pan-seared pigeon breast with roast apples, black pudding & cider reduction

Game season is under way again in Ireland and butchers are now starting to stock all of those richer meats we see in the Autumn & Winter months. Venison is back in town, as is pheasant, wild boar, partridge, quail... This dish uses pigeon; a lovely dark rich meat with virtually no fat, and cheap too; the 4 breasts I used here only set me back around €8!

This is a great starter, packed with flavour and leaving you wanting more every time!

Ingredients

• 4 pigeon breasts
• 100g black pudding, diced
• 1 Granny Smith apple, cored, peeled & cut into 8
• 200ml dry cider
• 2 tbsp duck fat
• 20g butter
• Salt & pepper

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180c / 160c (fan) / gas mark 4.
2. Heat a non-stick frying pan over a medium high heat and add 1tbsp duck fat and the butter.
3. Season the apple pieces with salt & pepper & fry for 1 minute on each side until just starting to colour slightly.
4. Transfer the apple to a non-stick baking tray and place in the oven. Cook for 10 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, add the other half of the duck fat into the frying pan and fry the black pudding for 3 or 4 minutes. Drain on kitchen paper then place on a second baking tray and place in the oven for 7-8 minutes.
6. Season the pigeon breasts on both sides & fry for 1 minute, skin side down. Turn over, add the cider and cook for another 2 minutes.
7. Remove the breasts from the pan and set aside to rest.
8. Turn the heat up in the pan and reduce the cider by around half.
9. To serve, place the apple pieces in a bowl or on a plate of your choice. Slice the pigeon breasts into 5 or 6 pieces each and place on top of the apple. Sprinkle the black pudding over and spoon over the sauce.
10. I also finished mine off with some posh micro herbs; in this case it was red stem radish, but pea shoots would be lovely too.
11. Enjoy!

Serves 2

pan-fried squid & chorizo with heritage tomato & feta salad

Here's a healthy Mediterranean type option for those of you who, like me, still wish they were on holiday having long lazy lunches somewhere hot and sunny without too much of a care in the world...

This light dish started off life as a 'let's-see-what-we've-got-left-in-the-fridge' plate of food, when I fancied a starter to pre-empt the chicken dish I was cooking as my main course. The resulting meal was VERY tasty, so of course I had to share! As you can see from the photo, it looks great too; really vibrant with loads of colour, and of course the flavours are just beautiful together.

Quick to prepare, and even quicker to cook and plate up, leaving you plenty of time to slow down and enjoy with a large slurp or two of cold dry white wine...

Ingredients

For the squid

• 2 x squid (tubes/bodies only), cleaned, halved along each side and cut into thin strips widthways
• 1 x chorizo sausage, diced (I used Gubbeen chorizo from Cork, keeping it local!)
• Olive oil
• Squeeze of fresh lemon juice
• Salt & pepper

For the tomato salad

• 2oog (approx - I used 2 - 3 good handfuls) Heritage (a.k.a. Heirloom) tomatoes, sliced
• 80g feta cheese, diced
• Good handful of freshly chopped parsley
• 1 clove of garlic, finely sliced
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• Squeeze of fresh lemon juice
• Salt & pepper

Method

1. First make the salad. Throw everything into a bowl and season to taste with the lemon juice, salt & pepper. Leave to one side for the flavours to combine a little.
2. Heat a non-stick frying pan over a medium-high heat and add the chorizo. Cook for 4 or 5 minutes until the sausage starts to colour and release some of its oils.Remove from the pan and drain on kitchen paper.
3. In the same pan, add a small splash of olive oil and throw in the squid pieces.
4. Stir regularly and again, season to taste with the lemon  juice, salt & pepper.
5. When the squid is cooked (but still nice & tender) add the chorizo back into the pan for 30 seconds to warm through.
6. To serve, divide the squid & chorizo into two portions, placing in the centre of each plate.
7. Place the tomatoes randomly around the outside of the plate and drizzle over the dressing.
8. Eat as slowly as you can to maximise the enjoyment. It might also be worth trying to convince your dining partner that they don't like it that much so you can steal theirs as well. Good luck with that...

I ate this last night for the first time and even just typing up the menu I'm drooling! That must say something about how nice it is, right?! I have to say, absolutely delicious...

Serves 2

pan-fried sea bass with beurre blanc & roasted mediterranean vegetables

Hi everyone!

