Entertaining
Five easy ways to impress your family and friends this New Year's Eve
The problem with this time of year is that it leaves little scope for creativity. The mistress (or possibly master) of the house is in charge of the kitchen. The family want the same recipes they always have. You, the humble male have little else to do but choose the wine, pull the cork and make sure it’s served at the right temperature.
But what if there was an easy but impressive dish that you could sneak into the kitchen and whip up to dazzle your guests? A little bit of oneupmanship over ‘er indoors? Well, we have just the thing thanks to Dermot and Christine Gannon, the young Irish-American proprietors of the most original restaurant I’ve been to this year, The Old Convent in Co. Tipperary.
Dermot a self-taught chef, met Christine when he was working in a restaurant in her home state of Colorado. She was about to travel to south-east Asia, discovered he’d recently been there and asked to pick his brains. She made such an impression that he ended up going with her. They went round the world together then came back to Ireland where they opened their own restaurant, Gannons above The Bell in Cahir. Its successor, The Old Convent, or TOC, as it’s known in Irish food circles, opened in 2006 and has been dubbed the ‘hottest address in Ireland’ by John and Sally McKenna of the Bridgestone guides
What makes Dermot’s cooking stand out from the crowd is its no-choice tasting menu full of clever, original dishes that are based on local organic and artisanal produce. Not the molecular gastronomy favoured by so many chefs (“no foams and froths” as Christine puts it), but a whimsical, playful cuisine delivered with great accuracy and stunning flavour combinations. “We’re not going for a Michelin star” says Dermot. “We just want to enjoy what we’re doing which is elegant comfort food.”
Here are five of their top ideas for seasonal entertaining.
3 Soup Shots: Sweet Potato, Parsnip and Pea
This master recipe can be played three different ways or you could make just the one shot. To make the sweet potato velout preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F . Roast 2 large sweet potatoes for approximately 40 - 45 minutes until soft. Remove from the oven and cool. Peel and chop the potatoes and place in a blender with 950ml chicken stock and blend until smooth. Pass the mixture through a sieve into a saucepan and heat over a medium high heat. Stir in 40g of cubed butter and stir until melted and season with salt and freshly ground pepper. Remove from the heat, stir in a tablespoon of crme fraiche and a little grated parmesan then return the soup to the blender and whizz again until smooth. Serve in shot glasses or espresso cups, topped with 3 drops of hazelnut oil
To make a parsnip velout roast 4 parsnips (about 400g) the same way as the sweet potatoes then follow the recipe above, finishing it with 3 drops of truffle oil instead of the hazelnut oil.
To make the pea velout, put the chicken stock in a pan with a vanilla pod and 40g of cubed butter and slowly bring to the boil. Add 2 cups of frozen peas then when the soup comes back to the boil, remove from the heat and put into the blender. Follow the recipe above adding 3 drops of mint oil (olive oil infused with mint leaves) to finish.
Irish Artisan Sushi Rolls
“Sushi is becoming quite a dinner party favourite” says Christine. “Don’t be intimidated by the impressive knife wielding skills of professional sushi chefs – try it at home and make it your own unique flavour combinations. Here are some of our favourites”:
You will need a bamboo rolling mat and some nori (dried seaweed), 3 cups of Japanese Sushi Rice and some sushi rice vinegar. (Dissolve 2 tablespoons of white sugar, 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 tablespoon of mirin in 75ml rice wine vinegar over a low heat and set aside to cool).
Three popular fillings we use are Connemara oak smoked salmon, mascarpone cheese and avocado; McCarthys air dried beef, Ardsallagh goats cheese and rocket and Dunmore East crab mixed with a little mayonnaise & freshly chopped chives with pineapple, cucumber and apple strips and fresh coriander
Cook the rice following the instructions on the pack and spread it out on a baking tray. Sprinkle the sushi vinegar over the rice and gently fork through. Allow the rice to cool to room temperature.
To make the rolls put a sheet of nori on the bamboo rolling mat. Spread an even layer of rice over 2/3 of the nori sheet. Place strips of filling ingredients in a row lengthways down the centre of the rice. Start to roll from the edge nearest to you, using the the mat to help form the roll. Once the roll is complete, take a sharp knife and slice into eight even pieces.
Ice Cream Martinis
Ice cream martinis make a quick and impressive dessert - or even pre-dessert. As with the soups you can make them in three contrasting colours or flavours - or just one. You will need some martini glasses and a blender. Start with top quality vanilla ice cream and blend to taste with Baileys and crme de menthe for an Irish Mint, brandy and crme de cacao (Brandy Bean) or crme de banane and coconut rum (Banana Nut). To decorate sprinkle the surface with a little cinnamon or cocoa powder, coat the rim of the glass with flavoured sugar or add sliced fruit such as banana, cherry, strawberry, pineapple and apple to the rim of the glass.
