Ballymaloe Day 37, February 29th - Pasta

It was mayhem in the kitchen today with everyone rolling out the pasta and cooking it to be eaten straight away. The cannelloni filling was straightforward enough but the pasta dough was a bit tricky, just a bit more liquid and it was too wet. Apparently the trick is to dip it into a bit of egg white till it is just right. After a bit more flour I managed to rescue it and kneaded the dough till it was soft and silky – like soft skin! I also ended up making the Tiramasu which was really tasty. I rolled out the pasta okay after a few goes at it, it should be thin but not the thinnest for this recipe. However some of the sheets stuck together when I went to cook it, I should have put them on separate trays after I rolled them out… Miraculously I managed to pull the dish together with my meagre amount of useable pasta. I also got my chocolate tart out of the tin.

Pastel Eggs

Chocolate Tart!

Tiramisu

Cannelloni

Add caption

In the afternoon the demonstration featured a wide variety of dishes. Rory prepared a Rack of Lamb, made Brioche, Tart Tatin, Dessert Soufflés and Mussels. There was also Ox Tongue, to be brined and cooked later in the week. Was a bit repulsive to look at to be honest! We won’t be cooking all these till Friday though, as Thursday we are on a school trip!

Ox Tongue

Ballymaloe Day 35, 24th February - Girl vs Monkfish

 Last day of Week 7 but plenty to be getting on with in the morning. I had to make more pastry for the base of the Apple Pie, this time a sweet shortcrust pastry. Then once rolled and chilled this is combined with the apples, sugar and a lid of flaky pastry before going in the oven. The top was a bit fiddly with the scalloped edges and pastry leaves for decoration. The pie is cooked on a Pyrex plate, which I had never seen before but Pyrex plates are very popular here and used for lots of recipes. The pie took much longer than you’d think to get it all together and in the oven. Next was the cream and red pepper sauce for the monkfish, a bit bland in my opinion but apparently it is very popular on the menu at Ballymaloe House. Although I wasn’t using crab I got the chance to extract the meat from the cooked crustacean so that was another technique practiced and I was happy.

Lastly was preparing and poaching the monkfish. The ugly beast and I were never going to get on but he was easily the slimiest fish we’ve had to deal with. I don’t really mind all the gross stuff we’ve done so far but this was grim. The skin was supposed to be kind of pulled off but it was so slimy it seemed to take me forever getting it off and trimming off all the membraney bits. You only really use the monkfish tail, that’s where the meat is; the other half of him goes in the stock pot. I poached the collops of fish in simmering water and served it with the pepper sauce and chervil. The pie was great, and I made custard flecked with vanilla seeds to go with it. Another carry on, the custard started to split, I had to rescue it with a blender…

Monkfish before...

And after!

My Apple Pie

After all those adventures I was ready for a snooze but the afternoon’s demonstration was good, vegetable curries, risotto and a fabulous chocolate tart. Then in the evening the housemates and I went into Midleton to a shop and restaurant called Farmgate. It’s a nice place with quirky décor and full of ladies who lunch types. As ever, they’re all about seasonal local produce. I had the mussels and the roast chicken which was delicious and full of flavour and a bit of crème brulee. The housemates All the mains came with a generous portion of roast and green veg. It was all tasty but expensive!

Farmgate feast

Ballymaloe Day 34, 23rd February - Apricot Tart and a frisky Crab

In Kitchen 1 today there was a lot on, smoked fish, steak and all the trimmings and the frangipane desserts. I began with the Apricot and Frangipane Tart. Cooking the pastry was a bit tricky but the end result was impressive, much better than the Medjool Date Tart de Terrible from the other week. I served it with the ubiquitous softly whipped cream. I made Flaky Pastry too, layering up the pastry with cubes of butter and rolling, turning and chilling it till you have leaves and leaves of pastry, awesome. I also cooked my sirloin steak medium and made Bearnaise Sauce and two kinds of chips, including the very fine Pommes Allumettes. Not the greatest fan of the deep fat fryer, too scary! But they’re used all the time here so getting used to it. The Bearnaise sauce was delicious! It’s kept warm in a Pyrex jug sat in hot water – a great tip. Can’t complain when lunch is a huge juicy steak with all the trimmings, yum!

In the afternoon we had a visit from Peter Ward of Country Choice delicatessan in Nenagh http://www.countrychoice.ie/index.php He showed us a huge whole wheel of top quality Parmesan and talked a bit about the importance of the quality of ingredients.

