A Sad Farewell...But Not Goodbye

We had a farewell dinner for our 12 week students, a couple of weeks earlier than anticipated, due to Covid-19 restrictions.

Farewell darlings and travel safely and comfortably... cook up a storm and keep in touch... with us here at the Ballymaloe Cookery School

Mother's Day

If ever a celebration was warranted, it’s Mother’s Day. Anna Jarvis from Virginia in the US originally initiated the special day to honour her own mother who lost nine of her thirteen children before they reached adulthood. Later, she was deeply saddened and totally disenchanted that the day she intended to devote to mothers became a means of ‘profiteering’ and a ‘Hallmark holiday’, after the company who first released Mother’s Day cards in 1920.

Mother’s Day evokes so many memories chatting to some friends, we agreed that most of us were total pests at some stage during our teens. In later years one looks back with regret for the torment and annoyance we caused our long suffering parents and hopefully we have found the courage and humility and the right moment to tell them how sorry we are for the hoops we put them through. Invariably we don’t remember just how abominable and unreasonable we were until our children are going through the same phase.

Mother’s Day gives us all, young and old, the opportunity to let actions speak louder than words. 

If cooking isn’t your forte, you could treat your Mum to a slap up meal in anything from a ritzy restaurant to the local cafe depending on the finances. If you are broke as well as culinarily challenged, then it’s time to get creative and offer your services. How about a practical ‘gift token’ to wash and valet the car or clean out the fridge?

If you have green fingers, a pledge to weed the flower bed or dig the vegetable patch will be greeted enthusiastically. You might even manage to buy a few fresh herbs to plant into a tub or hanging baskets. An offer to do the washing up every evening for a week, or even once would win you serious brownie points. Most mums loathe ironing with a passion, so that’s definitely another way to show your devotion, if you hate ironing then grit your teeth and cheer yourself up that you are developing life skills – that’s the sort of Mumsie remark that my daughters hate! I am one of the rare people who love ironing but rarely do it.

A homemade card from my eldest daughter, Lydia.

If you have the cash, newspapers, magazines and the internet are bursting with ideas for special Mother’s day gifts over and above the usual cards and flowers – a voucher for a Spa treatment . . . a ticket to her favourite retro gig, a Louis Vuitton bag. . .

And NO I don’t want an expensive tub of anti-aging cream. I’m totally happy with my wrinkles – honourable scars built up over the years. If I could make a wish it would be that all mothers could be released from the beauty industry’s insistance that we must look ‘forever young’. So let go of ‘aging anxiety’ and embrace your natural beauty.

Flamboyant gifts are all very fine but this is a cooking blog, so one of my late Mother’s delicious recipes. How fortunate were we that she loved to cook, this is what memories are made of.

Mummy's Sweet White Scones

Tender and delicious scones with crunchy sugary tops – one bite transports me back to the kitchen of my childhood.


Makes 18-20 scones using a 7 1/2 cm (3inch) cutter

900g (2lb) plain white flour

175g (6oz) butter

3 free-range eggs

A good pinch of salt

50g (2oz) castor sugar

3 heaped teaspoons baking powder

450ml (15floz) approx. rich milk to mix


Glaze

Egg Wash (see below)

Crunchy Demerara sugar or coarse granulated sugar for coating the top of the scones


First preheat the oven to 250°C/475°F/Gas Mark 9.

Sieve all the dry ingredients together in a large wide bowl. Cut the butter into cubes, toss in the flour and rub in the butter. Make a well in the centre. Whisk the eggs with the milk, add to the dry ingredients and mix to a soft dough. Turn out onto a floured board. Don’t knead but shape just enough to make a round. Roll out to about 2 1/2cm (1inch) thick and cut or stamp into scones.* Put onto a baking sheet – no need to grease. Brush the tops with egg wash and dip each one in crunchy Demerara or coarse granulated sugar. Bake in a hot oven for 10-12 minutes until golden brown on top. Cool on a wire rack.

Serve split in half with homemade jam and a blob of whipped cream or just butter and jam.

Egg Wash

Whisk 1 egg with a pinch of salt. This is brushed over the scones and pastry to help them to brown in the oven.

