Author: traleeculinarygangsters

Chef, food truck owner, Gardner, forager, blogger, author , columnists,

Lockdown , Paul

Lockdown life
As I alluded to earlier finding motivation to do just about anything is a struggle for me on a day-to-day basis, I make bread every 3 days a kind of sour dough of sorts, originally, I made a bread with yeast and held back some of the mix and allowed it to mature in the fridge, for a few days. The next loaf I made I repeated the process, I’m not one for folding and shaping and doing this that and the other to food. I’m a simple man, less processes that a food involves the better, please and thanks. I don’t mind letting things go or ferment overnight, bake the bread in the morning.
Ive been getting ducks from SuperValu Castleisland at what I believe is a bargain price of €6 it does my wife and I the same as a chicken for 2 days, plus it gives me duck fat. This I render out of the duck as I have little better to do and you make think it’s a complicated process, nope, trim the duck put the carcass in a large pot and put it on a low heat and leave it alone for an hour or 2 check it after an hour to ensure it hasn’t stuck to the bottom, it happens.
Once all the skins and bones etc. look crispy its done strain it into a large jar, I use a coffee jar with a lid Maxwell house or Nescafé make no difference to be honest. Allow it to cool and put in the fridge where it will keep indefinitely.
I also make stocks like I did in the 1st lockdown chicken bones roasted add some veg peelings and some dried foraged mushrooms, cover and boil for an hour strain and cool. nice simple base for a sauce or a casserole or a soup or even if you are that way inclined your own gravy. No granules needed. It’s very basic cooking skills that everyone should be able to do, but most people don’t.
Further to this I’ve began to make potato skin crisps, once ive peeled the spuds I wash the skins in cold water to remove the starch and allow them to crisp up evenly.
Store them in water until needed, squeeze off the water and toss in some oil and salt, or in my case some duck fat and bake in the oven at 180 for 15 minutes the best crisps ever.

Luke cooks tartlets

Pissaladiere Tartlets:
Pissaladiere is a dish originating from Liguria, specifically Genoa, and then making its way across to Nice in France where its popularity flourished. The traditional pissaladiere dish is prepared on a bread dough slightly thicker than that of pizza margherita, however in this recipe, they have been adapted and prepared in short crust pastry tartlets. Although caramelised onions constitute most of the filling, the salty taste of the anchovies balances well with the sweetness said onions.
For the pastry, you will need:

  • 250g Plain white flour
  • 125g Butter
  • Pinch of salt
    For the filling, you will need:
  • 5 small onions (Preferably French onions) peeled and chopped.
  • Black olives, Pitted and sliced
  • Anchovies, one small tin
  • 2 tablespoons Balsamic vinegar
  • Red wine (optional)
  • Salt to taste

Short crust Pastry:
Begin by making a short crust pastry. To do so, add the flour and butter (cubed) to a food processer, alternatively you can mix these together by hand, but the warmth of your hands may make the butter greasy. Pulse in the food processer until a fine crumb. Add the pinch of salt and pulse once more. Next to get the pastry to come together add a tablespoon of water, then pulse. Repeat until the crumb begins to clump together. Once the pastry begins forming in the food processer, tip out onto a clean worktop and form into a ball. Cover with cling film and leave to chill in the fridge for at least 30-45 minutes, ideally overnight. Take the ball of pastry out of the fridge, unwrap and place onto a floured worktop. Begin rolling out the pasty to roughly a third of an inch thick. For this next part you will need a cupcake tray, cut pastry into circles that will fit the holes of your cupcake tray, lay pastry into the holes and cut accordingly.
Caramelized Onions:
Pre-heat oven to Fan 180 degrees. Get a large frying pan, giving the onions plenty of room, add olive oil and bring to a medium-high heat. Add onions and some salt to draw out the moisture from the onions helping caramelization. Stir occasionally and add a small amount of water to enhance the colour. As onions begin to brown significantly, add the red wine (optional). Lastly add the balsamic vinegar and stir.
Slice anchovies and add to taste, use very little as they have a strong taste and may easily overpower the onions, mix into the caramelized onions and scoop mixture into your pastry.
Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until pastry is a golden brown.

