Recipes in The Bruntsfield Links magazine

As you may know I'm quite active in the community of Bruntsfield, helping to set up Dig-in Bruntsfield Community Greengrocer. I've also had the pleasure of contributing some seasonal recipes to the new Bruntsfield Links magazine, which is available online or you pick up a copy in local shops or cafes.

Sea Bass with Herbs

The latest July edition features Sea Bass and Broad Beans, and you can view May's delicious Asparagus Quiche online and also in the Meadows Directory magazine for June on the same website.

Do check out the Bruntsfield Links and like them on their Facebook page!

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 19, 2nd February - White Yeast Bread

So here in Ireland they have soda bread, and then yeast bread, which I would just think of as normal bread. So far we have made Soda bread, then a brown yeast bread, but today we were tackling White Yeast Bread and all its capriciousness. Made the dough ok, using fresh yeast as we have here. Then after leaving it to rest for 5 minutes I started kneading. And kneading. And...you get the idea. You are trying to develop the gluten in the flour so it is stretchy and springy. It takes a long, long time and you have to show the dough who's boss. Not so easy if you have weak scrawny arms like me. The teacher made it look so easy! Eventually it was there and I put it in the breading warming cupboard to rise. Then it was on with everything else.

Firstly Chicken Liver Pate with Melba Toast. Prepared some livers - pretty slimy taking off all the membranes and stuff, fried them in loads of butter, then flambeed them in brandy using the flame of the gas stove. The first time I have ever done this, it shot up in flames! Then whizzed it up in the Magimix and left to cool. Next were the Raspberry Squares I had to make as I was making biscuits or some sort of small cake that day. These were pretty quick to make (and I never say that about anything here!), made again in the food processor and then baked in a swiss roll tin, then topped with raspberry jam and dessicated coconut and cut into squares, yum!

Back to the bread, checked a few times and it was still not ready, but with everyone open and closing the door it was hard for the breads to rise. Eventually it was ready and I knocked the air out of it, kneaded it a bit, left it again, then split it into two. Then I plaited one half and made rolls from the other. Finally it goes in the cupboard to rise for the final time till the yeast has pretty much done its job and it is into the oven with it.

Back to the Pate. Mixed it up again with loads and loads of butter and then put it into dishes and covered with a layer of clarified butter. I say a layer, I added about a cm of butter only to be spotted by Rory who advised it only needs to cover the pate, really a mm should be enough! Poured the rest off, topped with a thyme sprig and put it in the fridge. By this time I was really losing the will to live but no, I burnt some Melba Toast, made some more, then filleted a round fish, again another evil looking cod and fried him up served with some herb butter.

A good morning's cooking and loads done, then but into the afternoon's demonstration and we saw the Gravlax from Monday served with a mustard sauce. Next were loads of omelette and egg dishes, mushroom soup and marzipan! I also remembered to go and turn my little cheese after the class. I have been very poor remembering to go and turn it every day, thankfully some of the housemates have turned it for me. From Friday I only need to turn it every week though.

Gravlax

Petit Fours

Ballymaloe Day 9, 19th January - Confessions of a Milkmaid

Yes, I was up early to milk the bovine beasts and at the school for 7.30am. However it was still too dark at that hour so I was told to come back 15 minutes later. What else was there to do but go back to the cottage and put on my make-up instead. Looking a bit better (you never know when one of these eligible farmers they keep talking about might appear) I met Eileen who is in charge of the cows and we herded them out of the field and up to the milking parlour. There are three dairy cows, a Jersey, a Fresian and a cross between the two I think, plus their calves, and two little Dexters, an old Irish breed who aren't used for milk but hang out in the field with them.

We herded them in, and it was even further from Possil than ever, standing in a muddy field in the dawn wielding a big stick. We washed the udders, then put on the milking apparatus (no, I was not milking by hand, sitting on a stool like ye olde milkmaid of yore). The milk goes straight through into the dairy, then into the separator we saw yesterday. The jersey milk gives it a lovely rich colour and the cream is sunny and yellow. Then everything's cleaned down and the cows drift back to the field; they're pretty smart and know they're going to be milked and get grumpy if they have to wait around in the morning.

