Girly trip

So, week 5 at Ballymaloe Cookery School begins tomorrow. To distract us from this uncomfortable fact and also that our waistlines have been on the (rather fast) increase we decided to take a trip to Dungarvon home of The Tannery for some food. Head cheffed (I'm sure that's a term!) by Paul Flynn it was a fantastic meal. Of course, before you question it, this did not help with our waistlines but it's the start of a new week tomorrow so it's all good.

I have no pictures for you as I heard he's not a fan (of having pics taken) BUT I can tell you that it is well worth the visit and definitely at a good price range too. I had potted rabbit to start, served in a kilner jar, it was tender morsels of rabbit with the zing of mustard seeds and some wonderfully crisp but soft bread. That was followed by a flaky tart topped with sweet sweet deep purple beetroots, slightly soured goats cheese and almost caramelised apples sprinkled with toasted hazelnuts. Goats cheese + hazelnuts are a winner by the way. And of course it would have been rude of me to refuse the third course of the meal which was a lighter than light dark bitter truffle cake topped with stick-in-your-teeth-in-a-good-way golden honey comb. Yum.

It's been beautifully mild here. Yesterday was utter sunshine and blue skies making the greener than green Irish grass sparkle and dazzle. And today, drum role please…was the first time I have not worn thermals. We're all pretty excited about what next week will bring here at Ballymaloe Cookery School, but in the mean time, here are some tips.

1. Never use aluminium with fruit (leave fruit in an aluminium bowl etc) as the acidity in the fruit affects the metal and react together

2. If you want to make garlic flavoured oil, never use raw garlic. It becomes very toxic raw. Instead, chop head of garlic in half and gently heat it in oil. When bubbling, remove garlic head and put it into a container. Easy

3. If making burgers you generally want 10-15% fat in the meat to give it a great flavour. Ask your butcher for the shoulder in pork or lamb and the brisket/flank in beef.

Cake competitions and foraging.

This week at Ballymaloe Cookery School two hugely significant things happened. First, we had ourselves a cake competition. Ok, so maybe it wasn't that serious and second, we only had the choice of three cakes but still. A little Ballymaloe/Rachel Allen inspiration did not go astray! We had crisp rolled dark chocolate mounds, sparkling iced primroses covering bases, mugs of steaming coffee decorating others etc, etc. (I'm hoping you get the picture)

Wednesday was Rachel Allen's, along with Pam who is definitely a fountain of cake wisdom, turn to show us all how to make/ice/decorate a cake. The choices (not made by us!) where coffee cake, chocolate cake and lemon cake. I got coffee cake. For someone who doesn't drink coffee or has never liked coffee cake this was definitely one to help me not lick the bowl! Obviously not forgetting how unhygienic that would be….

Second myself and Pam, who as Darina Allen says 'once seen never forgotten', had been doing some recipe testing with left over marzipan and sour cherries.  It's a delightful mix of fluffy rich cloud with hint of almond with random red sour cherry bursts topped off with crunchy marzipan. Today was the day I got it right. 1 hour of cooking (and worrying) and 1 plate of pieces sent to the office later I received two fantastic compliments. 1 from Rory Allen (I'm still happy as Larry over this one) and 1 from Darina who then said, 'yes we'll put it in the book as Jette's marzipan and sour cherry bake'. Yep. That'll do me thank you very much.

After our cakelunch but before demo foraging was next on our schedule.  Off we tootled down the country lanes off to Garryvoe Beach with Darina. Perrywinkles, horse winkles, sea spinach, urchins and the list goes on and on of our salty treasures. Not long enough on my opinion as I am utterly into foraging. I've found a new obsession reading any foraging blogs (a fave is this one).

And so now it's Friday night, as a little treat for all of you who read this (thank you by the way) here is the fantastic Marzipan and Sour Cherry Bake. Enjoy this over the weekend.

6oz salted butter
6oz self raising flour
60z caster sugar
3 eggs
roughly 2oz of homemade marzipan (a little kept behind to sprinkle on top)
100g of dry sour cherries.

Mix butter, flour, eggs and sugar in a food processor. Fold in the most of the  marzipan and the cherries. Put in a low tray/tins and sprinkle with remaining marzipan. 180degrees in the oven for about 15 minutes. Nom nom nom.

Daylight and lessons learned

A quarter the way through the course. For me this week has really the been the turning point where I am starting to really realise my weaknesses rather than feeling confident 90% of the time. I need to learn to slow down and take stock. To actually go through everything twice before going ahead with recipes. It's been a hard one I can tell you but also enjoyable and rewarding to learn that I will never make these mistakes again!

But, on the other hand, it's been another great week. After it being my turn at cooking family dinner (chilli roasted veggies with bulgar wheat and quinoa tossed in parsley and golden oyster mushrooms), finally we are making our way into the kitchens with daylight! Daylight is such a beautiful thing at 8am after leaving demo the night before in the dark! I made my second sourdough and already it's a 100% better. Still got some way to go to perfection but it's a yummy mistake we are all happy to get wrong. We've had some extra hours wine tasting of Little Beauty Wine... happy days! I made Bean Can Bread, so great and easy and then just some great times in the kitchen.

The Pink Cottage also received a great treat in the post from Raw Nibbles, some Cacao butter. We plan on making chocolate and raw chocolate and I've been using this page as some inspiration…can't wait for those final ingredients to arrive and get making!

And one of the best pieces of news…one of the cows had her calf on Monday evening. Welcome baby Babette heifer to the family.

