The inaugural Grow Bake Cook Awards Ceremony honours and celebrates the skills of amateur cooks, growers, bakers and preservers – in fact anyone with a talent for creating good food!

Supporting local communities throughout Cork city and county, these awards aim to give our hidden food heroes the opportunity, tools and encouragement to sell their wares through farmer’s markets,country markets, local supermarkets and food fairs.

Award winning and shortlisted produce will be displayed at Cork City’s Midsummer Festival Feasta market on Sunday June 28th , with the Award Ceremony taking place that evening at a city venue tbc.

For further information and entrance criteria contact Dianne Curtin 086067 6249 or Elke O’Mahony 087 3168855or email to grow.bake.cook@gmail.com.Deadline for submission is 23rd June 2009

The idea is simple, it’s a 6 part competition show called Recipe for Success that will see 15 home cooks battle it out to have their own gastronomic creations stocked on the shelves of SuperValu. Viewers of the series will see the whole development process of the product.

I honestly think this is the smartest idea for a food programme that RTE has had since they spotted the potential of Darina Allen all those years ago. I can’t wait to see how you take a home-cooked meal and turn it into a shelf-ready product.

If you have a dish you know people love and which has the potential to be packaged, why not give this a go? SuperValu already stocks the wonderful Cully & Sully range so the precedent for high-end ready-meals is there.

The question is, would my Sophie Grigson derived (but still unique) meatballs make the cut or would potential customers just lump it into the same category as the dreaded B***s E*e Spag Bol in a bag (which I ate many times in college)? Sadly my Chicken Tikka, whilst amazing, is just a straight lift from a book.

All details are on the RTE site. G’wan, you know you want to.

In the first episode they send Kevin Dundon to cook a gourmet meal in a boxing club in poor area of Waterford. If you thought that was crass, in this one Denis Cotter set up a vegetarian restaurant in the middle of cattle pens in Bandon Mart!

What drives me insane about the programme is that Denis is interesting, his food is interesting, his walkabout with a botanist eating wild greens was interesting (albeit very Hugh FW) and getting average people to try vegetarian food is interesting. Setting it in a cattle mart is retarded. Whatever “right-on” TV exec came up with this whiz-bang idea should have a pile of cow scutter dumped on his desk because that’s what this whole series is.

Take all those great chefs, get them to cook from the heart, find out what motivates them, explain their influences and where they trained and you could have a legendary TV series instead of this steaming pile of crap.

Next week Kevin Thornton cooks pork in a Mosque. Or something.

I always look forward to bacon in US hotels when I travel because they still understand the art of the streaky rasher. Ultra thin and cooked till crisp. At the other extreme here we have these monster thick slices of bland minimal-fat back rashers which do nothing for me and are like chewing through a piece of rope.

Catherine grabbed a few packs of streaky in Martin Carey’s on Saturday. Only €2.50 for a big pack. I put em in a large pan with oil on Sunday morning and cooked them slow for over half an hour. What we were left with was fabulous crunchy bacon that made the ultimate BLT. Throughout the day, as we passed the cooker, each of us would grab a rasher or two. Perfect snack food.

Anyone with me to start a campaign to “Bring Streaky Back!”?

Myself and Sibéal decided to make a mix of tagliatelle and spaghetti. Neither of us had made it before and her excuse is that she is only 3.

I had the usual recipe problem of not knowing which one to use. Jamie Oliver’s Italy book said 6 eggs and 600g of flour and that’s it. Another no-name one also added oil and water and salt. I went with Jamie but the dough was far too dry, so I added a bit of oil and that seemed to do the trick.

I clamped the machine to the worktop and ran into the first big problem, I don’t have three hands. Oh for that extra 1970′s ad washing-up hand to appear. You have to feed the dough in, feed it out on the other side and crank the handle. The first run through was not impressive:

This was mainly because i was attempting to fix a 2 inch think lump of dough through a millimetre wide gap.

Two more attempts went a lot better and we ended up with something which looked vaguely like a long sheet of lasagne. I then ran it through the wider cutters and got my tagliatelle.

Sibéal took over for the narrower cutters and ended up with far better looking spaghetti.

Fatal flaw was then discovered – we hadn’t floured the dough so all the strands stuck together again. I valiantly tugged them apart for twenty minutes, dumped the lot in boiling water and ended up with something that looked and vaguely tasted like pasta. None of the kids would touch it and they were right as the tagliatelle was undercooked and the spaghetti overcooked. Bin.