The separated milk and cream get taken back to the school for use in the day's cooking and that's it. Another crazy experience which is a daily occurance at Ballymaloe!

Then it was back to Kitchen 2, and got on with my Bread and Butter pudding, including nearly a pint of cream and marmalade. Also made tomato fondue, a kind of Ballymaloe in-house tomato sauce. It was all really tasty, I was pleased! I also got to fillet half a flat fish, another huge cod. I enjoyed it though, not bad for a first attempt. I contacted the real world for a few minutes (my stepfather's 75th birthday, I tracked down a mobile phone signal in a supermarket car park in Midleton), only to be asked "did I gut the fish as well?" Thankfully no, as I could fit no more into today's exploits!

The first plates of my food I've phototgraphed (and remembered the camera!)

Well I tell a lie, in the afternoon for the demonstration Darina brought in half a sheep's carcass and went through the cuts of lamb with it. She wielded a saw and took off the leg and shoulder no problem - the things you see here! Tomorrow I am cooking the shoulder, and also roast potatoes, swiss chard and finishing off my marmalade. Lastly a few of us students went to see Tim making a sourdough loaf after class. More detail on the subject of sourdough at a later date but he has a starter which has been going since September. The starter captures the natural yeast in the air, Tim calls it working with ' the elements' which I love, I feel more of a pagan here than ever! He used the starter to create the 'sponge' which you use to rise the loaf. The dough is kneaded and then left to rise overnight ready for the next stage. All the students are excited about starting their own starter, I am hoping to find the time soon!

The starter (in jar) and the dough

Ballymaloe Day 7, 17th January - Seamonsters

Good morning in the kitchen, first up I was making the butter with Tim, using cream from the farm's Jersey cows. It was simpler than one might think, you just need rich cream, a mixer, sieve and wooden spoon.You beat the cream in the Kenwood mixer and overwhip it until the butter starts to separate from the buttermilk. Then drain off the milk and rinse the butter till the water runs clear, leave the butter to drain and then sqeeze it out again. Next weigh it and add in 2% salt, finally wrap it up in a sausage shape in parchment paper. I felt like a real farmer's wife! Now I need to find a farmer... It's dead good being able to make all this stuff from scratch and having access to the farm's own cows and milk, it's extra special.


(Not me, just a sample pic so you get the idea!)

Back to the kitchen, I was rustling up tortillas from scratch, I loved rolling out the dough and it was dead easy to make. I am never reaching for the Old El Paso again! I am still dead slow in the kitchen though, took me all morning to rustle up tortillas and complete Stage 1 of the Seville Orange Marmalade. It's weird, about a year ago I was making the Three Fruit Marmalade from Darina's Complete Cookery Course book and now I am making the Seville Marmalade here at Ballymaloe.

The tortillas were filled simply but with the tastiest ingredients, mozzerella and cheddar cheeses, freshly chopped spring onion and chilli and amazing Gubbeen chorizo, made here in County Cork: http://www.gubbeen.com/cured_meats.htm. It tasted gorgeous and I could have eaten it all day.

But no, I had to leave those tasty morsels as for the afternoon's demonstration Rachel was filleting a round fish! There was much excitement as now we are getting onto the serious difficult stuff (although I think everything we do here is serious and difficult!) We were shown a variety of fresh, fresh fish provided by Brenda O'Riordan whose husband runs a day fishing boat out of Ballycotton. Because the boat comes back every day it means the fish is really fresh. It's a real privilege to have these ingredients to cook with and learn from, these seabeasts are really impressive!

Rachel filleted a massive Cod with an evil glint in his eye with ease. There were also Pollock, Whiting and Haddock on display. Then she put him in a pie with Mornay sauce topped with Duchesse Potato. Definitely one of the more complicated dishes we've had so far as there are so many elements to it. The potato was also piped using a piping bag, the first time this has made an appearance, very old school, so old school I am too young to have ever used one! It all looked great though and tasted even better.

Plenty of techniques covered today; fish, piping, mornay sauce, egg poaching, it was all going on. Rachel also made Caesar Salad, one of my favourites, and Bread and Butter Pudding, which I have never made before but am making on Thursday, fingers crossed!