Foodporn by ChefPaul10

One of the better known hash tags is #foodporn and if you have a look here you will see message after message assigned to the tag, most will have a link to a picture of some food while some are people chatting about food.

I have to admit I love the concept of being able to see all these wonderful dishes from all over the world, some home cooked, some from restaurants, some I’m not even sure what they are? and some are just obscenely over indulgent, Coca-cola fudge cupcakes with chocolate frosting and chocolate covered cherries anyone?

So what’s the point of all this, well it’s twitter so does there have to be a point?

Me, I think it helps to remind us that we all have one thing in common, one thing none of us can live without and in truth we all like to share culinary delights for one reason or another.

What do you think? Do you post to #foodporn?

Meet Cully&Sully

Everyone’s favourite producers of chilled hot pots, soups, pies and desserts, Cully&Sully were in the Westbury Hotel in Dublin last night to meet some of the Irish Food Bloggers and to launch a fantastic new competition – Chef Factor.

The evening kicked off with demonstration from Ivan, often referred to as the “&” in Cully&Sully – he’s the main development chef for the company. Over copious free beers, Ivan cooked a delicious lamb dish with couscous, white turnip & multi-coloured chard served with Bearnaise sauce, while dispensing numerous chef tips along the way to the eager crowd. Once the dish was served up for us to taste, it was time for Elaine (the “.com” in cullyandsully.com, as I nicknamed her) to show off the promo videos that had been made for the competition.

Both Cully & Sully grew up around Irish food powerhouses (Ballymaloe & The Granary Store), so it was natural that they were gourmands from a young age. Their upbringing has strongly influenced their business, as the entire range of products is free from artificial colours & flavourings and also preservatives – or as Cully puts it, “The only things you’ll find in our products are the things you’ll find in your Granny’s kitchen”. Talking to them after the launch last night, it was clear that this philosophy runs to their core, as they were eager to discuss any dishes and restaurants the food bloggers could recommend.

Cully&Sully’s Chef Factor is about giving someone a once in a life time opportunity to pursue a culinary career or get involved in making their own good food. They are also hoping to raise some awareness for Cork Simon Community throughout the competition as they are approaching their 40th anniversary and now as much as ever, are in need of support.

The winner of Chef Factor will get to attend the 12-week cookery course in Ballymaloe worth €12,000 (session starting January 2011) along with receiving everything they need to become Ireland’s next great chef: the course, a uniform, a set of knives, accommodation while they train followed by 2 weeks with Cully&Sully to learn about the business and have some craic!

If you want to support someone who has entered Cully&Sully’s Cheffactor, you just have to ‘Like’ their entry to vote for them! Voting opens on the the 25th of October and only Votes on Cheffactor.ie count. They will also be giving away a number of Cully&Sully’s coveted hampers to voters at the final!

The 12-week course at Ballymaloe is highly respected and much sought after, and in their own words:

Our 12-week Certificate Course is aimed at anyone with a passionate interest in food. Some of our students use it as a springboard to becoming a professional chef (literally, hundreds of former students are now running their own restaurants or catering companies) – others to provide themselves with a marketable skill (for instance, cooking for private parties) – and a third group to maximise the pleasure they get from cooking at home. There’s no one age group (we have students who have just left school, others who are happily retired) and no particular level of experience (some are absolute beginners, others already accomplished).

So it’s time to get your thinking caps on and decide what dish you want to enter! Entering is easy, you simply have to upload a photo of YOU with your speciality dish. To garnish, put the words Cully&Sully somewhere in your snap. Then tell them a little bit about your dish and in 100 words or less why YOU deserve to be in the final!

An interesting article talking about food miles. I still think that it’s better to buy as much locally grown produce before resorting to food that has travelled half the world. Freshness trumps all in my opinion.

Chocolate and booze, what a classic mix, now available in this ice-cream recipe, thanks to Kieran Murphy for sharing the link.

Is it too early to be talking about what I want for Christmas? Meh, I don’t think it matters anyway as I don’t think even Santa would spring for these cookbooks for me. Check out the price tag before you say you’ll buy them for me

Frittata Chistorra

Ingredients;

1 Handful of fresh herbs (parsley, oregano, thyme) finely chopped
2 x onions, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, finely diced
1 stick of celery, finely diced
1 x sweet pepper, finely sliced
Approx. 20cm Chistorra finely sliced (substitute other dried meat if unavailable)
4 x eggs
30g Pecorino cheese, grated
30g goat’s Gouda cheese, grated
30g Red Leicester cheese, sliced

Serves 2

Get your frying pan on to a medium high heat with a little olive oil. Add the onions and fry them gently for ten to fifteen minutes or until they begin to caramelise.