St Patrick's Day

This year I’ll be in Ireland instead of New York for St Patrick's Day, 17th March, and I’m all set to celebrate, right here in Shanagarry. Remember St Patrick banished the snakes from Ireland so we’ll have our annual snake hunt around the garden!

We’ve got students from all over the world here at present and they too are all determined to enter into the spirit. They’re planning to rummage around in their wardrobes and cases to bedeck themselves in forty shades of green.

To celebrate Lá Fhéile Padraig, both Ballymaloe House and Ballymaloe Cookery School will be illuminated in green as they have been for the past four years to participate in Tourism Ireland's Global Greening Project, a brilliant initiative where iconic buildings around the world are lit up in green to focus attention on Ireland on St Patrick's Day, which in turn promotes tourism and raises awareness of Ireland and all things Irish.

Sadly there'll be no St Patrick’s Day parades this year because of coronavirus. But staying home we can still celebrate with our loved ones by cooking a feast of our traditional Irish dishes. Songs have been sung and poems have been written about champ and colcannon…

Last year, we enjoyed parsley sauce with bacon and cabbage but this time I’m looking forward to a big pot of Irish stew. It’s a wonderfully comforting meal in a pot, beloved by all the family. I often serve it when friends come round for supper and they just love to tuck into a big bowl of stew and have a nostalgic trip down memory lane.

We’d hoped to have the first rhubarb tart of the year on St Patrick’s Day but I was over optimistic, our rhubarb is barely above the ground and it feels like cheating to use the pale pink forced rhubarb from the Yorkshire triangle in the UK where one can literally hear the rhubarb leaves unfurling in the forcing tunnels. Instead, we’ll make our special St Patrick's Day cake, decorated with orange kumquats and tart green wood sorrel leaves (oxalis) which resemble shamrock but are edible. It’s a super cake, really fast to make and fun to share with friends on St Patrick's Day. 

St Patrick’s Day Cake

This cake is very special, it’s super easy to make and is decorated with a lemony icing, kumquats and wood sorrel leaves – green, white and gold, to celebrate our national day!

Serves 8

175g (6oz) soft butter

150g (5oz) castor sugar

3 eggs, preferably free range

175g (6oz) self-raising flour

Lemon Glacé Icing

110g (4oz) icing sugar

finely grated rind of 1/2 lemon

1-2 tablespoons) freshly squeezed lemon juice

Decorations

8 pieces of kumquat compote - drained

8 wood sorrel leaves

1 x 20.5cm (8 inch) sandwich tin, buttered and floured.  Line the base of the tin with parchment paper.

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4.

Put the soft butter, castor sugar, eggs and self-raising flour into the bowl of a food processor. Whizz for a few seconds to amalgamate and turn into the prepared tin – make a dip in the centre so it rises evenly. Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes approx. or until golden brown and well risen.

Cool in the tin for a few minutes, remove and cool on a wire rack.

Make the Lemon Glacé Icing.

Sieve the icing sugar into a bowl.   Add the lemon rind and enough lemon juice to make a softish icing.

Once the cake is cool, pour the icing over the cake and spread gently over the sides with a palette knife.

To decorate:

Decorate with the candied kumquats and wood sorrel leaves.

Serve on a pretty plate.

Happy Chinese New Year

Happy Chinese New Year! Are you ready for yet another celebration? These festivities go on for almost a month and red is the magic colour.

This is the ‘Year of the Pig’ which symbolises wealth. In China, every year has a zodiac animal, the cycle repeats every 12 years, making it easy to figure out whether it’s your year or not. Just check your age in multiples of 12.

For the Chinese, the Spring Festival is the most important celebration of the entire year, similar to Christmas for us westerners. It marks the coming of Spring and all the excitement and joy of new beginnings. Unlike Christmas in this part of the world, Chinese New Year is a movable feast, predicated by the Lunar rather than the Gregorian calendar. Technically it’s the longest Chinese holiday, celebrated by over 20% of the world’s population – how amazing is that!

Image credit: rd.com

The most significant element of the holiday is the family reunion which triggers the largest human migration in the entire world. Millions of diligent hard working people, young and old, who now live in cities, travel home to rural areas to get together with their elderly parents.