I’m unfazed and will go at spaghetti again. Or maybe lasagne if I lose my nerve. Any top tips for the next time? Except maybe looking at PodChef Neal’s pasta videos before we start? Should we rest the dough even when using a machine? Was the cheap book right when it said you only need minimal kneading if you are using the machine since it does it for you?

Technorati Tags: pasta, pasta+maker, Jamie+Oliver

If I want to buy fat-laden, carb-laden, salt-laden Tayto, I bloody will and they chances of me looking at some insulting graphics are zero. When I smoked, you could have put pictures of sliced open cancerous lungs on the box and I’d happily have puffed away.

Information is only useful to those seeking it. If we want nutrition information then we’ll use the amazing human ability to read to find out what is in the box. “oh but people don’t know what a safe level of salt is, so our traffic light system will enable them to figure this out without actually ever having to think”. “Next year, we’ll be bringing in a system which does an instant analysis of your blood and won’t let you buy anything with too much salt or sugar”.

I was pleasantly surprised that FF told the opposition to get a clue and that they would not be bringing in such a scheme.

The first political party which starts a campaign to destroy the ever growing nanny state gets my vote.

You want people to eat properly? Then make Home Economics, Social & Scientific, Cooking compulsory in schools for both boys and girls starting around age 7. Hell, you could do a double whammy and teach it through Irish.

Technorati Tags: Traffic+Lights, Food, Labour, Fine+Gael, Marxism, Nanny+State, Nutrition, Intelligence, Cop+On, Information, Knowledge, Cooking, Tayto

Watching him aerate chocolate using a Tupperware container, a vacuum-bag for storing clothes and a vacuum cleaner was a 2006 TV highlight for me.

Before I die I want to eat once in The Fat Duck and once in elBulli. This new business had better work out or that’ll remain a dream! 

More accurately, I was given a stocking-filler cookbook by my sister years ago which came with packets of spices. It did lay undiscovered for over five years until I finally used it to make a tikka paste and then used their recipe for chicken tikka. And it really is awesome. Up there with Mumrez Khan’s lamb and spinach karahi from “Rick Stein’s Food Heroes“.

The book is called “Great Curries” by Manisha Kanani and was published in 1997. I’d be surprised if you can still get it. Actually I just checked Amazon and someone is trying to sell it for £48! Original RRP was £9.95.

First the tikka paste. I normally make 3x these amounts and put it in a sterilised Tupperware and keep it in the fridge. Easily lasts a month, might even last longer but I always use it up before the month is out. Our regular Friday curry sees to that. I get (or actually Catherine gets) most of our spices in Mr Bells in the English Market. Great value in the big bags. Grinding cumin and coriander seeds is a pain in the ass with a pestle and mortar and doesn’t work with the multiquick type blenders so I usually use a coffee grinder and forget to clean it. Mmmmm, cumin coffee.

• 2 tbsp coriander seeds
• 2 tbsp cumin seeds
• 1.5 tbsp garlic powder
• 2 tbsp paprika
• 1 tbsp garam masala
• 1 tbsp ground ginger
• 2 tsp chilli powder
• .5 tsp turmeric
• 1 tbsp dried mint
• .25 tsp salt
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• drops of red and yellow food colouring (I know, I know but it gives you that “authentic” UK-style curry colour)
• 150 ml white wine vinegar
• 150 ml vegetable oil (I use sunflower, I don’t recommend olive, I guess nut oil works too)

Put the oil in a frying pan and put on a medium heat. Grind up what needs to be ground (or buy pre-ground) and mix all the dry ingredients together. Then add the liquids plus some water if needed to have a thin paste. Pour into oil and let it bubble gently for 10 mins or so. Let it cool before putting in tupperware. Warning – it does stain.

For the Chicken Tikka Masala itself, I usually do 6 chicken breasts for 3.5 people (us, Fiona, Ois/Shibs nibbling). Yeah, we’re hungry savages.

• 6 chicken breasts cut into thick strips
• a thumb of fresh ginger peeled and roughly chopped
• 3 or 4 cloves garlic roughly chopped (or to taste)
• 1 chilli roughly chooped (or 1 tbsp of harissa or jarred chillis)
• 8 tbsp of the paste
• 1 pot natural yoghurt
• 2 medium onions roughly chopped
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 4 tbsp ground almonds
• 300-400 ml water
• 150-200 ml cream
• half a lemon
• vegetable oil

Mix 3 tbsp of the paste with the yoghurt, cover the chicken all over with it and leave to marinade for as long as you have. To be honest this is rarely more than an hour for me.