While you wait, beat your eggs well, trying to incorporate as much air as possible, add in the grated cheeses as well as the fresh herbs and beat some more.

Once the onions have started to caramelise add in the garlic and fry for about a minute before adding the celery and continuing to fry gently for about five minutes. At this point you want to add the sweet pepper and fry for about a minute more, before pouring the egg mix over and stirring well. You will need to be quick doing this as the egg will start to cook as soon as it hits the pan. I use a plastic whisk to keep everything moving as I add the eggs and try to make sure that all the ingredients are evenly distributed around the pan.

Now leave this mixture to cook in the pan until you see the eggs start to cook at the very edge of the pan. Now, quickly add the sliced Chistorra over the top of the frittata and crumble the Red Leicester cheese over as well.

Place under a preheated grill and continue to cook until the centre of the frittata has solidified and the cheese has just started to brown at the edges. Divide the Frittata into slices just like you would a pizza and serve with a small side salad.

For a lot of us the most we think about meat is will I have beef, lamb, chicken or pork for my lunch/dinner? Most of us make our way around the supermarket and pick up our nice pre-packaged cuts without ever wondering how long it is since this mooed/clucked/snorted etc. Really how many of us actually look closely at the cut before we put it in our trolley and take it home? How many of us even look at the label to see where it came from?

It’s a bit crazy especially when you come to realise that one of the key differences in the meals you eat at home and the meals you eat in a restaurant is the quality of the ingredients. Not all meat is created equal, just like some cuts taste better than others some animals just taste better. This is usually in my experience to do with the way they are reared and the way that they are butchered.

A well butchered cut of meat can make an impact as dramatic to a meal as the addition of seasoning and sometimes even more so. That’s why I’m constantly on the search for a better butcher. Every so often I try a new butcher and for a while I find good value or better cuts but then almost as soon as I get comfortable with a butcher, the quality or value or both just start to drop off, so I end up varying which butcher I use just to keep them on their toes.

The Market Butcher

When we visited Taste of Dublin, one of the many brochures that I picked up at the event was one for The Market Butcher it was only later I realised that their shop is just up the road from me, so I popped in one day and picked up some steaks for dinner, let’s just say that they were among the finest I have ever tasted.

Since then, I’ve been a regular customer and I’ve seen no difference in quality, every cut I’ve tried has been superb. It’s great for me because we are local but they do accept orders on-line and even offer free delivery for larger orders.

The range on offer is huge and the pricing is competitive with the supermarkets while giving much better quality and to top off, all their beef, chicken, lamb and pork is Irish. I haven’t tried the other more exotic options yet, so I haven’t asked about the origins but the staff have never been anything other than exceptionally helpful so I have no doubt they will be happy to answer any questions from customers.

Give them a try – I cannot recommend the fillet steak highly enough – I’m confident you won’t be disappointed.

Rice Krispie Squares

Ingredients;

5 oz butter, chopped into chunks
5 Mars bars, chopped into roughly 1cm slices
5 mugs of Rice Krispies
500g Chocolate (mix of dark & milk)

Line a large baking tin with overlapping pieces of clingfilm, ensuring that all parts of the interior are covered.

Place the butter and sliced Mars bars in a large Pyrex (glass) bowl and place this into a suitably-sized saucepan (the bowl should not touch the bottom, and leave space for 2 inches of water). Bring the water to a strong simmer and melt the butter & Mars bars, stirring occasionally. Once it has all melted, stir continuously until the the melted butter is absorbed into the rest – be patient, it will “come together” eventually.

Lift the bowl off the saucepan and add in 5 mugfuls of Rice Krispies. Stir this well, but gently, until all the Rice Krispies are coated and no lumps of the melted mixture remain. Pour / spoon into your baking tin and gently smooth out until even.

Wash your Pyrex bowl, dry and place back on the saucepan of water. Break up the chocolate into the bowl and melt over simmering water. Once melted and smooth, pour over the Rice Krispies. It’s best to use a soft spatula so that you can scrape out as much of the chocolate as possible. Tip the baking tray back and forward until the base layer is evenly covered.

Cover with a tea towel and leave in a cool place to set (varies from 2 – 24 hours, dependent on season/temperature). Do NOT refrigerate as this will make the Rice Krispie layer go soggy.

Cut with a sharp knife and store in an air tight container (old biscuit tins are perfect), will keep for up to 7 days – but I bet they won’t last that long!

