My pals at Sheridans Cheese are running a fantastic food fair this Sunday. If you have never been out to their beautiful factory shop in Meath now is the time to do it. I'm sure there will plenty of free cheese to stuff your gobs with sample on the day so don't miss it! Deatails below:
I'm very excited to tell you that I will be at the lauch of the very first Point Village Farmers Market on Saturday.
They are running free cookery demonstrations all weekend to celebrate the launch of Dublin’s finest produce market. Clodagh McKenna will begin the weekends demonstrations at 11 a.m. on saturday morning cooking dishes from her new cookery school at the Village at Lyons.
At 1 p.m I'm up and will be putting my twist on some delicious local produce and signing a few copies of my book, "Good Mood Food", if you already have a copy, bring it down and I'll sign it for ya! At 2.30pm, co-founder of Ballymaloe Cookery School and one of Ireland’s finest chefs, Rory O’Connell will be giving a masterclass in simple, elegant, and seasonal dishes. On Sunday there will be a lesson in all things spicy with Green Saffron’s Arun Kapul from 1 p.m. This will be followed by Pam Holligan from Ballyderrin House who will be taking you into summer with some seasonal dishes from her award winning guest house and cookery school.
There is rumoured to be a number of special guests throughout the weekend and best of all, it’s free! So come early, learn some new dishes and experience all that Dublin’s best produce market has to offer.
My demo and book signing details as follows:
Date: 29th of May
Time: 1.00pm
Location: Point Village Market, Beside the o2 Arena!
Web: www.pointvillagemarket.ie
Let me know if you'll be there in the comments below! :)
Ok are you ready? Here is what I think might just be the ultimate Irish food bloggers list! If I missed you, please don't be insulted, putting this together has been a bit of a chore, please make sure to let me know in the comments section below! Now off you go and trawl through the 40 fantastic Irish food blogs most of whom will be in attendance on Thursday. Unfortunately we had to cap the list of attendees at 30 so there are still one or two blogs on the waiting list, if you can't make it, please let me know so we can give your place to someone else! If you are coming on Thursday make sure to bring your camera, a note pad, a bag to stash your foodie swag!
http://icanhascook.wordpress.com/
http://trulyscrumptiousness.wordpress.com
http://www.9beanrow.com
http://likemamusedtobake.blogspot.com
http://notjunkfood.net
http://consumedfoodie.blogspot.com
http://mangoeswithlime.wordpress.com
http://www.cheapeats.ie
http://babaduckbabbles.blogspot.com
http://upliftingfood.blogspot.com
http://reindeersp.wordpress.com
http://lettersonlunches.typepad.com/letters_on_lunches/
http://dinnerdujour.org
http://kilkennyfood.blogspot.com/
http://www.AnAmericanInIreland.com
http://www.gluttonyforbeginners.wordpress.com
http://suppersatisfaction.blogspot.com/
http://thedailyspud.com
http://www.smorgasblog.ie
http://thelovingspoonful.wordpress.com/
http://sharonhearnesmith.blogspot.com/
http://lilycollison.com
http://www.bibliocook.com
http://lola-luskitchen.blogspot.com/
http://kateskitchensligo.blogspot.com/
http://www.lillyhiggins.blogspot.com/
http://www.thefood.ie
http://conoroneill.com
http://messy-chef.com/blog
http://www.valskitchen.com/vals_kitchen
http://corkfood.blogspot.com
http://www.pauljkiernan.wordpress.com
http://welldonefillet.com/
http://www.comicmac.com
http://www.homeorganics.wordpress.com
http://www.theapprenticegourmet.com
http://deelitefull.blogspot.com/
http://thedevilsmenu.com/?page_id=505
http://italianfoodies.ie
http://pinkwhisk.blogspot.com/
http://justaddeggs.blogspot.com
http://wiseirishblog.blogspot.com/
http://yespleasefood.com/
http://www.thebohokitchen.com
http://livingflavour.com/blog/
http://myadventuresinveg.b
http://thegreenapron.ie/wordpress/
http://foodforlife.thorntonsrestaurant.com/foodforlife/
http://martindwyer.com/m/words.php
http://brownievillegirl.blogspot.com/
http://basketcasetheblog.blogspot.com
If you are an Irish blogger and are interested in coming along to this event taking place on Thursday the 20th of May, please drop me an email via the contact button at the top of the blog. Places are limited so I need to know by Tuesday morning 18th of May.