Onions, garlic, ginger, chilli and some oil into big pot and sweat em down for 5 or 6 mins

Add the rest of the paste and cook for a minute. Add the puree and cook for a further few mins. Ditto the almonds which are a really surprising addition but you really miss them if they are not there.

Add enough water so it won’t stick and cook it gently for about 20 mins.

Grill the chicken for a 5-7 mins on each side (the book also coats them with butter but I don’t bother).

Put on your rice.

Zuzz this sauce using a multiquick or food processor or liquidiser and return to the pot. Squeeze the half lemon in and add cream until it is the consistency you want. Put the chicken in the sauce. Bring it back to bubbling and check for seasoning. The book adds fresh coriander but we’re not fans so I leave it out.

Naans under the grill for a minute or two each side.

Drain the rice, plate up, crack open a few tinnies and that’s Friday all nicely sorted.

Technorati Tags: curry, chicken+tikka+masala, tikka+masala, Manisha+Kanani, Mumrez+Khan

• Chops into a ziplock with garlic, thyme, lemon juice and olive oil
• Saucepan on with oil, garlic and 2 anchovies
• Two cans of Aldi’s finest generic no-specific-country plum tomatoes
• Cook it down
• Add some chopped olives from the Gubbeen gastrowagon at the Skibbereen market
• Add some chopped capers.
• Salt, pepper, hint of sugar.
• Boiling water on with a packet of Orecchiette Paesani (little ears), also from Aldi. Bloody hell, I have never seen this pasta in any shop or deli in Ireland. This is the stuff the old dears were making in that Jamie Oliver series in Italy with their thumbs. And now Aldi sells it. I’m pleasantly stunned.
• Chops onto the frying pan.
• Sizzle sizzle.
• Serve
• Eat

Sibéal, aged 2:

Oisín, aged 4:

Conor, aged 38:

Which was the nicest? Yup, the 2 year old’s. After the horror of watching them “knead” the dough and drop it on the floor several times, the two little gits ended up with far superior results because [a] they were not swimming in sauce and [b] the were wafer thin cos I only gave them a small bit of dough each. Mine was more like a soup on a bap. All tasted fantastic tho.

technorati tags:pizza, The+Good+Things+Cafe, DiFara, Margherita, Red+Mum

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So that’s a picture I took back on Jan 31st of the big stack of cookbooks I had to get through in 2006. Most of em I got for Christmas. One, “Les Halles”, I got the previous Christmas. “Salt” I bought for myself and “Bridges” has nothing to do with food but I did get it for Christmas.

Here we are on July 2nd and what is the state of play?

So seven months in and I have finished the sum total of one book. I blame Martha Stewart and Alan Sugar.

[tags]Darina Allen, Nigel Slater, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Neale Whittaker, Jamie Oliver, Rachel Allen, Salt, Les Halles, Anthony Bourdain, Charcuterie, Michael Ruhlman, Gary Rhodes, Bridges, David Brown[/tags]

It’s not too bad a drive from Bandon – about an hour on the crappy but scenic Dunmanway Road. Durrus seems to have attracted a cluster of foodies to live there and the wonderful views may explain why. The Cafe is about a mile out of the village on the Akahista road.

I arrived to discover that I was the only bloke along with five women. They were a great bunch and consisted of Eileen from Thurles and her two daughters Mary and Catriona who were giving Eileen a birthday treat, Mairead from Cork and Lucy from Bantry (by way of Zimbabwe). Carmel was assisted by Rebecca from Spain and Helen. They were verrrrrryy patient with us as we stumbled over everything in a commercial kitchen.

The two days consisted of Carmel giving some demonstrations and then us trying to replicate her food or even do things from scratch using her recipes. Some of it was solo but mainly we did it in pairs which was much better fun and we permanently got in each others way. Apologies to Mary for eating all the smoked salmon.

Carmel seems to know everyone involved in food in Ireland (and good chunks of England too) and had a story behind every ingredient that she used. There was not a dull or quiet moment in the two days and her patience was endless.

Our first recipe was a pork chop with thyme and garlic. It turns out that, like us, she uses Martin Carey in Bandon for her meat and his thick chops were awesome. This was a simple simple recipe but [a] I forgot how to hold a knife I was so intimidated by a commercial kitchen and [b] when I finally managed to cook it, it was bloody gorgeous. We also did a spud thing whose name fails me (and whose recipe I managed to lose). We sliced spuds in a mandolin and then layered them up in a tiny frying pan, cooked it, flipped it and drizzled some butter on it. Kinda like a sliced version of rosti.