Tips of the Week

Oh happy weekend. How glad am I that it is only Saturday. After a short visit to the Black Bird Pub in Ballycotten last night to mingle with the locals, the alarm clock came as quite a shock! Off to do our kneading of our Sourdough Sponge with Tim and then a quick, and yummy visit to Middleton Farmers Market.

Quite ashamed that I'm almost in week 4 of the course at Ballymaloe and still haven't managed to visit Middleton Market, we toddled off down the country lanes ready to see all the great vendors. 

There was the mushroom lady of Ballyhoura Mountain Mushroom selling shitake, several oyster species and nameko all grown in sawdust and chemick free. These were amazing and I opted for the Golden Oysters for my turn at cooking 'family supper' tomorrow night.

There was the Ahern family there selling their chickens, the Hederman family selling their amazing hot and cold smoked mackerel, salmon and mussels. Several local farmers selling veggies and fruit, the pate guy who's pate is amazing by the way! I was so blown away by the caramelised onion pate in my mouth and excited by the pate package in my hand I utterly forgot to ask his name…next week.

Of course Ballymaloe was there with it's stall and several of our classmates helping to sell, there was the sausage lady who we purchased several rustic hotdogs from and last but not least there was the best hot chocolate seller ever. And as a person who never drinks coffee and always hot chocolate, I should know! The name is O'Connail and they are really known for roasting and grinding their own coffee. But these guys also make their own chocolate for their hot chocolate. Oh boy. Go. Go now!

And so after a busy jam packed week. Here are 'my' tips of the week…

1. When boiling/blanching greens, never put the lid back on the pan once the veg is in the water. The evaporation that hits the lid will drop back into the mix actually discolour your veg.

2.  Soups that have potato/flour in are harder to reheat.

3. The yellower the fat on a piece of meat, the more grass fed it has been.

Is it me, or are we moving at warp speed?

This week has been so jam packed full of goodness. I had my meeting with Darina, it was insightful and great to speak to someone who knows so many people within the food industry, whether it's producers, restauranteurs, entrepreneurs or stylists . Literally she must know at least 100 people in each country in the world. Lots of great ideas and challenges came out of my meeting, as well as her loving my biscuits, asking if she could have the rest to take home plus lots more. Lots lots more of great little secrets and future things in the pipeline that I hope you come back and read all about!

We've learnt to make a new type of bread, brown yeast bread which is, by far the best so far. Tim Allen has been patiently walking or kneading us through sourdough starters and sponges. We are still waiting to actually get it proved but it's all exciting. I've named mine Bernie. He's lovely!

We've had Rachel Allen and Rory O'Connell for most of demos this week which we are all loving. And I mean loving. Rory brings a huge recipe encyclopaedic knowledge of exciting techniques and ideas for ingredients with a far more professional approach. Rachel is fun and vibrant and just makes three hours very fun, full of giggles and great tips. Today we learnt all about shrimps, prawns, crayfish all from 10minutes down the road.

We've had wine tasting with Maurice O'mahony from Wine Alliance and had a fun hour of swirling, sniffing and spitting. Ok, who am I kidding, we all drank our tasters!

Spring has started, buds are on the trees and as we learn more and more, the talk of what our future holds is boiling over and it seems quite symbolic coinciding with this time of the year. 

I cannot believe next week is week 4. Week 4! That means we only have 8 weeks left of the course and 2 weeks till our fist set of exams! Wow. I've left the 'oh my god I'm so excited to be here' stage and I've moved to the stage of loving it and soaking everything this place has to offer but thinking to the future and what that holds.

Knives at the ready!

A view of the veggies

I cooked Mexican today, for those that know me you are probably laughing. For those that don't, I have  been living there for the last 5 years. Go figure

My meeting didn't happen. I'm bummed but, on the plus side now the house has all the cookies it could possibly want. Try them, they are amazing. Darina would have been proud if she had tasted them tonight. Who knows what I'll make next week.

Here's a few photos of some of the veggies they grow here. Yum!

The taster day

It's a go in our Pink Cottage kitchen today. Tomorrow is my talk with Darina to see where I want my future to go. The word talk seems so small and almost insignificant but this has been on my mind for the better part of the week.

Darina suggests we make her a pot of tea and some biscuits so the pressure is on. Of course you want your biscuits to impress and amaze her with your hidden talent. This is a big moment, I feel.

I've ummed and ahhhed since the beginning of the course, I knew I wanted to speak to her sooner rather than later and have had a few biscuit ideas going through my mind so today, was D day.
I started off the morning making a simple Thyme biscuit. No pictures as they ended up in the hen bin. I had an inkling they wouldn't work as wonderfully as lavender biscuits but you have to try.

Second recipe that has been on my mind was the mix of lemon and cumin. My folks, especially my Indian Father uses cumin like nobodies business. Lemon is such a great flavour and our first week Darina gave us a Lemon fork biscuit recipe. So, what better way to use her recipe but adapt it to my style…I'm hoping (everything crossed that this will work for her as much as it's worked for my housemates).

It's a super simple recipe, cut down to make roughly 20 biscuits, less if you make them bigger obviously.

4oz soft butter
2oz castor sugar
5oz flour
the juice of one lemon and the rind of the same lemon
about 1 teaspoon of whole roasted cumin.

Cream the butter and the sugar. Add the other ingredients and hey presto. Take a teaspoon of dough in wet hands (will stop dough from sticking to your hands), put on baking paper and press with a fork. Pop in the oven at about 110 and check after 10minutes. They want to be golden around the edges.

The flavour that comes from these biscuits is such a far away land combination. A smash of toasted cumin followed by a citrus burst on your tongue. It's magical. A hit in the Pink Cottage. Let's hope Darina thinks so.