I'm going to be demonstrating at Bloom 2010 which is taking place in the Phoenix Park, Dublin over the June bank holiday weekend. I haven't been before so I'm very excited to be heading down! Here's a bit about the event:
The Food Market is now firmly established as a key attraction at Bloom and this year’s Food Market will be Bloom’s biggest yet! With over 40 artisan food producers, the market highlights the very best that small artisan producers from around Ireland have to offer. The producers themselves will be on hand to provide tastings and give tips on how to prepare tasty dishes using their products. The market will include a huge variety of foods from handmade chocolates, and baked goods to farmhouse cheeses and the finest Irish honey.
Each day, Bord Bia will also host four live demonstrations on the Bloom cookery stage. Featured chefs will include award winning chef Neven Maguire; Darina Allen, Ballymaloe Cookery School; food blogger and author of “Good Mood Food” Donal Skehan (that's me!) and well known TV chef Jenny Bristow. The dishes prepared by the celebrity chefs will promote quality assured local produce and will be available to order each day in Bistro Bloom.
There will be an particular emphasis on artisan food within ‘The Food Village’, the area incorporating all the outdoor catering options, where food producers will “serve slow food fast”.
A new feature for 2010 - Bord Bia will seek to bring food to life through a series of talks and demonstrations which will take place alongside the Food Market. The purpose of the showcase is to recreate the link for visitors between the food products on sale at the Market and the craft skills used in their creation. The demonstrations will also bring to life ‘forgotten’ food skills from Ireland’s past. Skills on show will include cheese making, butter churning, apple pressing and fish smoking. The demonstrators and talks will be delivered by a mix of current artisan producers and domestic practitioners.
Tickets are on sale on www.bloominthepark.com or by calling 0818 300 260, with significant discounts available in advance of the show. No booking fee applies and children go free.
I am really excited to announce that I am going to demonstrating at this years Taste of Dublin festival in the Iveagh Gardens on the 13th of June! The world's greatest restaurant festival, is back for its fifth year in the stunning location from 10th -13th June. I haven't actually been to the festival before so I am even more excited to see how it goes. A huge selection of Dublin's finest restaurants will be on display and will be serving up some of their signature dishes.
I'm going to be in amazing company as the line up of other chefs demonstrating includes a lot of familiar names like, Rachel Allen, Clodagh McKenna, Neven McGuire, Darina Allen, and Gina D'Acampo! For my demo I am going to be cooking some really great family dishes which are full of flavour and really easy to throw together without to much trouble! Apart from the chef demos and restaurant exhibitors, there is a lot of other food related exhibitors too. If you are interested in coming down, make sure to get your tickets via the Taste of Dublin website here!
One of the most exciting things about Foodstock was getting to show of some really fantastic quality Irish products, and it wasn’t really until I actually arrived in Paris that I realised the importance of this. Myself and Raphael spoke about organising what he called a “Dégustation” so that everybody at Le Fooding could sample the dishes we would be serving up. When we arrived at the hotel we met with the lovely Constance who would be tasting the dishes along with two of her colleagues from the magazine to give us the green light. It was only after I served up the Kelly’s of Newport Black Pudding and Cashel Blue Cheese salad that I realised how specifically Irish these products really are and just how distinctive the flavours were. I have to say with the initial reaction I was really proud, not just to be serving up a salad that went down well, but also to a certain extent that I could claim these fantastic ingredients as my own!
