Recipes from a Dublin kitchen....

I was very kindly asked by Kerrygold (link) to consider a quick buttery Christmas recipe. So it got me thinking about Christmas dinner in our house, and that fact that there is always a bit of a battle between the adventurists and the traditionalists. There are those that want to celebrate Christmas dinner by leaving the menu unchanged. Every element sacrosanct, the same menu as last year, and all the years before that. Then there’s me, a lone voice, bored of the traditional turkey and ham, suggesting duck as opposed to turkey, or maybe a smooth celeriac puree instead of gloopy bread sauce….

Christmas starters need to be simple, easy to prepare in advance, not too heavy and still retain a feeling of luxury. That’s why the prawn cocktail is so popular, its not so much cooked as it is assembled (or thrown together) in Martini glasses, or heaped on a plate . The mixture of lettuce, prawns and Marie Rose sauce can be tinkered with (I add finely chopped smoked salmon and a splash of cognac to the sauce) but when well made, with good quality juicy prawns it is a tasty, but traditional way to start a Christmas lunch.

The crab hollandaise cocktail has a gentle nod to the retro stylings of the traditional prawn cocktail – but is wonderfully light and refreshing. The crab salad is made using crisp finely diced apple, mixed with creamy avocado and asparagus. Generously doused in a luxurious lemony buttery hollandaise that is so simple to make.

The recipe (serves 4)

Shred some baby spinach leaves and pile them into a couple of chilled glasses. Peel and finely dice a green apple (keep the dice no thicker than a matchstick) and put in a bowl with the juice of half a lemon to stop the apple turning brown. Mix in 200g of fresh crab meat, and a peeled and diced avocado. Chop about 10 asparagus stalks and tips into rounds, and cook in a saucepan with a little water for about 4 minutes. Drain and add to the bowl with the crab. Toss with a squirt of lemon juice and a pinch of paprika.

The sauce

The rich yellow hollandaise sauce has a reputation for being tricky, but once you follow these simple steps you will be making this sauce at every opportunity. No need to wait until Christmas… get your saucing skills up to speed by practising over brunch with eggs Benedict.

Hollandaise is simply a hot egg and butter sauce and doesn’t deserve the fearsome reputation as notorious curdler. The trick to keeping the sauce silky smooth is that the heat should never be too hot. I have made this lots of ways (with a bain marie or a blender) but the following method is the simplest and the tidiest.

Take 3 large free range egg yolks and put in a cold saucepan (off the heat). Add to the yolks – five tablespoons of water, the juice of a half a lemon, a pinch of salt and half a teaspoon of cayenne pepper. Whisk these ingredients together well (still off the heat) until the yolks lighten in colour. Take a 250g pack of cold butter out from the fridge and cut into large cubes (about finger width). Put the pan on a low heat and add 4 or 5 cubes of butter and whisk in the butter as it gently melts. The sauce will start to thicken and as the last set of the butter cubes is emulsified into the sauce add some more butter cubes and keep whisking. The cold butter cubes added to warmed sauce over a low heat all help prevent the sauce from curdling.

If your sauce looks like it is about to separate, quickly remove it from the heat and dunk the base of the saucepan into a little water and whisk very hard, and the sauce will come back together.  Keep adding the cubes little by little and whisking until all the butter is used. You can keep the sauce somewhere warm for a couple of hours. Just before serving, loosen it by whisking in a drop of water.

If you would like a lighter sauce, reduce the quantity of the yolks, butter and lemon by a half and mix the made hollandaise with an equal amount of fromage frais.

Add the crab salad to the spinach leaves in the glass and pour over the hollandaise…

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It’s difficult to know what to do with turnip, for years I never did more than chop it, boil it and mash it. This is turnip with a twist, pan fried cubes of turnip, with wilted spring onions on a bed of raw shredded kale leaves (or spinach if you prefer), served with toasted ginger and honey rye bread crumbs which both compliment the earthy turnip and adds a sweetness.

Peel and cut the turnip into discs about a finger width deep, then cut the discs lengthways into batons, and then cut across the batons to make turnip dice. In a heated frying pan melt a little butter and cook the turnip dice for about 5 minutes, allowing them to take on a little colour. Take off the heat and let cool.

Pumpernickel bread is a very heavy, slightly sweet rye bread, also known as rye bread or black bread and not surprisingly given its Germanic origins you can easily find it in your local Aldi or Lidl. Grate two slices of bread or use a blender to make rye bread crumbs. To the breadcrumbs add teaspoon of freshly grated ginger and a teaspoon of honey. Pour the crumbs onto a clean baking tray and pop in the oven on a medium heat (180 degrees) for 5 minutes until the crumbs are toasted. Keep an eye on them and remove from the oven when crisp and not burnt.

For the spring onions, cut them lengthways into long strips and cook in a frying pan until wilted.  Kale leaves have a strong stalk running through the middle of each leaf. Cut this out with a knife and roll the remaining leaf into  a cigar shape and cut across it to finely shred the kale. Add all the components together and serve warm with some seasoning to taste. This dish has the colour of autumn and a deep satisfying robustness, serve with some grilled pork chops or chicken breasts.

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My local Tesco is awful. Video game designers looking  for a post-apocalyptic set to have mindless zombies roam around some poorly stocked shelves could model my local Tesco’s in a heartbeat. Despite its awfulness, they do have fantastic wine promotions that keep me coming back.

Sucker for a bargain bottle of booze, I popped in on Friday and saw lamb belly for sale. Pre-packed, rolled lamb belly. Now I’ve cooked pork belly before, but had never seen lamb belly. Unsurprisingly for a ‘forgotten cut’, it was priced very cheaply, and I couldn’t resist picking some up. Think I paid about €4.65 for the rolled belly, enough to feed 3 people.

Lamb belly is basically a thin sheet of meat, with a layer of fat, that when rolled up the joint has fat rolled outside and through it. So like most cheaper cuts of meat, this was definitely a candidate for slow cooking.  My thoughts were to cook it on a low heat  (about 120 degrees) for 4 hours and then blast it at a high heat (220 degrees) for about 45 mins to crisp up the outside. So into an oven tray, I chopped 3 large onions (red and white onions) into large segments, and coated in some olive oil. On top of the onions I put the lamb belly, which I had rubbed with za’atar (a middle eastern spice rub with sesame seeds, sumac, oregano and thyme). I turned the lamb and tossed the onions every hour. If it looks like the onions are drying out too much add a little white wine, or some water. After about 4 hours, drain all the meat juices to make the gravy and turn up the heat.

Normally I’d pan fry kale, or lightly steam it. Today while I was making the gravy, before it thickened,  I thought to try and braise the kale in the gravy. Separating the stalks from the kale leaves, I seared them on a dry pan, then adding some gravy to the pan, and cooked them in the gravy until the stalks are softened. When softened I added the shredded kale leaf and a little more gravy until the kale had wilted.

Gravy fried kale sounds as good as it tastes…. .

I served the lamb belly on the gravy fried kale, with the slow roasted onions. On the side, some mashed potatoes, though was tempted to add a tin of chickpeas to the kale and heat through instead of the spuds… maybe next time.

Also, don’t forget the mint sauce… lots of mint sauce.

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