FOOD FILE:Ken Hom's Chinese cookery books are totally failsafe, and his woks aren't bad either, so there were high expectations when it came to tasting his new range of ready meals for Tesco. Hom devised a range of recipes, based around popular favourites such as black bean, sweet and sour and kung po sauces for chicken and beef, aromatic duck, spare ribs, fried rice and noodles, and insisted that the supermarket's development chefs follow his instructions. "Real Chinese food is like Bach, many notes, very complicated," he said during his visit to Dublin to launch the range last week. "It's about layers of flavours."
At Hom’s insistence, the meat used in the range is briefly marinated before cooking, the ginger and garlic are chopped rather than minced, and then fried to improve both taste and texture, and orange and lemon zest are used to lift the finished dishes. He also highlighted some of his favourite ingredients, including Chu Hou sauce (or Chee Hou in some brands), a spicy condiment made from fermented soya beans that adds sweet, salty and garlicky notes.
The recipes were 18 months in development before Hom was happy to put his name to them. “I was a pain in the neck,” he said, explaining his insistence on getting the recipes to taste authentic without using too much fat, sugar or salt. “I’m proud of this line. I gave it to my friends, and to my Chinese godson, and he said, ‘Uncle Ken, it’s pretty bloody good’.”Ready-meal for two? €8.99.
Cheese tasting
Irish raw milk cheesemakers – producers of such wonderful cheeses as Durrus, Cooleeney, St Gall, Bellingham Blue, Mountcallan, Glebe Brethan, Drumlin, Diliskus, Béal and St Tola – are hosting a taste workshop and tutored tasting session under the Slow Food banner in Dublin next Friday evening at 7pm.
The meeting will be addressed by cheesemonger Kevin Sheridan; Cristiano De Riccardis of Slow Food Italy; Dr Prannie Rhattigan, Slow Food presidia manager, and Aoife Nic Giolla Coda of the Irish Bee Keepers’ Association. All are welcome and the admission fee is €10 (€7 for Slow Food members) to include the tasting session and a glass of wine. Places must be booked with Elisabeth Ryan on 046-9245110. The venue is Donnybrook Fair, Dublin 4.
Next Friday and Saturday, Ann McNamee of Kitchen Complements, the cooking equipment shop on Chatham Street, Dublin 2, will demonstrate how to make sweet and savoury breads, including multi-grain, blueberry, banana and toasted walnut, and Indian stuffed paratha. The demos are free and take place between noon and 3pm.
What's in your basket?
UMMERA SMOKED CHICKEN
Anthony Creswell’s Ummera Smokery in Timoleague Co Cork is rightly famous for its salmon, but its smoked chicken crowns are really good, too. Since last July, Creswell has also been smoking duck breasts – he gets them from Silver Hill, the Co Monaghan company that makes superlative oven-ready crispy duck – and these are very good also. As well as being available in good delis and food shops, you can buy both online, for delivery in Ireland and Europe. The chicken costs €9.95 for a full crown (two breasts, on the bone) and the duck is €7.75. See ummera.com.
Smoked chicken makes salads more satisfying, sandwiches more interesting, and you can use it to cobble together any number of emergency meals.
For a delicious last-minute supper from easy-to-get ingredients, gently fry a bunch of finely sliced spring onions (white part only, but retain the green shoots) in olive oil, add a handful of sunblush tomatoes (or cherry tomatoes), a glug of white wine, a big dollop of creme fraiche and as much of the shredded smoked chicken as you fancy. Simmer gently until warmed through (thin it down with a little chicken stock or water, if you like), season with black pepper (you won’t need salt) and garnish with the green bits of the spring onions, finely chopped. Serve with pasta, mash or rice.
THERE ARE SOME larder, or fridge, staples that make it into our shopping baskets every week – products that can be relied on to provide the basis of a midweek supper, or get us out of a culinary conundrum, such as unexpected guests coupled with an empty fridge. There are also legions of new food products jostling for space on supermarket shelves and on wobbly tables at farmers’ markets across the country. We’ll be putting the spotlight on useful, innovative, good value food products in the coming weeks, and we’d love to hear about your hero products, your must-haves, the best thing you’ve popped in your shopping basket recently, and how you use it. Please drop us an email, we value your opinion.