 

There was also much excitement as we had fresh live crabs in front of us for the demonstration. They were pretty lively and snapping their claws all over the place! You heat them up in the water slowly and they’re supposed to fall asleep and unconscious before they get cooked. Hmm, felt a bit bad but I like eating crab so what can you do? It was great to see how to prepare the crab and get every scrap of meat out of the body and the claws. Both the white and brown meat went into some tasty spring rolls served with a chilli dipping sauce. Next up was poached Monkfish, that is one ugly fish, that’s for sure. Dessert was Vanilla Ice Cream and Apple or Rhubarb Pie. I am cooking the Monkfish and the Apple Pie using the Flaky Pastry I made earlier in the day.

Crabby

Spring Roll

Monkfish

Apple Pie

Glazed Fruit as Petit Fours

Ballymaloe Day 29, 16th February - Profiteroles

Back in Kitchen 1 and it was the last chance to practice any techniques with the teachers. Unfortunately I also had bread and lemonade duty to do, another two recipes to fit into 4 hours. I made the Shanagarry Soda Bread we made in the first week, then made the lemonade, a combination of lemon, orange, grapefruit and passion fruit. It was a tasty mixture. There was also some rosemary syrup in the fridge to use, so measured it carefully! That done I managed to make my choux pastry and crème patisserie and get my two trays of profiteroles in the oven fine, then it was onto the techniques. Just wanted to tick off poaching an egg and a couple of other things so once that was done I had to make the chocolate sauce (with a large swig of Grand Marnier) and also a tomato, basil and coconut soup. A busy morning that’s for sure, but everything turned out ok, touch wood. Loved the profiteroles, here's a pic:

For the afternoon’s demonstration it was a menu we wouldn’t be cooking till Monday because of the exams. There were some great centrepieces of paté and terrines, and lots of relishes and chutneys to go with them. Then there was an introduction to flaky pastry and some apple tarts. As if that wasn’t enough there were two soufflés as well, oh the drama! We all enjoyed it but soon enough it was back to the house for some last minute cramming and to sharpen our knives!

Ballymaloe Day 27, February 14th - Valentine's Cabbage

Valentine's Day and everyone in the school was in good spirits. Got loads done in the kitchen, made a tasty fish curry using Pollock which I filleted myself, made Pilaff Rice, then got a few techniques done including Glazed Carrots and a couple of attempts at a French Omlette. Completely forgot to take any pictures but the curry was yum! Here are some of the salad leaves we had to memorise instead:

Take note students!

Back in the afternoon's demonstration and Rachel made Chocolate Profiteroles and a delicious Chilli Con Carne, using chunks of meat instead of mince and a chilli sauce which you make first and then add to the stew depending on how hot you like it. It was so, so tasty and the meat made a real difference and elevated what could be a 'normal' dish to something else. They're always doing that round here! I paid close attention to the profiteroles as I am making them on Thursday. It's also my life's ambition to make a Croquembouche one day so it was great!

The demo kitchen was suitably decorated today

Chocolate Profiteroles

It was all tasty, but no sooner and I had to rush over to the kitchen at Ballymaloe House to spend a night working in the kitchen. All the students get the chance to have a night or two's work experience here and to see how a restaurant kitchen works. It wasn't too busy as it was a Tuesday, even for Valentine's Day, but I saw the chefs in action and tried not to get in the way too much! Got some tips on segmenting an orange for the exam and on presentation. A lot of the dishes on the menu are things we have actually cooked here like Smoked Salmon Rillette and Fruit Sorbet. Again, the focus is on fresh local produce and classic dishes. One of the chefs had made a wild garlic custard served in a tiny teacup, it was delicious! Then they put me to work chopping a box full of muddy, slug-covered cabbages. Local indeed! Once they'd corrected my amateur chopping technique, and I'd disposed of the molluscs I had to wash the whole lot in the scullery. It's all good experience but it's the last Valentine's Day I will ever spend on that side of the kitchen that's for sure!!

Ballymaloe Day 24, 9th February - Tart de Terrible

Week 5, Day 4 and this week has absolutely flown by. I was in early to get started on the pastry for the tart and I also wanted to make some extra bread, plus I had Candied Peel and a flat fish to fillet.

