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Archive for May, 2011

Sunday Barbecue Kebabs

Posted in Food, Pork, tagged , , , , , on 31 May 2011| 2 Comments »

When you live in Ireland you need to take advantage of every glimmer of sunshine. It’s always good to have a barbecue recipe up your sleeve so you don’t end up with burgers and sausages again (though we like them too).

Pork fillet and pepper kebabs – to serve 6

  • 1kg boneless pork loin
  • 1 red pepper
  • 1 yellow pepper
  • 1 green pepper
  • 2 onions, quartered
  • 1 tbsp sugar
  • 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tbsp ras el hanout (a spice mix from North Africa. Available in the supermarket)
Cut the pork into 36 large cubes and cut each pepper into 12 squares. Cut the onions into 36 small wedges.
Put the sugar and vinegar in a small pan and cook over a low heat, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Pour into a bowl and stir in the olive oil and ras el hanout. Add the pork cubes and give it a good mix.
Thread the pork and veg alternately onto 12 kebab skewers (if you’re using wooden ones you need to soak them for about half an hour first).
Cook on the barbecue, turning and brushing with the marinade for 12-15 minutes, until cooked through.
Serve with salad and some baked potatoes if you like.

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Healthy Thai Prawn Stir-fry with Ginger and Scallions

Posted in Asian, Food, Healthy, Shellfish, tagged , , , , , , on 27 May 2011| 2 Comments »

This tastes so much better than it looks and it looked really good on the plate when served, but by that stage we were so starved we ate it instead of taking pics! So much healthier than a Thai takeaway and dead-on tasty. The marinade is a really neat trick which we’ll definitely use again.

  • 200g raw, peeled tiger prawns
  • 1 green chilli, chopped
  • 3 garlic cloves, crush 1 and finely slice the other 2
  • a bunch of coriander, separate the leaves from the stalks and save both
  • 1 tbsp caster sugar
  • juice of a lime
  • 3 tbsp fish sauce
  • 2 tbsp groundnut oil
  • 3 cm piece of ginger, finely slice and then shred it
  • 8 scallions, finely sliced
  • a red pepper, thinly sliced
  • 85g water chestnuts, sliced (we couldn’t find these and it was fine without them!)
  • 100g beansprouts
  • 1 tbsp soy sauce
  • pack of egg noodles to serve
  • lime wedges
Whiz the chilli, crushed garlic, coriander stalks (snip them with scissors to make them small) and caster sugar in a small food processor. Add half the lime juice and the fish sauce and then pour over your prawns.
Heat 1 tbsp oil in a wok, add the ginger and scallions and fry for a minute. Add the red pepper and fry for another minute or until it starts to soften. Add the water chestnuts and bean sprouts and toss until the sprouts start wilting. Add the soy sauce and plenty of black pepper and tip the lot into a serving dish.
Heat a bit of oil in the wok and toss your egg noodles until hot. They’ll pick up some of the juicy and crunchy bits from the veggies. Mix them into the serving dish with the vegetables.
Lift the prawns out of their marinade and cook in wok with the remaining oil for a minute or two or until they turn pink. Add the marinade and swirl it around in the wok to heat it. Tip everything over the vegetables and noodles. Add the coriander leaves and remaining lime juice before you serve. Put some lime wedges on the side of the plates.
Wine Suggestion: We had a glass of Chilean Sauvignon Blanc which went really well. The fruit was juicy and counter-acted the chilli instead of fighting against it which can happen. It was fresh and zingy.

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Super sides for last night’s stew

Posted in Food, Side dish, Vegetarian, tagged , , , , , , , on 23 May 2011| 1 Comment »

We like leftovers and at the same time we don’t cause it means we don’t get to cook anything new for dinner. Our way around this is to cook some tasty side dishes which we often neglect in favour of the main event.

We picked up some new season ‘blue danube’ potatoes, carrot, chard (or Silverbeet as Jono would say), and onions at the market on Sunday and made two tasty treats to brighten up the leftover peposo (see post below).

New potatoes and onions – to serve 2

  • 15g butter
  • 2 onions, halved and sliced fine
  • a big sprig of thyme
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 tbsp olive ol
  • 3oog cooked new potatoes, cooled and sliced thick
  • a large handful of flat-leaf parsley, chopped fine
Heat the butter in a shallow pan and cook the onions on low, with the thyme and bay leaves, for 20 minutes or until very soft.
Turn the heat up to medium and cook for another 5 minutes or so to make the onions golden and sticky.
Add olive oil and add the sliced potatoes. Fry for 10 minutes until golden (they won’t crisp up much because of the onions but they’ll taste good).
Just before serving toss in parsley and season.
(Original recipe from BBC Good Food)
Jono’s Silverbeet and Carrots
  • Swiss chard (silverbeet)
  • Carrots
  • Butter
Rinse the chard and remove the stalks. Chop the stalks coarsely and cut the chard into ribbons, as you would cabbage.
Simmer some chopped carrots in a small amount of water and a good knob of butter for about 10 minutes. Add the chard stalks and cook for another 7 minutes. Add the ribbons of chard for the last 3-4 minutes. Season well and drain off any excess liquid.
(Original recipe Jono)

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Peposo: The famous hunter’s peppery beef stew (according to Jamie)

Posted in Beef, Food, Italy, Wine, tagged , , , , on 22 May 2011| 8 Comments »

I would like to point out that the plate above is Jono’s and not mine – he’s much greedier than me.

If you don’t like Italian food you might want to ignore us for the next while as we’re somewhat smitten.