Flamed Cashel Blue with poached pears and pistachios
A dramatic alternative to the traditional cheeseboard or Stilton. Peel some pears and poach in a 50/50 mixture of port and water with some added spices such as cinnamon and cloves. Carefully cut each pear in half lengthways and scoop out the centre. Briefly reheat the pear halves in the poaching liquid then put each one on a small plate and fill with a scoop of Cashel Blue or other soft blue cheese. Sprinkle with roasted pistachios. Heat a ladleful of Irish whisky, set it alight and carefully pour a little over the top of each cheese-filled pear. Take to the table while still flaming and serve with home made crackers.
Breakfast fruit martinis
The highlight of the breakfasts that have won the Gannons this year’s Irish breakfast award from Georgina Campbell’s Ireland are the fruit ‘martinis’ which are brough to the table as you sit down. A martini glass filled a third of the way up with yoghurt and piled with chunkily diced fresh fruits such as pineapple, melon, pears, apples and grapes topped with candied pecan nuts or roasted pistachios as the mood takes them. So easy to do and a perfect start to a Boxing Day brunch.
The Old Convent, Mount Anglesby, Clogheen, County Tipperary, Ireland.
Tel: +353 (0) 52 65565. www.theoldconvent.ie
This article first appeared in the December 2008 issue of Decanter
How to create a dish to match a wine
Signe Johansen recently competed in - and won - a food bloggers challenge to come up with the perfect dish for a Casillero del Diablo Chilean Cabernet. Here’s how she went about it. (You can find the recipe for the winning dish, Pigeon breast and chocolate mole with redcurrants and parmesan mash here.)
Matching a wine to food is not uncommon these days but matching food to wine?
I'd argue any cook worth their salt embraces the task of tasting and deconstructing a wine, then inventing a dish to match its distinctive characteristics however daunting that challenge might be. I relished the opportunity to do so when asked along with two other bloggers, Linda Williams of With Knife and Fork and Louis Villard of Spiltwine to take part in a recent wine and food matching challenge as part of a tripartite social media experimentorganised by Casillero del Diablo, Robert McIntosh of Wine Conversation and Chris Mitchell of Cube PR.
The idea was to test the boundaries of new social media using digital technology such as live video streaming and engaging our respective followers for food and wine pairing ideas on Twitter.With Casillero winemaker Marcelo Papa over from Chile, and live recording of the experiment, the two other bloggers and I were set the task of creating a bombshell of a dish, whilst admittedly running the risk of bombing out altogether
Thankfully all the dishes created met with the approval of the judges Marcelo Papa, Thierry Laborde of The Kitchen and Carol Emmas of Harpers Wine & Spirit Trades Review. A fun day was had by all and I'd do it again - in fact given that I won the competition I've now been instructed by my mates to recreate the winning dish for them, the recipe for which you can find here.
Tasting the wine and creating the dish:
The 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon with its ripe, yet mellow hit of red berries, hint of spice and rounded structure is a bold but not bombastic wine so I decided to channel all my autumnal yearnings for game, umami-rich jus reductions and a comforting carb to match this wine. The obvious solution might have been to go for a juicy steak or roast lamb but I set off with pigeon in mind and Elizabeth King on Parsons Green provided glorious, crimson pigeon breasts which formed the backbone of the dish.
But what else would work with Cabernet Sauvignon? During a live radio tasting of the wine Joe Wadsack suggested crystalline cheese such as parmesan and that set me thinking. If I could somehow harness the umami hit of parmesan without crudely plonking a big block of the stuff on a plate then parmesan was definitely going to feature.
I was tempted to leave the dish at meat and cheese but knew there had to be some acidity to balance the richness of the pigeon and off-set the parmesan's pungency which I was planning to incorporate in a pomme mousseline, or luscious creamy mashed potato. Voila! Another umami-rich component in the form of a red wine reduction, given extra zing from crisp crab apple jelly and added depth from grated 100% cocoa. To add a bit of Scandinavian flair I garnished the dish with fresh redcurrants, one of my favourite late summer berries.
As Marcelo Papa said in his judgement of the dish, it was the combination of all these constituent ingredients that made my pigeon breast and chocolate mole with red currants and parmesan mash a perfect partner for his wine. And who’s to argue with the winemaker ;-)
For more on how the experiment unfolded have a look at http://casillero.posterous.com/
Signe Johansen is a food anthropologist and cook and blogs as Scandilicious
Which wine to pour at an Inauguration celebration
From this side of the pond we've been watching the lavish preparations for the inauguration next week with amazement. We greet our new Prime Minister the morning after the election with nothing more exciting than a strong cup of tea and toast, most political activists feeling more than a little fragile having stayed up half the night to watch the election results come through.
