy. What a struggle! I liked all of them, in fact we haven’t tasted a wine I haven’t liked! I will miss this part when the course is over, swigging wine on a Wednesday afternoon!

Colm McCan, Sommelier

Glug!