I made the pastry in the tart recipe, messed up the first time due to my inability to put a Magimix together, then got it right the second time. Then found out we were supposed to do a simpler, more basic pastry, not the one in the recipe, grrrr. Anyway, no time to bother with that as the complicated pastry Mark 2 was in the fridge, I prepared the dates; Medjool Dates, the king of dates are the only type of date they use here and have a sweet, rich syrupy flavour. We get to use nothing but the best for our ingredients! I made the custard and also a Soda Bread with sultanas in it. Rolled out the pastry a little heavy handedly, as such it cracked and some of the filling spilled out and stuck to the base. It also took forever to set even though I thought it was cooked when I took it out the oven. A shame as it was really delicious, both the pastry and the filling and it was all rich and unctuous like it should be. However I had pastry left so took it home to practice with again, I thought I had the knack of lining a tin here but the rolling is another matter.

My goujons of sole were great though, filleted the flat fish, a Lemon Sole, chopped him into goujons which were covered in spiced flour and deep fried. They were absolutely delicious!

Rory made Scallops with Beurre Blanc look easy

Orange Jelly & Tuiles

Lamb Tagine

Rory's Scallop Carpaccio

Nice presentation of the Tagine

Florentines

The afternoon’s demonstration was an introduction to Scallops so we were all very excited. They cost a couple of Euros each in the shell and were hand caught. Again, loads of fabulous local produce being used. Rory made a Jerusalem Artichoke Puree to go with them and a Beurre Blanc. We also saw several Tagines of Lamb, couscous in a couscousier (who knew that existed?), salads, Fruit Jellies and an introduction to Gelatine. Rory also made Florentines and Tuile Biscuits. It was a feast as you can see from the pictures above. Tomorrow I am making the Tuiles, finishing Candied Peel, Lemonade duty and the Lamb Tagine, with, yes you’ve guessed it, Medjool Dates!

Ballymaloe Day 15th, January 27th - Lovin' the Langoustines

So, buoyed by yesterday's meringue and surviving a whole week in the demo kitchen I was in good spirits for the final day's cooking of the week. The langoustines and shrimps had already been cooked for us in huge pots of salted water, but our teacher was cooking some more shrimps for lunch. They were springing about in a bowl beside my section, unaware of their fate (or maybe they were?!) It's weird having live things in the kitchen; a few tried to make a 'run' for it, sort of like the lobsters in Annie Hall!

'ello 'ello

My cooked langoustines needed mayonnaise to serve with them, Rachel had made this the previous day and I had made it before so I was pretty confident about it. Then, just as I had the egg yolks, vingar, salt and mustard in the bowl, a whisk in one hand and the jug of oil poised in the other, Darina came into the kitchen to go through it again with us and show us the best way to whisk by hand. Since I had everything ready she demonstrated with mine. It was a bit surreal; I have made the mayonnaise from Darina's Complete Cookery Course book many times and then here she is showing us how to make it in person!

I finished mine off though and it was pretty good (in my opinion). Then, gripped with piping bag fervour following yesterday's meringue, I piped mayonnaise with a finer nozzle onto the plates to go with my langoustines. The proportion of shellfish, bread, sauce and salad is all important, I also remembered to garnish everything with a bit of fennel. I also made a tasty apple pie served with softly whipped cream in a little dish on the side - most desserts here should be served with cream. I forgot to take a picture of the pie, which was a shame as it looked and tasted great and the pastry was good too. I spied Myrtle Allen taking a slice at lunchtime...but I was too shy to ask her her opinion!

Love this plate

Piping action

Canapes!

After a gorgeous lunch of sweet tasting shellfish and pie it was onto the final demonstration of the week. There were two soups, French peasant soup and winter vegetable and bean, Traditional Roast Chicken, Pheasant and Guinea Fowl, Game Chips using potatoes and parsnips, various sauces and stuffing for the chicken, swede turnips which I would call a swede and what they call a neep in Scotland, strange stuff. For dessert a Summer Pudding and Proper Sponge Cake. Monday I am cooking a chicken, a really tasty Italian sauce to go with it with loads of anchovies, capers, tarragon all chopped up, just up my street – they call it Dragoncello sauce here, not sure why. Am also making cooked celery, never been a fan of that, we’ll see!

One of the bad boy roosters

  Also, some news here, the first of the wild garlic flowers have appeared! Spring is on it’s way!