Crail Food Festival - 16 June

Tucked away in the furthest corner of the East Neuk of Fife is the seaside village of Crail. This part of the world is has more in common with Cornwall than other parts of the Scottish coastline. White washed cottages, cobbled streets rolling down to a picture perfect harbour, a rocky shoreline only smugglers would brave and of course some of the tastiest food that side of Edinburgh.

Now in its third year, the annual Crail Food Festival takes place in June and I headed up and over the bridge to Fife to enjoy some of the best of the region's produce. Organised by a loyal community of local volunteers, the festival takes place over a weekend. Because this is Scotland, the Saturday featured an indoor market with cookery and tasting area, followed by a fabulous dinner and music event in the evening, this year featuring a three course Fife menu with King Creosote and friends bringing the tunes (a sellout!) Then, on the Sunday, the festival takes its chances and sets up shop on the famous harbour, the most photographed in Scotland apparently!

2013 must have seen some sun dances taken place, or perhaps a pact with the foodie gods as Crail basked in some of the best temperatures this year. Sadly unable to make a weekend of it and drove up only for the Sunday, but were rewarded by the journey nonetheless; inland or taking the coast road, it's spectacular. A worrying band of cloud stayed over the hills and the sea sparkled as far as the eye could see.

Set up as a celebration of local food and drink and a showcase for some of Fife's finest produce, the festival aims to encourage visitors to make the journey and enjoy all this in a fabulous setting. It had done the trick as the place was packed but luckily the trusty Micra was small enough to find a parking space. We joined the throngs of people walking down the pretty streets to the harbour. Approaching the harbour from the east is one of the best views from Scotland on a day like that. Blue, blue, blue and East Lothian visible in the distance.

On arrival at the harbour it had been transformed with stalls selling a diverse range of goodies including Arbroath Smokies, sweet waffles and chocolaty crepes, fresh pizza from an oven in the back of a horsebox (really) and pigeon on the menu from Wild Rover Foods. All this against a backdrop of boats, lobster pots, rambling cottages and the tangy air of the sea. Priorities, after the drive we needed sustenance so we headed to the lobster shack after seeing people walking past with their plates filled high with local crustacean. Cooked lobster with a squeeze of lemon juice and dressed crab ready to go we sat on the harbour wall and picked every scrap of juicy sweet meat out of it in the sun.

As well as the stalls along the harbour there were foraging walks from professional forager Galloway Wild Foods and the Fife Diet team who also brought their carbon-neutral smoothie bike! Continuing the emphasis on local food were Food from Fife who had a prime spot at the edge of the harbour wall with info, recipes and chef demos from Christopher Trotter, Paul Wedgewood, and Scott Davies. They also had some shellfish demos from local seafood expert Jim Knox who put a lobster through its paces. More on him soon on this blog!

As part of the build up to the festival, myself and other food bloggers have been contributing to the Crail Food Festival blogging project with guest posts about the producers and people attending the festival. Mine was all about the Food from Fife initiative and the work they're doing in Fife. Read about that and the rest of the posts on the Crail Food Festival website here.

Back in the village, the shops and tearooms were open and we visited the butchers and the greengrocers, snapping up a punnet of the tiniest, sweetish local strawberries. Ostensibly for the week ahead, they barely made it back home! back at the harbour, there was just time to pick up a couple of goodies including incredible patisserie from Sucre Coeur, before we headed back up the road.

It was wonderful to see the harbour busy and buzzing, and to see so many people coming together to enjoy all this great food. It's also good to see a real community project come together and be a success; so many events now are corporate, sponsored and identikit, let's hope if the festival expands to meet demand it won't loose any of the charm and character that marks it out as a must see on the foodie calendar.

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 39, March 2nd - Road Trip & Meat is Murder (part 2)

Okay, this is a bit of a long post so grab some more wine! Today was Thursday and the day of the school trip. We had a hectic day planned, beginning with an early start and a trip to the smokehouse at Belvelly. Unfortunately the bus had broken down but eventually it was fixed and we all had time for another cup of coffee while waiting. We went to see Frank Hederman’s smokehouse, he is one of the many local artisans (sorry Henry!) working in the area. It is organic farmed salmon which they salt and then smoke and sell all over including Fortnum and Masons as well as the nearby farmers’ markets. We were lucky, it was a lovely day so I got to see some of the Irish countryside from the bus.

Nice hairnet

Salmon smoking

Rosemary flowers

Next up was the farmers’ market at Mahon Point shopping centre near Cork. It is every week and draws a big crowd of people and a huge variety of stalls. There were meat, chicken, fish, baking, apple juice, honey, cheese and a myriad of artisan producers. We had some food to eat as well including pizza, steak sandwiches and curry. People come here every week to meet up and have a coffee and get their shopping as well as going into the big centre and it seems to work well. I bought some goat’s cheese from an enthusiastic young goat farmer and had a pizza with pepperoni, buffalo mozzarella and black olives, yum yum!

Back on the bus and we had a bit of  trip over to county Tipperary to visit the place where they make Cashel Blue cheese, the most famous blue cheese from Ireland. We drove down the country lanes till we got to their huge new factory near Cashel and saw how the cheese was made. It was such a sunny day! We also tasted some of the second cheese they have been making, a sheep’s milk, Crosier Blue.

As the afternoon went on we drove over the hills and down to Lismore. It was a spectacular drive and we had a great view of the landscape. In Lismore we went to McGrath’s Butchers, an old family business who still have their own abattoir, lovely! It was all really interesting though and we got to have a look round and they told us all about killing and butchering the meat. We’re welcome to come and see the slaughtering being done on a Monday if we want!

Lastly we went to two food businesses, O’Brien’s Chophouse which has an old wooden bar at the front and sells dishes including tongue and offal and lots of local produce including smoking their own fish. They also have a cute little garden out the back which would be amazing to sit in on a sunny day. Then The Summerhouse which is owned by an ex-Ballymaloe student and he gave us cake and some advice. It was interesting to hear more about the ins and outs of the food business. Lismore was a lovely place in the evening light, with the Castle and lots of little streets and shops. After all this we were absolutely exhausted, the bus was a bit more reserved on the way home!

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

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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