ON THE MENU:TRADITIONAL IRISH favourites including cabbage, potatoes and boxty featured on the menu for the 30 guests at yesterday's luncheon for the Queen at Áras an Uachtaráin.
Diners were treated to a first course of smoked free-range chicken and onion marmalade, served alongside boxty, traditional Irish potato pancake, with crisped organic bacon and micro leaves.
The main course consisted of roast turbot, a tartlet of creamed celeriac and crisped beetroot, potato rose and shredded cabbage hearts with caraway seeds.
Dessert was a dish of buttermilk ice cream served with a rhubarb and caramel compote and oatcake biscuits.
The food was served with a delicate Sauvignon Blanc white wine, De Ladoucette Pouilly-Fumé 2008.
The red wine was a heavy duty Bordeaux, Château Pontac-Lynch, Margaux, 2004.
The harp ensemble, Lán an Tí de Chruitirí (The Full of the House of Harpists), performed a short musical programme while the guests ate.
The group played the traditional Irish hornpipe piece, The King of the Fairies, followed by a number of pieces based on the popular melodies of lyric poet Thomas Moore.
They included The Last Rose of Summerand Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms.
To conclude the ensemble played Carolan’s Concerto, the signature tune of Turlough O’Carolan, a blind Irish harper born in 1670.