What a great way to get your fresh veg, I wonder do any Irish farms run a similar scheme? Seasonal fresh produce delivered to your door as often as you require for a fixed fee, sounds like a winning idea to me. But then what to do with it all, especially if you live alone…

Back in June Marian left a comment naming Lamb Tava as her favourite dish and after trying this recipe out, my views on lamb have changed dramatically, Om-Nyom-Tastic

Food Scares, how many more of these do we need to have before we finally get the message that factory farming of animals is unnatural and nature will always strike back at us?

And finally one from the “This sh1t has got to stop” files Burger King reach an amazing low as they release the 2520 Calorie “Pizza Burger” According to Burger King it’s meant to be shared. I wonder will they refuse to sell it to lone diners or do we need another “Supersize Me” to remind us of the dangers of eating this kind of junk?

Still at least we can read the UK website and documentation to get ourselves up to speed

Antony Worrall Thompson is one of the Ambassadors for the Campaign and has devised a number of recipes for those suffering from IBS, looking to watch their weight or who simply want to look after their inner health. The recipe that follows is one that he has kindly provided to help promote the cause. You can find out more about Gut Week here and I recommend having a read over this document for some quick tips to a healthier gut.

Moroccan Lamb Stew

Ingredients;

450g lean leg of lamb, cut into 2.5cm cubes
11/2 teaspoons ground black pepper
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 large onion, roughly diced
4 garlic cloves, crushed
4 tomatoes, skinned and diced
1 tablespoon harissa or hot pepper paste
400g tin of chickpeas in water, drained and rinsed
350g trimmed and peeled pumpkin, cut into 2.5cm cubes
1 pickled lemon, finely diced
2 tablespoons chopped mint
1 tablespoon chopped coriander

Serves 4

Coat the lamb in the black pepper.

Heat the oil in a large non-stick saucepan, add the lamb and cook until it has browned all over. Add the onion and garlic and cook until the onion is soft and is slightly brown, adding a splash of water if necessary to prevent sticking.

Add the tomatoes, harissa and 425ml water. Bring to a simmer,cover and cook over a medium heat for 1 1/4 – 1 1/2 hours, topping up with water as necessary, until the lamb is almost tender.

Add the chickpeas and pumpkin and cook for a further 15 minutes or until the pumpkin is tender. Add the lemon, mint and coriander. Serve immediately.

Nyomtastic Scones

Ingredients;

625g Tipo 00 Flour
1 rounded tsp baking soda
2 rounded tsp cream of tartar
1 teaspoon salt (if using salted butter use 1/2 a teaspoon)
100g chilled butter cubed
1 egg beaten
300ml milk
25g castor sugar

Hard to believe it’s nearly 3 weeks since I wrote this post about Roma’s excellent Tipo 00 flour, time sure is flying. Why do I mention it here? Well, Will made a comment that pasta flour makes great scones. As I had been meaning to have a blast at making some scones, this was a great excuse to try something a little different.

I started with Rhyleysgranny’s Scone recipe and after a little playing around with the ingredients I came up with this.

Pre heat your oven to 200C.

Take all your dry ingredients and sieve them into a large bowl. Next add the butter and work this in with your hands until you have what looks like breadcrumbs.

Next add about half the beaten egg and the milk and continue to mix this together until you have a moist dough. Then on a well floured surface pat or roll the dough out until it’s about 2cm thick and cut with a circular cutter. Place these on a greased and floured baking tray, don’t be afraid to roll up the off cuts and make a few out of that as well. Then place them in the oven and bake for about 15 minutes or until they have risen and turned golden on top.

Remove from the oven to a cooling rack and as soon as you can hold them without burning your fingers serve with butter and Jam – preferably home made and strawberry. If you can stop at just one you’re doing well!

Why You Should Know About Donal Skehan

I’ve only recently read his first cook book despite having tried a number of the recipes. It’s a really informative read (the bits between the recipes like) there are lots of great tips, what to keep in the cupboards, thinking around the ingredients you have to hand in order to make the dish you want and much more.

To me it’s a great introduction for beginners or those of us looking for fresh ideas and it reminds me a lot of Jamie Oliver’s “Naked Chef” books which are the ones that got me past the toast, fry ups and pre-prepared meal phase and into real cooking.

Needless to say I can’t wait to see the new book and thumb through its pages, to drool over the various recipes for myself. What new delights will it hold? Unfortunately its not due for release until March 3rd, I guess I’m just going to have to pre-order it and wait.

Best of luck with it Donal, oh and when are you getting your own TV show? Do you need an assistant for it?