Ice Cream Ice Cream....

A busy day in the kitchen kicking off with some granary bread then Ballymaloe’s ‘very rich and very delicious’ egg mousse based ice cream. Whisked up yolks, then added a boiling sugar syrup, and some vanilla essence until it becomes a thick, white mousse. Finally a pint of softly whipped cream is folded in. The milk and cream from this morning's milking going through the seperator outside the kitchen....

Paired the ice cream with poached pears and chocolate sauce for ‘Poires Belle Helene’, which I was fully intending on taking a picture of, but it got eaten fairly quickly, camera forgotten in pocket. But I do have a picture of the still-delicious surplus we’re using for pear and frangipine tart on Thursday…



Was volunteered up by my teacher to do the pickled beetroot, which wasn’t the most exciting thing on the menu and resulted in a pair of pink hands for the day, but glad I did in the end…

Actually pretty good, and the pickle not as overpowering as I thought it'd be. The secret to pickling is apparently white wine vinegar, malt is a major no-no! Lastly, I've been meaning to take a picture of this romanesco broccoli for weeks, how clever is nature for creating such a beautiful, edible 'logarithmic spiral'?!

:-)

Cold November Days!

After a lovely welsh weekend we're back to a considerably chillier Ireland, all the more noticeable for the Pink Cottage being devoid of any hot water or heating! So to counter the cold I am currently writing this perched next to the fire, well wrapped in snugly Brora, typing with one hand, glass of red wine in the other. Sounds very autumnal and quite nice, actually, when described like that. In reality the wood is slightly damp, making my scarf smell smoky, and it would probably be bordering on antisocial if I don’t shower before tomorrow. But hopefully by bedtime/showertime we will yet again have oil in the tank! Today I cooked a roast duck....

The before picture :(

To accompany that made gravy, potato stuffing, red cabbage, parsnip mash and braised Jerusalem artichokes….

…peeling these knobbly little buggers is a whole new world of fun. There was also goose and pork, a veritable winter meat feast…..

Although the end product was delicious, the smell of goose and duck cooking is really unappetizing, bordering on the disgusting. On a more fragrant note, some yummy rosewater and pistachio meringues we had for pudding...

And, indicative of the extent to which the Ballymaloe brainwashing has taken hold, I now take pictures of egg boxes...

:-)

Monkfish

Today this cretinous creature landed on my chopping board.....




The filleting session was prefaced by a story from my teacher this week Rosie, who laughingly told us about the time she nearly lost her hand to a monkfish's teeth. Reassuring! But, armed with my friends the marigolds, and with Rosie's repeated assurances of 'Ahh you're grand, you're grand', I kept going! And out of something that ugly and scary looking, this very nice plate of fish was produced...






.....which I just had to poach and serve with hollandaise and some dill. Also made some frites, buttered spinach and fruit scones. Afternoon demo time and a little random snapshot that generally sums them up....

......Rory's immaculate soufflés with praline, and Emer, demo orchestrator extraordinaire, a blur of activity in the background.

Tomorrow's cooking for me consists of a spiced pork dish, orzo with herbs, chard with lemon and parmesan, and a biscuit of some sort. Pictures of said food (and blogging) may be sparse after this one, as, come Thursday evening I'll be back on Welsh soil! Home time!!!!!!

Room with a View

...well, kitchen with a view! This was where I made today's food....white turnip and marjoram soup (seen above in the process of being blitzed), wholemeal bread (also visible) and the successfully turned out greengage and blueberry tart....

Delish. And 3 perfect scores of 6 somewhat exonerating the practical exam disaster :-)

The Exam

So, in light of today’s relieving news that I PASSED, now could be the time to rewind to last week's exam! After 21st Ceidligh shenanigans in Glasgow with the shires crew…

….returned to Ireland for yet more foodie escapades! On the way back from the airport I stocked up on onions, chickens, oranges, mushrooms and various other random groceries to destroy/practice my chopping, jointing, sautéing and segmenting skills because, week 6 means EXAM TIME! Elements of which are herb and salad leaf recognition, demonstrating various technical skills, assembling machines, laying and clearing a table, and how to open and pour a glass of wine! So obviously in some areas a degree of revision was required and accordingly evenings that week largely consisted of memorising the difference between mibuna and mizuna….

