Fork to Farm

Myself and Raman plating up.

I have had a busy weekend from fork to farm so to speak. Friday 6th of July was the final of the Newstalk curry cook-off in the Kal Showrooms in City West.  The event was sponsored by Uncle Bens.  It was a fantastic experience and the other two contestants, Eithne Jarret and Raman Patel were amazing and talented cooks.  Eithne was the winner for her really excellent meatball curry.  It was a real explosion of flavour in the mouth and contained a spice I had never even heard of.

The judges were Arun Kapil of www.greensaffron.com & Sunil Ghai, the well-known chef from anandarestaurant.ie

We had great fun with The Beatles playing and a comedian and a very supportive, appreciative audience. Uncle Ben's supplied goody bags filled with all sorts of rice and sauces.  The Kal showrooms are superb and a must see for anyone thinking of upgrading or installing a new kitchen. 
My lamb curry recipe can be found here http://www.foodbornandbred.com/2012/06/rainy-recession-rib-ticklers-for-wummer.html#.T_mtvJHhfP4


The following day it was a very early start and off down to Redwood, Co Tipperary to Oldefarm.  Margaret and Alfie produce free range pigs in the most idyllic setting here.  They run courses for people interested in getting their own pigs and have a wealth of experience and knowledge as well as a real passion for food.  Their pigs are happy pigs, leading a healthy outdoor life rooting and foraging the way nature intended.  Their pork and bacon has to be tasted to be believed and they make their own sausages.  Alfie also makes a damn good burger.  I tried my best to get the ingredients but think there is a magic ingredient in there somewhere he was not telling me about!

They can be found at www.oldfarm.ie. Do yourself a favour and treat yourself to real food produced from happy, healthy and gmo free pigs.  Margaret also writes a really great blog www.ayearinredwood.com filled with terrific recipes and stories about life rearing pigs and lots of other animals. 

At the course yesterday they had a woman who had flown over from northern Portugal to participate. So the Oldefarm brand has become truly international. 

Jemima's babies

I have my own pigs for over a month now. I had intended on doing the course the last time they ran it but was unable due to family commitments.  They are two 12 week old Middle Whites and are called Rasher and Sausage.  They have their own Twitter account and you can follow their exploits @rasherandsausag. I have explained here at http://www.foodbornandbred.com/2012/06/i-have-become-pig-farmer.html#.T_mhfpHhfP4 my reasons for deciding to rear my own pork and bacon.

Safe Food?

Food that comes from a large processing plant with all the required safeguards in place such as HACCP, BRC, Efesis, ISO etc. is safe to eat.  Safe in the sense that you probably won't get food poisoning from it. 

I have been for two interviews in the last two weeks in two huge multinational food processing plants where they proudly informed me they had all the above food safety systems in place and supplied Irish and international food service and massive supermarket chains.

When I walked out of both plants the overwhelming feeling I had was, did I really want to work in plants like this anymore when their philosophy is so contrary to my own.  I need a job; but do I want to sell my soul?

I have decided I do not.

Both plants had such security in place that even gaining entry to the car park required filling out a form and several phone calls.  They carry out all the pre-requisite checks, all the boxes are ticked and the paperwork is up to date before any of their product leaves the site and ends up on supermarket shelves in Belfast, Bangkok or Bournemouth.

I am sure most consumers would be very happy knowing all this so why am I not?

We have become so obsessed with hygiene in our little world that everything we eat is now boiled, sterilised, processed, aseptically packed, metal detected and has mountains of paperwork in a trail behind it.

Yet we have more auto-immune diseases now than ever.  We also have more incidences of food poisoning as our sterile systems are not able to cope with any rogue bacteria or viruses.  We are now attacking our own bodies.

These huge multi-nationals do not have our best interests at heart. They are adhering to all these regulations for one reason alone and that is profit.  Every chance they get to cut corners in quality of ingredients or additives they take it.  They pump their products full of genetically modified soya and maize without any care for the consequences further down the line.  Sugar has been replaced with high fructose corn syrup as it is a cheap alternative.  Natural fats are replaced with hydrogenated.

Every bag of animal feed you buy now comes with a label stating the ingredients and if it contains genetically modified ingredients.  How many of our processed "safe" food products do? 

As long as the consumer demands "cheap" food they will continue to supply it. As long as the customer does not care about the ingredients but demands hygiene as a higher priority then they will oblige. But cheap food ultimately has a cost.  It may be produced hygienically but is it really safe to eat?

Skimping on Size

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed it?

"It" being the skimpy portion sizes now on offer in so many Dublin restaurants.  I say Dublin as it is where I have experienced it lately.  Prices have tumbled - there is no disputing that.  It is now possible to get very good food for €20 or less for two courses at lunchtime, €25 for dinner.

But what is the point if you leave the restaurant starving or worse having to fill up on bread.  Actually this would be practically impossible as how many restaurants even offer a small basket of the stuff?

