We Love Cooking!:
white wine vinegar

I was honoured this year to be included in the line up chefs demonstrating at two of the Irish summers top foodie events Taste of Dublin and Bord Bia's Bloom in the Park. Shamefully I had never been to either events, so it was fantastic to finally have my eyes opened to massive amount of work that goes in to creating such amazing displays and stands. I have had the experience of demonstrating in front of large crowds before and a brief stint in the musical world has meant that I no longer suffer too badly from nerves, but this was a little different. When you are included on the lineup with well established people who you have watched cooking growing up the pressure is really on! For my demonstration at Bloom I did a selection of dishes based around in season produce and one of them was this mouthwatering Summer Berry Pavlova.

Summer Berry Layered Pavlova
This mix makes a chewy, marshmallow meringue, which goes perfectly with the cream and berries. Layering the meringue discs gives this beautiful summer dish fantastic texture! If you haven't tried making meringues before, don't be scared as this mix is fairly fool proof, just pop the icing sugar and egg whites in a mixer and whisk till you have stiff glossy peaks, add in the cornflour and white wine vinegar, pop in the oven and you're sorted.

Serves 8
250g icing sugar
4 egg whites
2 teaspoons of cornflour
1 teaspoon of white wine vinegar
500ml of cream, whipped
250g of mixed berries

Preheat the oven to 150oC/Gas Mark 2
Line two baking trays with baking parchment. Draw a large circle 25cm/10inch on each piece of parchment paper.
Place the icing sugar and egg whites in a standing food mixer and whisk on high for 10 minutes until glossy white peaks form.
Using a spatula, gently fold in the cornflour and the white wine vinegar.
Divide the meringue mixture between the two baking trays and using a tablespoon, form two large meringue discs.
Bake for 45 minutes, remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.
Assemble the pavlova, by spooning half the cream onto the first layer of meringue, adding half the berries and topping with the other meringue layer, remaing berries and cream.

You may have noticed there has been a serious lack of recipes around here lately, but I want you too see that as a good thing! The good news is that behind the scenes I have started work on my new book, so right now that's the main focus and everything else is kind of on the back burner at minute! Hopefully very soon I'll be able to reveal a lot of really exciting news about the book and some other VERY exciting projects coming up. I will do my best to keep the recipes coming but for now here's a really great little summer dish! Enjoy!

Zingy Purple Potato Salad
When people think of potato salads in Ireland, heavy mayonaisse laden over boiled potatoes come to mind, but I'm here to change all that! This potato salad is light, bright breezy and packed full of zingy flavours! There is nothing better than great veggies being shown off at their best with a really simple recipe! While most good vegetable shops have them from time to time, t these purple potatoes can be tricky to come across and while not essential for this recipe, they really add great colour to the dish! If you can't get your hand on them, normal baby potatoes will do just fine. This dressing is a great compliment to any steamed or boiled vegetables like asparagus or garden peas!

Serves 4
750g of baby potatoes (mix of purple and white)
1 tablespoon of white wine vinegar
3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
1 garlic clove, finely minced
1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard
3 spring onions, finely chopped
A handful of dill and basil, roughly chopped
A generous pinch of sea salt and ground black pepper

Place the potatoes in a pot of cold water, cover, place over a high heat and bring to the boil. Simmer until the potatoes are tender when pierced with a fork. Drain the potatoes and slice in half lengthways.
While the potatoes are cooking, prepare the dressing. Whisk together the vinegar, oil, lemon juice, garlic, mustard, spring onions, and herbs. Season with sea salt and ground black pepper.
Pour the dressing over the cooked potatoes and gently toss, until everything is combined.
Serve straightaway!

Who doesn’t like Meringues? They always go down well in my books and are a really great dessert to make in advance because you can bake them ahead of time and they store extremely well. In our case for foodstock we baked off a mammoth amount of them, 700 to be exact on the Monday before the event on Wednesday and when it came to serving all we had to do was give them a scoop of Jameson whiskey cream, a drizzle of chocolate sauce and a sprinkle of chopped toasted hazelnuts!

I have to say that by the end of the night, there was a fantastic sense of team work when everyone who had been helping us all night, came down to the kitchen- the chefs, the girls from Bord Bia, the staff at the Chalet and the guys from Le Fooding, to work together to get the meringues out and ready! Every free space in the kitchen was taken up and there was meringues as far as the eye could see and in no time we were ready to serve up the last course. Let me just say that these chewy mocha meringues dripping with chocolate sauce didn’t last long in front of the eager crowd and within no time at all we had served them all up!

Mocha Meringues with Jameson Whiskey Cream, Chocolate Sauce and toasted Hazelnuts
This batter makes a really chewy, marshmallow meringue, which goes perfectly with the whiskey cream. If you aren't a coffee fan, drop the espresso powder from the recipe and replace it with more cocoa powder.

Makes 12 meringues
250g icing sugar
4 egg whites
2 teaspoons of cornflour
1 teaspoon of white wine vinegar
10g of good quality cocoa powder
2 teaspoons of instant espresso powder
60g of chopped toasted hazelnuts

Preheat the oven to 150oC/Gas Mark 2
Line two baking trays with baking parchment.
Place the icing sugar and egg whites in a standing food mixer and whisk on high for 10 minutes until glossy white peaks form.
Using a spatula, gently fold in the cornflour and the white wine vinegar. When this is mixed through, sift the cocoa powder and espresso powder over the meringue mix and gently fold in.
Using a tablespoon, place 3inch/8cm spoonfuls of the meringue mix onto the baking tray and flatten each one gently in the centre with the back of a spoon.
Bake for 45 minutes.

For the dark chocolate sauce:
30g caster sugar
60ml of water
50g of good quality dark chocolate, finely chopped
1 teaspoon of cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon of espresso powder

Place the sugar and water in a small saucepan over a medium heat and stir gently to dissolve the sugar.
Add the espresso powder, whisk through and bring the mix to a steady simmer for 3 minutes.
Remove from the heat, allow to sit for 1-2 minutes, then add the chocolate and whisk through until combined.
Sift in the cocoa powder and whisk until smooth.

For the Jameson Whiskey Cream
375ml of cream
3 tablespoons of Jameson whiskey
3 tablespoons of icing sugar

Whisk the cream into soft peaks.
Dissolve the icing sugar with the whiskey in a bowl and then add to the cream, folding to combine.

To assemble the meringues, place one on each plate, add a spoonful of Jameson whiskey cream on top, drizzle with the chocolate sauce and sprinkle with the toasted nuts.