Apparently, desperate singles often resort to hiring a fake boy or girlfriend to take home to allay their parents’ concerns - continuing the family name is one of the most important elements of Chinese culture, a reason why the Chinese have such a huge population…

Lively music and dance plus copious quantities of delicious food are important elements of the festivities. There are spectacular parades in Chinatowns all over the world - traditional lion and unicorn dances, dragon parades, bell ringing and lots of fun and fireworks. Children receive gifts of red envelopes stuffed with lucky money.

The feasting and excitement will continue until the Lantern Festival, the 15^th day of the Chinese New Year – the first new moon of the Lunar year so you’ll see lots of red lanterns in all shapes and sizes, widely available in Asian shops, if you want to have fun and enter into the spirit….

A myriad of superstitions are attached to the New Year…People ‘spring clean’ the house on the day before Chinese New Year to sweep away bad luck and make way for good vibes.

Showering is taboo on New Year’s Day, as is throwing out rubbish. Hair cutting too is out, so hair salons are closed…

There are celebrations in Dublin, Cork, and Belfast. Cork which has been twinned with Shanghai since 2005, hosted its first Chinese New Year Festival on February 4^th. Many iconic buildings around the world, including the Mansion House in Dublin and City Hall in Cork are illuminated in red to mark the beginning of Chinese New Year.

Lots of foods are associated with Chinese New Year, particularly dumplings. Spring rolls are universally loved, easy to make and when fried resemble gold bars. Each food is symbolic in some way, long noodles symbolise longevity…Citrus are also considered to be lucky.

Several festive desserts are also much loved, Tangyuan a type of rice ball, sounds like reunion in Chinese so they are favourites. As is Nian Gao, a type of rice cake which symbolises success. Fa gao – is a hybrid of a muffin and a sponge cake, the name means ‘get rich’ so everyone wants some of those too. Some of these desserts can be an acquired taste for non-Chinese but if you get an opportunity, do taste them. 

I’ve been to China several times, so I’m even more excited about Chinese New Year and am planning a little Chinese feast to celebrate.

Those who are born in the Year of the Pig, may want to check out the Chinese zodiac. Your lucky numbers are 2, 5 and 8, Lucky colours are yellow, grey, brown and gold and lucky directions are southeast and northeast…how about that….

Seek out your local Chinese restaurant, better still invite a few friends around to enjoy a home cooked Chinese meal, and don’t forget to wish our Chinese friends ‘In Nian Kuai le’ – ‘Happy New Year’.

Enjoy and Happy New Year of the - Pig the symbol of wealth.

St Brigid's Day

My year is punctuated by little highlights, occasions to look forward

to and celebrate. I particularly love St Brigid’s Day, it’s now just

around the corner, on February 1st, so I’m all set to celebrate and to

share the story of this feisty woman with my students from all over

the world and everyone else around me. This is a quintessentially

Irish celebration, St Brigid’s Day or Lá Féile Bríde also marks the

beginning of Spring, the season of hope and new life and comes

about half way between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox,

when days begin to lengthen. In Pagan times it was referred to as

Imbolc or Imbolg which translates literally

to ‘in the belly’. Imbolc is one of the four major fire festivals referred

to in Irish mythology, the others are Bealtaine, Lughnasa and

Samhain.

Brigid, an icon for women was born near Faughart just north of

Dundalk in the 5th Century. She is the goddess of fertility in Celtic

mythology, patron saint of dairy and founded the first monastery in

Ireland in Kildare.

Many legends are associated with Brigid who by all accounts was an

extraordinary woman – a force to be reckoned with, a feminine role

model, well before her time. So I’m overjoyed that at last there is a

movement to elevate St Brigid to here rightful place beside St Patrick

as our female patron saint.

Last year, and once again this year, there will be a celebration of Lá

Féile Bríde at the Irish Embassy in London, a gathering to celebrate

not just St Brigid but the achievements of Irish women around the

globe.

Just as the shamrock is associated with St Patrick, the little woven

cross, made of rushes is associated with St Brigid and was chosen as

the RTE logo when the station launched in 1961, and it was used

until 1995. Let’s bring it back and display it proudly as a beautiful

symbol of our culture.

Last year, St Brigid’s cross maker extraordinaire, Patricia O’Flaherty,

came over from Ireland clutching a bag of freshly cut rushes to

demonstrate how to make the traditional St Brigid’s cross at the Irish

Embassy in London http://www.naomhpadraighandcrafts.com/ . She

makes many versions and I was intrigued to learn from her that

originally all counties in Ireland had different patterns which

sometimes even varied from parish to parish.