In France, Spain, Italy - practically everywhere, the first thing that is brought to the table is bread, water and maybe even a small bowl of olives.  The bread is not whipped away after starters are finished.  Very often it is topped up.

I have had two meals recently; both incidentally at lunchtime, that were memorable for all the wrong reasons.  The food in both places was great.  The prices could not have been beaten.  But I left both places hungry and unsatisfied.

Perhaps the idea is to "encourage" customers to order dessert/cheese and make up the money here?

Whatever the thinking is - would I go back? No.  Would I recommend anyone to go?  No.

Gooseberry and Elderflower

Gooseberries are ripening at the moment and the elderflower is in full bloom and smells amazing.  It has the most heady, sweet aroma.

Both compliment each other perfectly. 

Gooseberry and elderflower jam is just one of those combinations that work.


For every 500g of fruit you need the same weight in sugar.  Place the fruit and 150ml water with 5 elderflower heads in muslin in a heavy bottomed pan.  Simmer the fruit until tender but before it completely breaks down. Remove the elderflower.  Add the sugar gradually, stirring until it dissolves.  Bring up to a rolling boil.  Test for a set after 5 minutes.  Setting point is usually 105 deg C.  Use a jam thermometer or just place a small amount on a cold plate and leave to cool. Run your finger through it and if it wrinkles it has reached setting point.  Turn off the heat while you are testing.  Pour into sterilised jam jars and seal.

Gooseberry and elderflower jam on spelt and multiseed bread.

Weekly Farmers' Market Shop and Cook

Shop and eat seasonal is a good mantra. However, it's very easy now in our global consumer society to eat stuff flown half way around the world, completely out of season and generally lacking taste. How many times have I fallen for a bargain only for it to be a waste of money? Recently I bought plums on special offer from a supermarket - I should have known better as their weekly fruit and veg specials are generally out of season and unripe.  I left them in a fruit bowl with bananas for ages and they just started to go bad!

I had wood pigeon a friend had shot in the freezer and wanted to use it up as it was beginning to get freezer burn.  So wood pigeon defrosted; I had to decide how to cook it and what to cook with it.  There was some cooked beetroot in the fridge so that and the plums were decided on.

The recipe for the plum and beetroot sauce went something like this - with a fair bit of adjustment as I put in far too much red wine vinegar and had to go to all sorts of lengths to rescue it.

10 plums (mine were small unripe little bullets)
1 medium cooked beetroot diced
1 teaspoon muscovado sugar
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon red wine
1 teaspoon honey
Some grated ginger, salt and pepper and 1 star anise.


All above were cooked down and blended.  Adjust seasoning and sweetness to your taste.

I rubbed the wood pigeon with rape seed oil, seasoned and wrapped in pancetta and roasted in a preheated oven on a bed of sliced red onion and fresh thyme for 30 minutes, which left it quite pink.  Leave another 10 minutes if you want it - to my mind - overcooked!









I bought a lovely celery in the farmers' market recently so far removed from those anaemic ones you buy in the supermarket with their leaves removed.   How is it that in France or Spain supermarkets sell fruit and vegetables that look like you would want to eat them while here we get the most dreadful specimens?  The leaves are really tasty too and it's a shame to waste them so I made soup with them.






Celery Soup
1 large onion chopped
2 cloves garlic crushed
bunch fresh thyme and parsley chopped
I medium potato
500 ml chicken stock
The leaves from a head of celery

Fry off the veg and roughly chop the leaves from the celery head and add.  Season, add stock and simmer for 20 mins.  Blend smooth.

 
                                     

 I also made some apricot jam

click on the link for the recipe - it's delicious!

Every Woman needs a Willie

If you are reading this expecting something phallic - stop now - Willie is my handyman!  Every woman needs a handy man and being married or in a relationship is no guarantee of having one.  I found this out to my cost as both of mine were not much addition in the handyman stakes.  The first had the patience to read the instructions which was one step better than me.  I was more inclined to hit stuff with a hammer.  The second when he could be bothered was a bit better, but in no way practical.

Willie has a full time job so his handyman stints are nixers (or foreigners as they say in the U.K).  That means you have to wait until he has finished whatever shift he is on.  Willie doesn't stand on ceremony and he doesn't believe in door bells.  Willie just opens the door and lands in.

He also shouts loudly and every conversation is peppered with expletives.  He is particularly loud with me as - I am able to take it - his words.  One time he was here doing a job and one of my sisters rang.  She heard him in full flow and whispered "are you ok"?

He has fixed my Kitchen Aid, blitzers, blenders, washing machines, tumble driers, dishwashers, pumps, and recently installed a timer on my immersion heater.  He has unblocked drains, plumbed in showers, freed up a Velux window, hung roller blinds and hung a clothes horse - pulley device on the landing to exploit the heat rising from the stove.  All were fixed with cheerful loud banter, usually berating women as being useless, annoying and the best way to deal with them is to agree with everything they say.

