Compiled by MARIE-CLAIRE DIGBY
Gold standard crab
David Browne of Yawl Bay Seafood has been working with Dr Susan Steele and John Fagan of BIM’s Seafood Development Centre on a cooked crabmeat product that has a two-week shelf life, without compromising taste and texture.
The results are impressive – crab claws and picked white meat that were as sweet and delicate as if the crab were landed that day, with far more flavour than any other pasteurised crab I’ve ever tasted.
Browne, who has a fish shop and smokery in Youghal, has been working on this project for the past three years. The picked white meat comes in nice big chunks, rather than fine shreds, and tossed into some sizzling butter and lemon and served on a slice of sourdough, it made a memorable supper. The claws are big, fat and juicy, without being tough.
The cooked white meat costs €32.99 for three 250g packs, or €39.99 for two 500g packs and the claws, or toes, are €36.99 per kilo in 500g packs. Countrywide shipping is available and you can buy it online at yawlbayseafood.com, tel: 024-92290.
msglaze.typepad.com
Amy Glaze Wittman has been an actor, a teacher and a chef – working in Michelin-starred restaurants Guy Savoy in Paris and Le Bernardin in New York. She was involved in three new restaurant set-ups in San Franciso, and is now seeing the food business from a completely different perspective at Echo Valley Farm in northern California.
Her blog is a great read, and there are some excellent recipes too. She had some really interesting advice recently on cooking turkeys for Thanksgiving, but equally relevant for Christmas.
“Take it from one who has cooked large birds for the director of the Michelin Guide in Paris, and do not cook turkey at a high temperature. A trick I learned at Guy Savoy is to start the temperature low, around 200 degrees Fahrenheit and raise it 15 degrees every 10 minutes until the desired temperature is reached. Why? Because the bird adjusts to the heat and there is less chance that the skin will break. The colour comes out uniform. And the bird stays juicier.”
Good Food Ireland winners
The cream of Ireland’s food and hospitality industries gathered in the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin on Tuesday for the Good Food Ireland conference and awards ceremony. Source in Sligo, a restaurant, wine bar and cookery school, took the supreme award, being “the business that best reflects the Good Food Ireland philosophy, sharing and partnering with other businesses within the network to generate competitive advantage”, according to the citation. The Cliff House Hotel in Co Waterford was named culinary hotel of the year, while the restaurant of the year was Chapter One. Aldridge Lodge in Duncannon took the “culinary haven” category. The Oarsman in Carrick-on-Shannon took the food pub honours. Kay Harte of Farmgate Cafe in the English Market in Cork was named GFI Ambassador of the year. The full list of award winners is at goodfoodireland.ie.
Pretty party food
Dine@Mine is an interesting initiative from MasterChef Ireland winner Mary Carney and the Irish Hospice Foundation. The idea is that you download a party pack containing recipes, invitations and posters, and cook something for family or work colleagues, who can then make a donation to the charity if they wish, or you could stump up the cash yourself in return for the recipes. Mary Carney wrote the recipes herself and took the photographs, and the fundraiser is being sponsored by Eircom, the company where she worked as a policy and strategy advisor before taking a sabbatical to pursue a career as a food writer. There are 17 very attractive recipe cards – graded easy, medium and hard – and they’re all things that would be good to cook for a party or celebration, like the festive slow roast lamb salad pictured above. You can register and download the pack at dineatmine.ie.