To invoke Saint Brigid’s blessing we have a little cross made of local

rushes hanging over the door in our micro dairy to protect our small

Jersey herd which produces the most delicious rich milk.

My research into St Brigid, mentioned not only dairy but also honey

and the tradition of eating a big plate of floury boiled potatoes

slathered in rich homemade butter on St Brigid’s Day or St Brigid’s

Eve.

So here’s a recipe for how to make your own home churned butter… It’s super easy. We use our own cream, but one can of course make

butter with any good rich cream. Just pop it into a bowl, whisk until it

becomes stiff, continue until the butter globules separate from from

the buttermilk. Strain, wash well, salt generously, and pat into little

slabs or butter balls – easy-peasy. Impressive and delicious, even for

chefs, to slather over potatoes or a thick slice of warm soda bread or

spotted dog. 

So let’s all make or buy a little St Brigid’s cross and make St Brigid’s

Day into a real celebration, sharing a traditional meal around the

kitchen table with family and friends.

Christmas is Coming...

Christmas is almost here again, my grandchildren are wild with excitement and anticipation…

Letters are already winging their way to Santa and some have been making Christmas cookies and helping to stir the plum pudding. They love to hear stories of Christmas when I was a child and are incredulous when I tell them how a little mandarin or clementine in the toe of my Christmas stocking was a huge treat to be eaten slowly and enjoyed segment by segment.

In fact one of the biggest challenges nowadays is to encourage children to think of those less fortunate and perhaps wrap up some of the toys and clothes they have outgrown to share.

Hopefully you’ve ordered a nice plump, free range turkey or goose for Christmas day and decided on the accompaniments. Many people start with the idea of doing something different this year but if you have family coming home for Christmas they usually don’t want you to change a thing. The traditional Christmas dinner is sacred in many families and that is what memories are made of, the favourite stuffing, Mam’s gravy, plum pudding, trifle and Christmas cake…

Every detail must be the same, I’ve given recipes for traditional turkey and goose on the Irish Examiner website in the past. My new favourite way to cook the turkey is to dry brine it the day before then roast it over the tray of stuffing so the juices can drip into the dish and flavour it deliciously. It cooks much faster than a whole bird and you don’t have to forgo the stuffing either. Talking of stuffing, my new favourite stuffing (inspired by ‘the dressing’ used by US friends for Thanksgiving), is made with chunkier pieces of bread rather than the breadcrumbs we usually use. 

Try to find duck, goose fat or good lard to roast the potatoes. The flavour will be a revelation. Peel, blanch and refresh the potatoes on Christmas Eve, dry and keep them in the fridge in a covered box. Sprouts can be halved or better still quartered and blanched in boiling water for 2-3 mins, then drained and plunged into ice to stop them cooking. Drain them well and refrigerate, ready to be reheated in boiling salted water just before Christmas dinner. Don’t forget lots of melted butter and freshly cracked black pepper to serve. I also love celery in a rich parsley sauce, another dish that can be tucked away in the freezer a week or two ahead. Cranberry sauce can also be made weeks in advance, make more than you need for presents or gift hampers for even busier friends.

Bread sauce can also be made several days ahead and reheated, even frozen, if that works better for you.

In our house we have both plum pudding and trifle, everyone loves Mummy’s plum pudding. Once again think about making an extra one or two for gifts to share with someone less fortunate.

If you decide to break with tradition why not try my Christmas meringue wreath served with pomegranate seeds and verbena leaves, it too can be made ahead and decorated before serving.

A glazed loin of streaky bacon is our secret favourite dish at Christmas it is super succulent and juicy and a fraction of the price of ham. The best discovery is that it can be reheated if cooked and glazed ahead.

So with all that preparation done you too can really enjoy Christmas day… Remember to allocate responsibility of different aspects of the festivities to different members of the family of all ages, thus sharing the fun and passing on the skills to the next generation – laying the table, arranging the flowers, as well as the cooking.

Have a wonderful fun filled Christmas with family and friends and look out for your neighbours too.  

All your favourite Christmas recipes and many more besides are in my book Darina Allen’s Simply Delicious Christmas published by Gill Books.