On the night when we served up the salad, I’m pretty sure people were a little bit apprehensive about trying the black pud but when they did the reaction was really great and we had people coming back for seconds! Louise a lovely Danish girl who is living in Paris and working for Le Fooding was overseeing the serving of the food and was on the tables with me all night. There was a system they were using where you could only get a portion in exchange for a coloured ticket. Now anyone who knows me will know that I am colourblind and have trouble differentiating similar colours or different shades which made it extremely hard to be strict with the tickets when it came to serving in the dark! However Louise was on hand with a fantastic sense of Scandinavian organisation covering up for my shoddy ticket skills and making sure things ran smoothly!
If you are Irish, this is a lovely little salad to show off some of our distinctively Irish produce to foreign visitors and if you're not you can always substitute the cheese and the black pudding for something more regional! Let me know your suggestions! :)
Kelly's Of Newport Black Pudding and Cashel Blue Cheese Salad
Make sure to prepare everything ahead of time and only assemble with the dressing when you are ready to serve!
Serves 8
280g of Kelly's of Newport black pudding in 1cm slices
120g of mixed baby leaves
80g of Cashel blue cheese broken into chunks
40ml of balsamic dressing
Balsamic dressing (makes 55ml of dressing)
3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon of Jameson Whiskey
1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper to taste
Arrange the black pudding slices on a baking tray, and place in an oven at 200oC/Gas Mark 6 for 7-8 minutes.
Whisk together the ingredients for the dressing.
Dress the salad leaves lightly with half the dressing and toss to combine.
Arrange the leaves on serving dishes with a slice of black pudding and a little crumbled Cashel blue cheese.
Serve with an extra drizzle of dressing.
Hey there!
Just a quick note to apologise for the lack of recipes, I am in London this week recording a few episodes of Market Kitchen which will air at the end of April. I have managed to grab a few minutes to myself to share with you these video's from last weeks foodstock event in Paris. I have so much Paris stuff to get through I don't know where to start, but will have a lot of time on a flight on Friday to go through them all and hopefully get some delicious photos online!
But for now enjoy the videos and please excuse my shoddy French!
D x
I am coming to you live from my hotel room in the sunny south of Ireland in Ballingcollig, Cork. I was doing a cookery demonstration for the Hope Foundation last night and it went extremely well! It was my first time doing a demo in front of a live adult audience, so I couldn't rely on my usual school demo tricks like asking them what they bring for their lunches, and of course every kid sticks up their hand. No this is a little different, but in a good way, I get to give more tips about the stuff I am cooking and I can choose dishes which are a little more interesting than stuff only kids will eat.
Last night I was demoing some of my favourite dishes from the book, I did 7 dishes altogether, which were my aromatic duck salad (with duck supplied by the lovely folks from Silverhill), hasselback potatoes, tomato chicken thigh supper, garlic mushroom and goats cheese pasta, mushy roast garlic and cherry tomato pasta, and my favourite dessert, Kerstin's bursting berries with white chocolate!
We did a bit of a signing after the demo, so a huge thank you to everyone who came up and bought a book, and big shout the folks at the Hope Foundation who pulled off the whole night with huge success! Mark was our cameraman for the night and popped me the tape of the whole thing, so when I get time I will stick it up here, so you can take a peak!
Today's recipe is going all Irish, as for the next few days, the country will be taken over by a rush of green and lots of celebrations. A few of the towns we drove through today already have their bunting up in the town square! This recipe is from my Cork News column which is out today, and for any foreign readers out there, this dish is quite a traditional Irish dish, so I hope you like it!
Traditional Irish Food: Colcannon
Colcannon is as traditional, as traditional Irish food gets, and for the week that's in it, when the whole world will be going green in our honour, what better thing to do, than serve up some of the finest! I told my grandad I was making this the other day and no sooner was it out of my mouth than he had burst into song. The dish of course, is the inspiration behind the traditional Irish song by the same name, "Oh weren't them the happy days when troubles we knew not and our mother made colcannon in the little skillet pot". This recipe is the one I grew up with, but if you want to experiment, you could also stir in a little bit of wholegrain mustard to add an extra bite to it!