Maeve from salt souls cafe tartlet

@leagh_farm and @mannaorganicstore both have amazing rainbow Chard in season right now. Its so visually stunning and really easy to cook with. For Easter Sunday I made a tartlet with it. Here’s the recipe:

1 roll flaky pastry, 200g sliced chestnut mushrooms, 6 stalks of rainbow Chard thinly sliced, 1 diced onion, 2 crushed cloves garlic, 150ml stout (beamish or @guinness), knob of butter, salt, pepper. Wild garlic pesto, carmelised onions or use relish and grated parmesan cheese.

Method:
Sautee onions, garlic, Chard and mushrooms until soft, add a little butter, salt and pepper to taste. Add stout and bubble to reduce liquid right down.

Roll out pastry onto a baking tray, cut into 6 or 8 squares and separate to give them room to rise. Use the rim of a glass to lightly imprint a circle in centre of each square. Prick the circle with fork so the centre won’t rise. Put mushroom Chard mix on top, add dollop pesto, carmelised onions or relish version and grated parm. Brush edges of pastry with oil or beaten egg. Bake 200 degrees for 12 mins approx.

Serve with green salad topped with my favourite 12 yr old balsamic dressing from @therealolivecompany

So easy, so tasty, perfect lunchtime dish!

TAG us if you make it 🙂 enjoy!
📸 @leagh_farm
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saltysoulscafe #surflife #healthykerry #chard #eattherainbow #lunch #vegetarian #kerryfood #kerryvegetarian #organic

Lockdown restaurant

As I walk through the restaurant
My breath still on the silent air
Hearing my heart cause the music has died
My steps ring out hollow no laughter to fill the  void
The air still
the sound of chatter long lingering in the memory
The clinking if glasses replaced by the tick of a clock I never notice before
Hollow  , relentless as I watch it it tick by
Eating the soul that was once joyous seaming to fill the room …tick
Once a place of laughter & banter, of hopes & loves, of celebrations & commiserations
Now it sits silent
Like a great ship on the ocean bed
No longer serving its purpose
The kitchen full of noise & heat of steam and ructions
Now a cold quite void as my breath lingers in the fridget air ,
Ovens sit silenced , burners gone cold , chargrills no longer see dancing flames
It smells of ….nothing ,
A nothingness

Paul on wild herbs

Woodland herbs,
Starting with wood sorrel, this shamrock looking herb, has 3 leaves and produce a small white/pink flower, this is a beautiful herb that doesn’t do well when exposed to high heat though it imparts its flavour it doesn’t make lend a green colour if blended into a sauce.
It is best used in a medley of mixed leaves in a salad or as a garnish herb. It adds a lemony sharpness once bitten into, and eases off to leave a pleasant taste on the palate. It grows in old forests, or on mossy trees. It grows most of the year round while conditions allow. It grows best from mid-march onwards when the temperatures are that little bit warmer consistently, it then dies off after the 1st hard frost as it then just disappears as quickly as it appears.
It is also used in some alternative medicine, to help with high fevers, also to settle weak or sick stomachs used as a gargle for mouth ulcers, and also said to be good for healing wounds. Now I am not a doctor or a medical expert, I’m going to leave that to the professionals. The people who put in the years of training and studies and correlating results. That’s their job, I am merely passing on some of the uses that it has been used for in the past.
Follow along on the Facebook page for more and myself on my wandering in the countryside @chefpaulc on all social media platforms.