I was fascinated to read this article in the LA Times which reveals the details of the lavish ingauguration parties over the years, naturally being particularly impressed that Harry S Truman's banquet in 1949 which consisted of a six course meal with individual wine pairings.
The Obama menu is apparently a more modest three course affair, inspired by the favourite food of Abraham Lincoln: seafood stew consisting of scallops, shrimp (prawns to us Brits) and lobster with puff pastry, a two-bird main course of duck breast served with sour cherry chutney and herb-roasted pheasant with wild rice and molasses-whipped sweet potatoes and apple and cinnamon sponge cake and cream. (The inaugural committee has even released the recipes should you want to replicate the meal for yourself)
The wines that will accompany this feast are a 2007 Duckhorn Sauvignon Blanc and a 2005 Goldeneye Pinot Noir from Anderson Valley, both delicious wines which should prove sound matches though I'd have probably opted for a Chardonnay rather than a Sauvignon with the stew and the very sweet accompaniments to the main course will give the Pinot a run for its money. With the apple and cinnamon dessert they're serving a Korbel Natural Special Inauguration Cuvée California 'Champagne' (a description that will infuriate the French) which I hope has a touch of sweetness to match the accompanying 'sweet cream glacé'
I wouldn't presume to advise our American friends what to drink on an occasion like this but for those of you Brits who feel like celebrating - and whatever your political views - it is a historic occasion, here are a few suggestions.
If you're drinking American wine please overlook the heavily-promoted, mass-market brands that give such a bad impression of what the country has to offer. Unfortunately that won't make your drinking cheap. The best deals at the moment seem to be at Majestic which is currently discounting Californian wines by 20% if you buy two or more though you do have to buy 12 bottles in total).
Reasonably priced bottles include the well-crafted Sonoma Cutrer Sonoma Coast Chardonnay 2006 down to £9.99 and Bonterra Zinfandel which is on offer at £7.99 but I'd trade up to something from their Fine Wine selection for this occasion which includes such celebrated names as Caymus, Joseph Phelps, Stag's Leap, Sean Thackrey - and Duckhorn (only the Merlot though this is a particular favourite of mine)
Majestic also stocks the extremeley drinkable Louis Roederer Quartet - to my mind one of the best sparkling wines made outside Champagne - which is currently on offer at £14.99 a bottle if you buy two or more - perfect for toasting the new president!
Finally no drink round-up would be complete without a suggestion from Obama's home city Chicago, also home to the splendid Goose Island brewery which I visited when I was there just over a year ago. The most widely available brew is the very appealing Goose Island IPA which you should be able to find in all specialist beer shops and wine merchants who have a decent beer offering. Not one for Obama's seafood stew but it should stand up well to those game-birds or simply a few nuts and pretzels as you follow the coverage on TV.
What French hostesses will be serving this Christmas
Open any French food magazine and you’ll find pages devoted to them. There are whole books on the subject. And no surprise, really - they’re easy, they’re pretty and they make you look like a great cook!
They are France’s seemingly unstoppable craze ‘verrines’, little glass tumblers layered with different ingredients to provide a contrast of flavours, colours and textures. You can make them savoury or sweet. You can prepare them beforehand. No wonder they’re so popular!
I had them earlier this year at the fashionable Paris restaurant Les Cocottes where we enjoyed a classic crab cocktail on a layer of shredded iceberg lettuce and a triple-layered jar of chopped tuna, caviar of aubergines and tomato jelly.
Desserts which can be given the verrine treatment include tiramisu, cheesecake and trifle (perfect for Christmas entertaining)
Dishes that seem dated or cliched such as prawn and avocado cocktail or sweet or savoury mousses seem fresh and chic served as a verrine.
You can also make mini-verrines for parties in shot glasses served with a coffee spoon.
If you read a bit of French, take a look at the French websites Goosto and Les Foodies for other ideas. Or, if you don’t, there’s an English-language book called Terrine & Verrines
Once you get the verrine habit it’s clearly addictive . . .
Last minute tips for Hallowe'en
There are already some useful tips for Hallowe'en on the site but as the word Hallowe'en fails to come up with anything in the search engine for some unfathomable reason I thought I would draw your attention to them plus some fun ideas for a Hallowe'en cheeseboard I've posted on my blog The Cheeselover today.
First there are some useful suggestions of what to drink at Hallowe'en including some suitably spookily named wines and beers and various black and orange drinks. (Hallowe'en is nothing if not kitsch!) There's also a menu for a Hallowe'en supper for 4-6 which includes a Hot Chilli Butternut Squash Soup, a Beef, Fig and Chestnut Casserole and a Roast Pumpkin and Pecan Pie.
And just in case you've never tackled a squash or a pumpkin before visit my student cookery website www.beyondbakedbeans.com for instructions! And here are some ideas for what to do with the leftovers!
Have a happy Hallowe'en!
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