Serves 4 portions
1kg potatoes, peeled and diced
250g savoy cabbage, finely sliced
1 bunch of spring onions, finely sliced
2 tablespoons of butter
75ml of milk
A good pinch of sea salt and black pepper
Add the peeled and diced potato to a pot of cold water, cover, place over a high heat and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer until the potato is tender when pierced with a fork.
Place a metal steamer into another pot, add a little water and bring to the boil. Place the cabbage into the steamer and steam cook until it is tender.
When the potatoes are cooked, remove from the heat, drain into a colander, then add back into the pot with the butter and milk. Using a potato masher, mash the potatoes until smooth and creamy. You may want to add a little bit more or less milk and butter, it is up to you!
Add in the spring onion, steamed cabbage, sea salt and black pepper and stir through with a spoon until evenly combined.
Serve the colcannon straight away with a little extra butter and sea salt if you want.
Enjoy and a slightly premature, Happy St. Patricks Day!
Viellée Foodstock - 24th March 2010
Le Chalet Des Iles
Way back in October I got a tweet from the lovely Trish Deseine, who many of you might know from her hugely successful series on RTÉ, where she guides viewers through just some of the vast range of delicious French dishes. Trish was born in Belfast and later moved to Paris, where she mastered her French cooking skills. She asked me if I would be interested in coming to Paris to cater an event and put me in touch with Raphael, from Le Fooding®, a Parisien magazine which seeks out the coolest eateries in the city. After lots and lots and lots and lots of emails back and forth we finally organised everything for the event which is going to be taking place in Paris at Le Chalet Des Iles on the 24th of March. From what I can gather, the event will have live music and is like a mini woodstock with food! It sounds really exciting and with only 2 weeks to go I cannot wait! The event is sponsored by Jameson whiskey and Bord Bia are sponsoring some of the ingredients from my recipes. These are the dishes I will be serving up on the night:
- Irish Seafood Chowder served with Chilled Smoked Salmon
- Kelly's Of Newport Black Pudding and Cashel Blue Cheese Salad
- Mocha Meringues with Jameson Whiskey Cream, Chocolate Sauce and toasted Hazelnuts
- Jameson Ginger and Mint Iced Fire Cocktails
If you just so happen to be in Paris that night, please do come along, I am not so sure how it works with the tickets but I have been told there is quite a demand, and people queue outside the venue to get in, so I guess you could come down and try your luck!
So I thought I would keep things fairly simple for the first twinnerparty menu, nothing too extravagant but still jam packed with great flavours and tastes. I will be posting the recipes in the next few days so you can familiarise yourselves with them and then on Friday I will post a handy little shopping list to make things even easier. The important thing to remember is not to fuss over this, the whole idea of the twinnerparty is to get you into the kitchen cooking and serving up some tasty dishes for friends or family. If you don't want to follow the recipes exactly, if you don't have exactly 6 guests coming, if your friends don't twitter, don't worry! Just enjoy the whole thing and if it all goes to pieces it makes for all the more entertaining tweets! Not that it will of course, I have faith in you! Don't forget I'm on twitter@donalskehan, so if there is any problems with the menu, recipes, shopping lists, or cooking I will do my best to tweet you back asap!
So without further ado, here it is the world's first twinnerparty menu!
Today I went on my very first mushroom hunt! It was organised by Slow Food Ireland and this is the introductory talk at powerscourt waterfalls just south of Dublin by mushroom expert, Bill O'Dea all about the different types of mushrooms edible and deadly! You'll have to excuse the focus pulling, I'm still getting to grips with the new camera- I'll post up lots of the photo's from the day when I finally get my head around it!
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