I know, I know; it's been soooo looooong since I last posted, and for this I apologise. No excuses, aside from to say I've kind of been out of commission for the last couple of months doing lots of cheffy, cooky things. Can't divulge too much about that just yet, but suffice to say it's VERY exciting stuff, and of course I'll be giving more details in due course!!

Vague enough? Yep thought so. On with the food...

Once again, I've tried to put a dish together with swanky-but-inexpensive in mind, with taste and flavour still sitting pretty in first position, as always. This is a lovely dish, very simple, full of flavour, healthy (well, ish - ignore the mountain of butter in the sauce), and won't break the bank. You can substitute the bass for most other fish too, such as pollock, hake or cod, and it also works extremely well with salmon or sea trout.

This recipe makes for a nice starter or a light lunch/supper, but if you want to ramp it up as a main, you could just sit the fish on some sautéed potatoes and increase the amount of vegetables you plonk on the plate. Easy!

Finally, one more shout out for my good buddies at Kish Fish in Smithfield for selling me the beautifully fresh sea bass.

Ingredients

For the bass

• 2 fillets of sea bass
• Salt
• Pepper

For the Mediterranean vegetables

• ¼ courgette, cut into bite-size pieces
• ¼ aubergine, cut into bite-size pieces
• ¼ red pepper, de-seeded & cut into bite-size pieces
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper

For the beurre blanc

• 2 shallots, finely chopped
• 60ml white wine
• 60ml white wine vinegar
• 125g unsalted butter, cut into cubes

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180c / 160c (fan) / gas mark 4.
2. Place the vegetables in a small roasting tray and toss with the olive oil, salt & pepper, to coat.
3. Place in the oven and roast for around 30mins, until soft (but not mushy!).
4. For the beurre blanc, place the shallots, vinegar & wine in a small saucepan and heat over a medium heat until only around a quarter of the liquid remains.
5. Lower the heat to its lowest setting and whisk in the butter, one cube at a time until each one has been incorporated into the liquid. Keep warm.
6. For the bass, heat a non-stick saucepan until hot. Season the fillets lightly on both sides - do this the last minute before adding to the pan so you don't draw all of the moisture out of the fish.
7. Add 1 tbsp of olive oil and place the fish in the pan, skin side down. Hold down for a few seconds to prevent the fillets curling up (or - chef's tip - place a saucer on top of the fish for a minute or so to weight it down).
8. Once the skin is coloured and nice & crispy (approx. 3 minutes), turn of the heat & turn the fish onto the flesh side. Cook for a further minute (maximum) and remove to rest for around a minute.
9. To serve, place the fish in the middle of a plate, skin side up. Spoon the sauce all around and place the vegetable pieces around.
10. Take a photo, post it everywhere, wait for the ooh's and ahh's... Oh yep, and enjoy!

If you have some nice dry white wine, pour yourself a glass to have with this dish. If not - buy some!

Serves 2

pan fried sea bass with carrots, leeks & caper butter sauce

The outlaws were heading into town.

Wait, let me start that again...

My girlfriend's lovely parents were coming round for dinner.

Unfortunately for me, my cooking has been bigged up somewhat by my loved one (and admittedly, also by me), so I had quite a lot to live up to. As you know, I always try to come up with dishes that have the look, feel & taste of restaurant standard plates of food, but which don't break the bank, so this was my chance to go with that & give la familia something very special without having to use any ingredients that rhyme with 'mobster'.

Vegetables are always a good option. They're cheap, versatile, tasty, and good for us! So they were on the shopping list without a second thought. The nice people over at Kish Fish in Smithfield had also just sent me a text message informing me that sea bass fillets were on offer, so that also seemed like a no-brainer - who doesn't like fresh, simply-cooked fish, right?! And as we know, many people have the notion that fish is ridiculously difficult to cook - when in fact it's one of the simplest (shhh don't tell anyone!), so always a good one when trying to impress an Irish Mammy...

Then I just needed a sauce. Butter sauces are light, so great with fish dishes like this. The lemon is lovely with the bass, and the capers add a nice bit of zing against the sweet vegetables.

Try this dish out, and if you can't get hold of sea bass, go for whatever fish you can - trout, salmon, mackerel etc; they all work just as well.

Suffice to say, The Parents were suitably impressed, and loved the food. Phew! Ah but then there was the main course...

Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 4 fillets sea bass, cut into 2 or 3 pieces each
• 4 medium carrots, peeled & cut into matchsticks
• 1 large leek (or 2 medium), cleaned & cut into matchsticks
• Juice of ½ lemon
• 150g butter, diced
• 2 tsp capers, drained
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• Small handful of samphire, to serve (optional)

Method

1. Heat a large sauté pan (or deep frying pan) over a medium-high heat, add 100g of the butter and throw in the leeks & carrots. Sauté for 5 minutes or so, until starting to soften. Lower the heat to keep warm & soften a little more, whilst you cook the fish.
2. Heat a separate non-stick frying pan until hot. Season the fish lightly on the flesh side with a little salt (not much), and add the oil to the pan.
3. Carefully place the fish in the pan, skin side down, being careful not to splash yourself with the hot oil (lay the fish away from you to prevent this).
4. Press the fillets down for a few seconds if necessary to stop them curling up and stay nice & flat - this helps give you a lovely crisp skin. If you're having the samphire, blanch this in boiling water now for around a minute or so until softened, then drain and put to one side.
5. When the skin has coloured and crisped up, turn the fish and cook for another minute or so on the flesh side, until cooked through. Remove and place on a warm plate.
6. In the same pan as you cooked the fish, add the remaining 50g of butter and add the capers. When the butter has melted, squeeze in the lemon juice and mix together gently to ensure all the capers have taken on the flavours.
7. To serve, spoon the carrot & leek mixture onto a plate and place the sea bass on top before spooning over the caper butter.
8. Finally, to finish off the samphire, just throw it into the remainders of the caper butter and stir around for a few seconds until warmed through. Place on top of the plate, and of course, don't forget to arrange pretentiously!

This is lovely with a nice big glass of cold, dry white wine - which is also useful for drowning your sorrows once you start wishing you'd have made more!

Serves 4

seared tuna with tuna tartare, scallops and pak choi salad

When we talk about cooking with tuna, many of us think of the tinned stuff, in oil, or water, or (more trendy) olive oil. Now, that type of tuna is pretty cool in its own right of course; it's cheap, it's versatile, and it makes a great addition to a salad, stirred into a tomato pasta sauce, or just mixed with some mayonnaise and thrown on toast with tomato & cheese for a quick & comforting classic tuna melt.

For dinner however, the fresh option will give you a whole different experience. Full of essential nutrients, fresh tuna really is something else! The texture is just amazing (the fresher the better), and can even be eaten raw (think sashimi), and the fish lends itself brilliantly well to Asian flavours.

Price-wise, it clearly costs more than the tinned variety, but is worth every penny, and really won't break the bank - and why should it?! A little goes a long way, and I've designed this recipe to show off a couple of ways to make the most of tuna and its beautiful qualities. As a light lunch or a swanky starter, it's all good. Enjoy!

Ingredients

For the seared tuna

• 1 piece of fresh tuna (around 350g is plenty for 4 people)
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp clear honey
• 1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
• 2 tbsp sesame seeds

For the tuna tartare

• 150g fresh tuna, diced into very small pieces (the smaller the better)
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 1 tbsp clear honey
• ½ lime, juice only
• 1 spring onion, finely chopped
• ½ green chilli, finely chopped
• Salt & freshly ground black pepper

For the scallops

• 8 scallops, corals removed
• 1 tbsp olive oil

For the pak choi salad

• 2 pak choi, cleaned and thinly sliced
• ½ lime, juice only
• Small handful of fresh coriander, roughly chopped
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• ½ green chilli, finely chopped
• Handful of beansprouts
• 3 or 4 radishes, very finely sliced
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
• 1 tbsp clear honey

Method

1. First make the marinade for the tuna. Whisk the soy sauce, honey & sesame oil together in a bowl and place the tuna in, ensuring it gets a good coating. Leave for at least 5 minutes to soak up the flavours.
2. Next make the dressing for the salad. Mix everything together apart from the pak choi (reserve a small amount of coriander for garnish). Set to one side.
3. For the tuna tartare, mix all the ingredients together, seasoning to taste.
4. To finish the seared tuna, remove from the marinade and coat in the sesame seeds. Heat a griddle pan (or non-stick frying pan) until hot, add a small amount of olive oil and carefully place the tuna in the pan. Sear on all sides and remove to rest for a couple of minutes. The whole cooking process there should only take around 2-3 minutes in total, and don't panic of some of the seeds  burn a little; they just add to the flavour & textures!
5. For the scallops, season lightly with salt & freshly ground black pepper. Heat the oil in a frying pan until hot and cook the scallops for 30 - 60 seconds on each side, until they colour & start to caramelise slightly.
6. Finish the salad by adding the pak choi to the dressing, making sure everything gets a good coating.
7. To serve, place a small pile of salad on a plate. Next, slice the tuna into pieces no more than 1cm thick and place on top of the salad. Put 2 good spoonfuls of the tuna tartare on the plate and place a scallop on top of each. Finally, spoon over a little of the salad dressing and sprinkle over some of the reserved coriander.
8. Take photos, eat, smile, wonder how you didn't make this earlier...

