Surprise hit movie of the Christmas period with our gang was Madagascar. They have to give those penguins their own movie.
Oh and Happy New Year too. We’ve gotten to the stage where we don’t really notice a new year rolling in. We were all in bed before 12, shivering under our covers because we ran out of home heating oil. Coal, we love you.
Normal blogging will resume shortly.
In the meantime, our New Year “Spot The Difference” competition is a real tough nut. Have a look at the two pictures below and see if you can figure out the subtle changes.
Answers on a postcard please to Mr “Ahahahahaah, no more leaves” O’Neill, c/o House of the Silent Poplars, Rootless Street, The Future is So Bright I gotta wear Shadesville, Land of the Singing Chainsaws.
I generally don’t make New Years Resolutions but this years is fairly simple – this blog will actually have posts on it about Bandon itself over the coming months. There are a ton of interesting things happening here and the place has changed hugely since we arrived 2.5 short years ago. It’s about time the place was given a bit of good PR.
Technorati Tags: bandon, conoroneill, newyear, trees, Madagascar, penguins
January 2, 2006 at 2:52 am
Conor old man, Happy New Year!
I’m making Corned Beef with the fixin’s here on Podchef Island. . .where the fire’s are burning bright because the power is a whisper away from being blown out in this gale we’re having. . .which has led me to some thinking. I was looking through Darina’s classic Irish Country Cooking and was, again, struck by the picture of what real corned beef should look like–not the insipid, vacu-packed piece of twaddle I withdrew from the freezer yesterday (Only way to have a supply of the stuff is to get it in March and freeze it for normal consumption-we never eat it, but in winter).
All this to say–I’m setting meself the challenge of making real, honest, corned beef from scratch this year, only Google is miles away of anything I think I can trust.
Since your a Corker yourself what’s the traditional view? Have you access to a recipe one can trust, man? Provided I can get a nice piece of Brisket I’d hate to leave it to chance in a brine of unqualified origin.
Let us know. Thanks.
January 2, 2006 at 10:40 am
Oh I’m just a blow-in so I have no secret knowledge of Cork recipes handed down from mother to son
But by happy coincidence I was reading a bunch of books over Christmas and Salt, A World History gave a recipe from Theodora Fitzgibbon (the most famous cookery writer in Ireland before Myrtle) from 1968 which she claims is traditional. I think it looks more like “Spiced Beef” than Corned Beef. See what you think.
For spicing a 6-pound joint:
3 bay leaves
1 teaspoon cloves
6 blades mace
1 level teaspoon peppercorns
1 clove garlic
1 teaspoon allspice
2 heaped teaspoons saltpeter
1 pound coarse salt
For cooking:
3 sliced carrots
a half pint of Guinness
3 medium sliced onions
a bunch of mixed herbs
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground allspice
(I have to query the Guinness in this!)
Rub all dry ingredients together and pound in the bay leaves and garlic.
Stand meat in large earthenware or glass dish and rub spicing mixture thoroughly through it. Do this every day for a week taking mixture from bottom of the dish and turning the meat twice.
To cook, sprinkle over the ground allspice and cloves and put into a parge pan on a bed of the chopped vegetables. Barely cover with warm water, put the lid on and simmer for 5 hours. During the last hour, add the Guinness.
I also have a more “normal” recipe from Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing. This would be more in the Jewish style. But I guess you probably have lots of recipes to hand which are similar? If not, let me know and I’ll post their recipe (and get sued for copyright infringement!). That book is a piece of genius and I am going to spend 2006 trying out ideas from it.
I’ll check with my mother to see if she has any old traditional corned beef recipes in her stash. Cork and Dublin would be the main areas where it was made and she grew up in Meath about 20 miles from Dublin.
January 2, 2006 at 3:16 pm
Definitely a Spiced Beef, but oh so good sounding! Change that Guinness to Beamish and you’ll have a Cork Original.
I’ve got to get that Charcuterie book. Google has many similar sounding recipes for Pastrami and psuedo corned beef.
Love to hear what the Mother has to say on the subject. Somewhere around here I have a photocopied page with a recipe someone gave me sometime ago. If I can find it without turning the place upside down and sideways I thought I might give it a try.
There’s a local-ish, on the mainland, butcher/smokehouse which make great charcuterie which also does a corned beef. Only problem is no one around here really knows what a brisket is or how to use it. They’ll readily whack it up into 1 pound chunks to maximise profitability but ruin texture, shape and flavor. This is why I want to try making my own out of part of a whole brisket (they can weigh up to 15 pounds in two muscles).
Cheers.
January 2, 2006 at 9:16 pm
I’m definitely interested in hearing how the whole brisket goes.
One of my long term aims is to build a proper big BBQ and do a Texas style barbeque whole brisket like I had in The Salt Lick in Austin last year.