Paul talks spring

Spring walks

In the midst of this seemingly never-ending lockdown, finding motivation to get out and do stuff is getting harder, I find anyway I know I’m not the only one. There is a beautiful walk near to the house that is quite long and is tough going in parts, it’s a beautiful place to find peace and quiet away for the 4 walls that are closing in ever faster as the days go by in the mental countdown to get back to work, into a kitchen, back to the humm of the combi oven firing up. The whoof of the gas lighting on the ring the rattle and bang of a pot or a pan. The eternal “I busy” followed by laughter from the kitchen porter, even the sound of this rings in my head as I write this piece, brings a smile to a dull evening

Anyway, tangent and mental word soliloquy over (thanks Alexa). While wandering now through the forest I can’t help notice the herbs, flowers, catkins, mushrooms and shrubs all start to wake from their winter hibernation.
Every year around this time we begin to plan for a wild garlic forage, with a group in a forestry, I know it seems totally foreign at the moment, it’s not just wild garlic that’s coming up at the moment, there is a multitude of different greens, over the next few pieces I’ll be talking about different ones and their uses, not in a fancy manner just humble food, everything from wood sorrel to primroses, from chickweeds to nettles, yes you read that right nettles.
It is spring time and the vast majority of our natural mineral reserves are depleted after the winter, on a typically Irish food diet now we do have supplements and a wider variety of foods available to us than we ever had before, which has lessened the knowledge that we generally have about the world around us, people are often surprised when they see me in a ditch or of a beaten track picking stuff, I will nearly always get asked what have you got there, how will you use that now, I didn’t know you could eat that, or Ive got that near the house or in a flowerbed and never knew you could eat it and dismissed it as a weed.
I love this type of interaction, as I can see them smile and that makes me feel that little bit happier, whether or not they do anything with it, doesn’t faze me at all if they do, they do if they don’t well, they don’t I’m not going to force myself or my opinion on anyone, for some people its too far outside a comfort zone and that’s ok, for others they will give it a go and think yes, this is for me or no, not a hope thanks, but no thanks.
There is a book that we have put together for uses of wild garlic available from the website or Croi restaurant, follow the page on Facebook for updates on forages and little titbits of info on a variety of different subjects
As always follow along @chefpaulc

David does classics

Christmas 2019 I received an amazing gift from my girlfriend, a book that some chefs would call the bible, Escoffier

– Le Guide Culinaire. I have

used this as a solid reference point since especially when finishing my college

course and cooking meals for special occasions.

Just recently I realised that so far this year I have

used 2 Escoffier recipes in 2 months, so I plan to continue this process and do

12 in 12 months. The first recipe I used was on New Year’s Day.

1/01/2021

Saumon Ecossaise – Salmon Ecossaise

This dish is so deceiving in how delicate and light it is. The marriage between the poached salmon and the hollandaise sauce is just as beautiful and as elegant as the pairing of the buttered stewed vegetables and duchess potatoes.

After cooking this particular it easy to see why so many people loved when Escoffier did fish, without even talking about the skills of the various cooking methods, just the share flavour he got from the food is amazing. The man was a wealth of knowledge and knew and did things others at the time could only dream of.

My second dish of the year I cooked on Valentine’s Day.

14/02/2021

Tournedos Benjamin

To say this dish is fit for a king is an understatement, a prime cut of beef nicely seared and served rare with a stuffed mushroom filled with foie gras and parmesan cheese. A veal jus and Potato dauphine to finish. I would lie the ingredients are a little bit of a luxury and this is not your everyday type of steak dish, but I will the flavour alone is worth it. With the first bite of the beef it is almost like travel through history but with food, eating the very meals royalty did so many years before, and being able to reproduce than is not only a privilege but a culinary honour.

As February draws to a close it is time to take out the bible again and I am starting to look towards what to do in March, I think I will do something poultry-based this time.

During a time where working in a restaurant is near impossible for most chefs, I just want to use this time continuing doing what I love, while somehow still being inspired. So with that, I want to thank chef noel for being my mentor and giving me the skills needed. And secondly, my girlfriend who gave me the bible. And here’s to cooking in March

Slainte

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