Serves 4.

Special mention once again to the guys at Kish Fish for supplying the tuna & scallops. You rock!

crab salad with fresh herbs & cucumber

This salad makes a good sized starter or a lovely light lunch, and is packed with flavour thanks to the combination of freshly chopped herbs. Use fresh crab meat if you can (although tinned will do just fine too!).

Ingredients (for 2 people)

• 300g white crab meat
• Handful of fresh chives, chopped
• Handful of fresh mint, finely chopped
• Handful of fresh basil, finely chopped
• Handful of fresh coriander, finely chopped
• 1 clove of garlic, crushed
• Zest & juice of 1 lime
• Pinch of ground white pepper
• 3 tbsp mayonnaise
• Olive oil
• ¼ cucumber, very thinly sliced

Method

1. Place all the ingredients (except the cucumber) into a bowl and mix gently with a fork.
2. To serve, layer the crab mixture between 2 layers of the cucumber - use a cooking ring/mould if you want to go for a bit of swanky presentation.
3. Finish with a chive or two on top of each stack and scatter chopped chives around for an even more impressive looking plate!
4. Enjoy with a nice glass of chilled dry white wine. Or maybe two. Or...

potato, coriander & chilli soup

Well, the summer is finally starting to leave us here in Ireland (most of us question if we even had one this year!), and so it's time to bring out the comfort food. Last night was decidedly nippy, so I made this lovely belly-warming soup, plonked myself firmly on the sofa and focussed on warming my cockles.

This is a great soup for vegetarians too, and the vegans amongst you can simply replace the milk and crème fraîche with soy milk and soy sour cream respectively. The total cooking time, including chopping is around half an hour. Simple eh?! Oh and last (but not least), make sure you have a few chunks of crusty bread for dipping and mopping purposes...

lamb's kidneys with mushrooms on toast

This is my take on one of my favourite Spanish dishes 'Riñones al Jerez', or kidneys with sherry. Whilst I was living in Spain this turned out to be really versatile, in that it makes a great tapa, a substantial starter or a lovely comfort food supper.

Ensure you get nice fresh kidneys, with all of the fat trimmed off (your butcher will do this for you). Kidneys are a really tasty piece of offal, and are cheap too - usually only around 60c each!

Ingredients

• 6 lambs kidneys
• Handful of smoked bacon lardons
• 1 garlic clove, chopped
• 100g closed cut mushrooms, thickly sliced
• 2 tbs sherry vinegar
• 2 tbs olive oil
• Juice of 1 lemon
• Handful of fresh parsley, roughly chopped
• 2 tbs crème fraîche
• Salt & freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Method

1. To prepare the kidneys, first make sure you take off the thin membrane that covers them - you'll know if this is still on as the kidneys will look greyish in appearance - once removed you'll see them in all their lovely plummy shininess! After that, cut the kidneys lengthways, snip out the white cores with scissors (these can be quite tough to eat), and cut the kidneys in half again, giving you quarters. Place these on a plate and cover in the lemon juice to marinate a little.
2. In a large frying pan, heat the olive oil over a medium high heat and add the bacon. After a couple of minutes add the garlic & fry for a further minute.
3. Add the mushrooms and cook for 3-4 minutes, until they soften.
4. Pour in the kidneys, including the lemon juice and cook for 5 minutes, stirring gently (don't kill the kidneys!).
5. When the kidneys have started to lose their pinkness, add the sherry vinegar and again stir to combine all those lovely flavours.
6. Throw in the parsley and and salt & black pepper to taste.
7. After a minute or so, take off the heat a add a good dollop of crème fraîche. Stir this in to give a nice rich sauce.
8. Serve with lovely thick slices of toasted ciabatta.

This dish tastes lovely with a nice glass of Rioja - my favourites with kidneys are Campo Viejo or Marqués de Cáceres Reserva. Enjoy!