We tasted a few stews in Italy, peppery and otherwise, and they were fantastic. Jono’s had his eye on this recipe for ages too so we got on to Tom O’Connor in Glasthule, our butcher, who rose to the challenge as always.

You can use beef or veal shin for this recipe (we used veal). Jamie suggests buying the whole bone, slicing the meat off, and adding the bone to the stew. We got it osso bucco style which worked brilliantly.


There is a shocking amount of black pepper and garlic in this recipe. You hardly notice the garlic by the time it’s cooked but the pepper is fierce. Jamie recommends 4 tablespoons of fresh ground black pepper. I think we’ll try two next time which might be safer for a crowd.

This is a really easy dish to cook but it takes 6 hours in the oven (or overnight if you like) so be prepared. This gives intense flavour and makes the meat melt – you can literally lift the bones out and carve the meat with a spoon.

Peposo (the famous hunter’s peppery beef stew) – serves 10

  • 2.5 kg beef or veal shin on the bone (see advice above)
  • 20 cloves of garlic, peeled
  • 4 heaped tbsp freshly ground black pepper (we’ll go for 2 tbsp next time we think)
  • 5 sprigs fresh rosemary
  • 2 bottles of Chianti (we just used a decent fruity red wine from Gascony cause that’s what we had)
  • 2 bay leaves
If your meat is in one piece, slice the meat off the bone in big chunky slabs (keep the bone). If it is osso bucco style leave it as it is.
Heat the oven to 150C/300F/Gas 2.
Put a layer of sliced meat in the bottom of your biggest casserole, cover with some garlic cloves and sprinkle with a tbsp of pepper and a little salt.
Add 2 sprigs of rosemary and repeat with another layer of meat. Keep going like this until your ingredients are used up and you have a full pot.
Pour the wine over the top, add any left over bones and the bay leaves. Top up with water if necessary to cover the meat.
Bring to the boil and cover tightly with double thick foil and the lid.
Cook in the oven for 6 hours (or overnight at 140C/275F/Gas1).
When it’s done, skim off any fat, remove the bones, bay leaves and rosemary twigs.
Serve on toast (hunter style) or with some new potatoes and carrots (Jono and Jules’ style).
It’s good!

(Original recipe from Jamie’s Italy).

Wine Suggestion: An Italian red with a good dollop of Sangiovese for tannin and fresh acidity. We drank some Col d’Orcia Brunello di Montalcino which matched the spiciness and had majestic fruit. Perfect

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We want to be Italian!

Posted in Food, Healthy, Pasta, Vegetarian, tagged , , , , on 21 May 2011| 2 Comments »

So home from honeymoon and we had all the boxes in the new house to unpack (you know all this from the last post). The sensible thing would be to stay home and unpack them but I felt the need to go on the hunt for Tipo 00 flour instead. We had got a shiny pasta machine in Italy see.

Jules wanted to unpack but I insisted on kneading dough; I won her over in the end! This is my homemade and fresh fettuccine with The Frankies Spuntino’s Sunday Sauce (really tasty tomato sauce). A success and so much more fun than unpacking 🙂

I actually made enough for the village and didn’t research how to store fresh pasta. The first meal was fantastic … and the rest … well I’ll live and learn.

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Spicy Houmous

Posted in Food, Healthy, Uncategorized, Vegetarian, tagged , , , , on 20 May 2011| Leave a Comment »

Well here’s a nice tasty houmous and a bit different from the one we’re all used too. We love houmous but it sometimes has that over-powering thing you get from raw garlic (no matter how little you use). This one uses some cooked red onions and indian spices for flavour instead and it’s a winner!

Red onion & Indian-spiced houmous

  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • a red onion, thinly sliced
  • 1 tsp each of cumin seeds and coriander seeds
  • 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
  • 400g tin chickpeas, rinsed and drained
  • juice 1/2 lemon
  • 1 tbsp tahini
  • 2 tsp finely chopped coriander
  • pitta bread or grilled soft tortilla to serve
Heat 1 tbsp oil in a non-stick pan and fry the onion until soft and getting a bit of colour. Take off the heat and set aside to cool.
Toast the spices for a couple of minutes on a low heat and then grind to a powder in a mortar and pestle.
Blitz the chickpeas, lemon juice, tahini, ground spices, some salt, coriander and red onion in a food processor until smooth.
Serve dressed with some olive oil and something crunchy to dip in it.
P.S. We spread the leftovers on soft tortillas and stuffed them with roasted veggies and rocket for lunch to take to work.

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Jono and Jules are back from Tuscany and are very hungry!

Posted in Brunch, Food, Healthy, Vegetarian, tagged , , , , , , , on 18 May 2011| 2 Comments »

Quite a lot has happened since our last post. We moved house, then we got married, then we went to London, Paris and Italy. Lot’s of eating and drinking but no time for blog posts. When we got home we couldn’t work out if our new house had been robbed or if we had just left it in a complete state of disarray. Thankfully the latter. So needless to say we left the mess where it was and headed to the shops to get some ingredients for a tasty breakfast/brunch and two course dinner.

Breakfast/brunch mushrooms on toast for 2

  • 250g chestnut mushrooms, roughly chopped
  • 1 clove of garlic, crushed
  • 1 tbsp chopped parsley
  • butter
  • really nice bread, toasted (we got a white pan loaf from Butler’s Pantry)
You could probably work this out for yourselves.
Fry the mushrooms for about 5 minutes in a knob of butter until they’re soft and your mouth starts watering. Add the garlic and cook for another minute.
Take the pan off the heat and stir in another knob of butter and the parsley.
Throw the mushrooms on top of your toast.
It’s nice to be home.

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