We made a bunch of soups, all of which were fab and also got on to one thing I have always founds “challenging” – bread making. As I explained to her, all of my previous attempts would break windows. After I came back from a few months in Silicon Valley in 1996, I spent weeks growing a sourdough starter in the hot-press. The first loaf I made could have been used to start a garden rockery.

So to say I approached this task with trepidation is putting it mildly. Carmel explained that she can nearly always tell which loaves have been made by the men because we knead it like we are trying to kill it. It wasn’t the first time she had to tell me to relax over the weekend (I also attempted to beat some eggs into a parallel universe). And ye know, it is far less stressful if you knead the thing gently. We left the dough to rise, split it in two, re-kneaded and then put them in the oven. And they all turned out perfectly!

Carmel then did some dough, rolled it out really thinkly, covered it in swiss chard and durrus cheese and popped it in the oven. For lunch we had that as the best pizza I have had in years, the pork chop, the spuds, some salad and some wine. Yum!

Then on to the recipes for dinner. Myself and Mary did a spiced lamb and aubergine stew which I made nice n spicy with some extra cayenne. I’ve become addicted to Frank’s Red Hot Sauce and add heat whenever I can. We also did a roast chicken with some tarragon butter under the skin. The way Carmel does roast chicken is so smart I will never do it any other way. The others another chicken and also a pot roast one.

We also did some desserts – banana in a stock syrup and lime juice, raspberries in syrup and rhubarb with ginger. I’m salivating writing about them. We also did a raw rhubarb, cucumber and mint salad which turned out to be really tasty.

All of the above made up the evening meal to which all of us could bring guests. Carmel was an absolute star and offered to let me bring a bunch of the food home to share with Catherine, so I headed off with food in car just as the meal began. Everything was totally eat-a-licious, nothing was left!

We had arranged to meet at the Schull Farmer’s Market at 10am on Sunday. I awoke to torrential rain. The one extra I got on my car when I bought it 5 years ago was ESP. It stops you spinning when you drive like a cretin on slippy roads. Anyhoo, the ESP light flashed all the way to Schull as I hit sheet after sheet of surface water. I genuinely expected neither vendors nor buyers to turn up. I drove past the market to discover a few brave souls setting up stalls and a few minutes later, the other students arrived, as did Carmel with kids in tow.

We sheltered in under the Gubbeen stall and the women interrogated Fingal and we all bought a ton of stuff off him: rashers of every sort, sausages, chorizo, you name it. A really friendly guy, hugely knowledgeable but in a very infectious and enthusiastic way. He also gave us big discounts for turning up in the brutal weather so I’m now his biggest fan. Mimi was selling some awsome looking cooked burgers but I was stuffed from brekkie. One guy was setting up sushi and a wok too. Looked interesting! I bought some herbs and carrots from the lovely German woman from Peppermint Farm. She had a very unusual set of herb plants, many of them medicinal. We all then booted it back to Durrus.

Carmel kicked off with a fish stock and then got us all to make a banana and chocolate cake. Mairead and her then started on the seafood risotto. I challenged them to make it in the advertised 20 mins as I have never made one in less than 35. The wenches did it in 19.5 mins. I still don’t know how. The rest of us prepped a pile of tiny squid. As father of four pooh factories, I was not as grossed out as some of the younger students. We all then had a go at the Alioli which was energetic to put it mildly. It was from a different world than Hellmann’s and I’ll be making it again (but using a machine!). We cooked up the squid with just parsley, garlic and lemon. Gorgeous. And all of the above made up our lunch along with some pan fried hake. We sat for ages and sipped wine and then coffee. I could not physically move.

It all wrapped up about 4pm and we all bought various bits n pieces from the shop and headed off on our separate ways, full to the brim and full of confidence.

As I said at the start, this is a fabulous course by a great lady. And you’ll be shocked to hear the price. €300! A steal. Think of the food and drink alone! Run to the phone and book a course. +353-27-61426, info@thegoodthingscafe.com.

And finally, I hope Carmel does not mind, but here is a short video of her in action jointing a chicken.

[tags]The Good Things Cafe, Durrus, Carmel Somers[/tags]

The horror that we perform in Ireland is what they call grilling (or more accurately “incineration”). What these guys do takes hours and hours and hours. I’ve eaten the result in Texas – they should have Michelin stars. Some day I’ll try the Carolinas version.

Check out some of the video clips.

[tags]Barbecue is a noun, BBQ, Barbeque, Barbecue, Best in Show[/tags]