Cathy and Rosie swotting at the salad and herb table set up for us in the school

As you can imagine the Ballymaloe herb and salad exam extends beyond ‘iceberg’ and ‘rocket’, giving the biggest headaches were, to name a few: salad burnet, mustard leaves, epazote, beetroot leaves, rhubarb chard, rainbow chard, swiss chard, red winter kale, savoury, lovage, curly green kale, red bor kale. Many of which look fairly identical to each other. Made a super effort to get in the kitchens for about 8am so I had an extra hour to practice the techniques. Finally, at the expense of my arm, mastered the mayonnaise and various other things like omelettes and paper piping bags were practiced and practiced and practiced again. Hence on exam day I obviously got the one thing I’ve never made, damn you ‘Mummy’s Sweet White Scones’! Messing those up also has added significance of you mutilating an Allen family recipe! Went wrong as apparently ‘All dry ingredients provided for you’ does not extend to baking powder, fairly essential component in baking. So after producing some scone-pancake hybrids I progressed to chop and sweat an onion and peel almonds both of which went well. Although it somehow managed to take me over an hour to do those three things! To celebrate our exam being done and dusted we decided to treat ourselves to a night out of the kitchen and went to a tiny little restaurant in Ballycotton. Entirely unassuming from the outside, although is located right next to the harbour. The fish does indeed come straight off the boats and into the kitchen, hence I felt it was a good time to order my first EVER fish and chips! Completely delicious, hake in beer batter with homemade chips, tartar sauce and a glass of wine helped me feel marginally better! Today everyone got their results back and having gained a respectable(ish) 65% in the disastrous practical and a more impressive 100% on the herb and salad side of things, I can breathe a sigh of relief! So if the cooking isn’t going to work out for me, then I think there could definitely be a future in gardening!

Seafood, Seapudding...

Still not quite ready to talk about the exam, so today's offerings!




To start, a plate of Irish shellfish - the main achievement of which was managing to open, eat and keep down my first oyster! Along with some Dublin bay prawns, shrimps, clams, mussels, and homemade mayonnaise there were also some periwinkles knocking about the kitchen but I didn't much fancy the pin opening palaver they entail. Main courses today were a lamb 'Dingle Pie' and a mutton 'Kerry Pie', but instead stuck to shrimps and brown bread. Just too good, as is obvious from the towering shellfish graveyard that accumulated on my side plate...




In keeping with the sea theme, we also did Irish Carrigeen Moss pudding which is a creamy custard concoction made slightly gelatinous by boiling milk, cream and vanilla with seaweed (the carrigeen moss). Sounds disgusting, actually delicious and, apparently, highly nutritious. Is superfood stuff, and even more so when served with brown sugar....





In the course of the morning plums were poached and banana bread baked, also. Afternoon demo menu consisted mainly of vegetarian food.... plantain, black cardammon and eggplant curry with paratha bread, some cold soups, cucumber mousse (sounded/looked like eyecream, tasted ok) and a masterclass in risotto from Rory. Pudding an abundance of plums and greengages, in the form of 'upside down' tarts with a caramel top...tomorrow's challenge!

Halloween!

Week 6 marks the Ballymaloe mid point exam, and with this gloomy prospect on the horizon we all naturally turned to halloween related procrastination! More of the exam later, slightly too traumatic an experience to relive now! Anyway with the sole aim of trick or treating Darina, the pink cottage this week put their heads together to come up with a collective costume design both scary, and foodie. Difficult. After considering a few various options we finally settled on….

Which, to elaborate, consisted of: a gamekeeper, his wife, their adorable black Labrador gun dog and various bloodied guinea fowl, pidgeons, woodcocks, grouse, and pheasants. A trip to Midleton high street and several feathery hours later….

Grotesque, food-themed, and totally relevant!....the 1st of November marks the beginning of the Irish game season and, needless to say, Darina was impressed! After returning with our trick or treat spoils, we went to the Barn’s Halloween party across the courtyard where we feasted on a pumpkin filled with pumpkin risotto served by 3 luminous pumpkins....




Then seemingly the entire school converged on the Blackbird in pursuit of the free 'blood shots' awarded to best costume. At this point there were more feathers on the floor than on our 'wings' so we didnt win, but still good fun! And, included for their romantic creepiness, the castle ruins that border the Blackbird's beer garden.... for one night only haunted by a candy-floss-pink-be-wigged Rosie...

Happy halloween!