I had the misfortune to take out a 5 year guarantee on a washing machine I bought a while back.  The first time I needed a call out, I rang the number given on the guarantee and was connected eventually to a call centre in outer Milton Keynes (or somewhere) - to an operator who asked where in southern Ireland I was.  I told her there was no such political entity, I was actually almost in Ulster but was in the Republic of Ireland and was met with a stunned silence.  Then she requested my address.  No house number or name were bad enough, but no street address and; horror of horror; no post code!  By the time the call was over she was beyond stressed and I was ready to "fix" said washing machine with said hammer.

The 5 year guarantee still lingers but will never again be used and instead Willie rides in to the rescue, all the time cursing feckin women!

Postscript
It annoys me when companies sell their products here in Ireland but then cover us by a UK call centre who have no training or knowledge of the country geographically or politically.

Boyne Valley Blue and Beetroot Tart

Sheridan's Cheese held their annual Food Festival recently and I spent probably the best Sunday of the year, wandering around in hot sunshine tasting fabulous food from some of the best food producers in the country.

One of my purchases was a big piece of Boyne Valley Blue cheese that when we returned home was put in fridge along with my sister's purchases and which, when she returned to her home she took along with her own.  Eventually when I got it back it had sweated in tinfoil and was a bit the worse for wear.


I decided to make a tart using beetroot I had bought at Sheridans' Farmer's Market held every Saturday at their Meath base.


The recipe uses Spelt flour in the pastry and raw milk buttermilk (I leave raw milk in the fridge to sour naturally to buttermilk).  The buttermilk gives the pastry a very good flaky, short texture and reduces the amount of butter needed. 

Boyne Valley Blue and Beetroot Tart
Pastry Base
150g organic white Spelt flour
60g butter
2 tablespoons of raw milk buttermilk
2 tablespoons (approx) cold water
Pinch salt

Rub softened butter into the flour, stir in the buttermilk and then very gradually add the water.  All flour absorbs different amounts of water, so don't welly it all in at once.  When it forms a cohesive mix, cover and place in fridge to rest for an hour.

Roll out the pastry and line a 23cm/9" fluted pie tin with removable base.  Prick the pastry with a fork. Cover with baking parchment and fill with baking beans.  Place in a hot oven 180 deg C for 10 minutes, turn around and leave another 5-10 minutes and then remove beans and paper and finish off in oven until it is baked and lightly browned. Allow to cool. 

Filling
3 large red onions
knob of butter
sprig fresh thyme
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
pinch of Muscovado sugar
salt and pepper
3 medium beetroot cooked and peeled and sliced thinly
100g of Boyne Valley blue cheese or alternative

While the pastry is resting in the fridge, make the filling.  Soften the onions in butter and add in the thyme, balsamic vinegar and sugar.  Season and allow to really melt down on a low heat.  Remove the thyme and spread over the cooled pastry base. Scatter the sliced beetroot over and then crumble or finely slice the blue cheese liberally.  Place the tart back in the oven to just melt the blue cheese.  Either serve warm or cold.

They can be made into individual tartlets also and served as canapés or as a starter.



















 



Tags: Irish Food  Irish Recipes  St. Patrick's Day Recipe  Boyne Valley Blue  Irish Cheese Recipes

I have become a Pig Farmer

Even the title of this post sounds hilarious.  I have said it to myself a few times now and I still can't get my head around it.

For years, since I worked in a large turkey processing business as a Quality Manager, I have had a horror of intensively reared animals.  People always used to ask me how could I bear to watch the turkeys being slaughtered. I could very easily because it was a welcome relief from a truly horrible life - and this was lived in an EU registered export plant, inspected by Department of Agriculture veterinary surgeons and continuously monitored by them. 

In this country the only animals that live a true free range life are cattle and sheep.  Pigs and poultry live in horrendous conditions, reared in unnaturally confined sheds with no access to fresh air or even bedding in the case of pigs.  How can meat from such animals be healthy?

Chicken and turkeys have to be pumped with antibiotics in their feed as they are housed with so many others that transfer of disease and bacteria is rampant.  I always remember the handy man in the turkey plant came in at lunch one day and told us he had found a turkey with no feathers on it's body, it had been pecked so much from the other birds it was completely raw - yet it was still alive.  He said, and I will always remember it, "if it wasn't for all the antibiotics in it's food, the poor bugger would have died".

Unfortunately pigs are no better and what is worse they are animals with greater intelligence than dogs.  Sows are still kept in farrowing crates where the only movement they can make is to stand up or lie down.  Intensively reared pigs are not allowed bedding in order to prevent the spread of disease.  They cannot root or forage as pigs do naturally and they are fed concentrates.

The option is there to buy free range poultry, but how free range are they really? I have seen poultry called free range, many thousands in a shed with a patch of grass at the side that would be full with a few calves.  Every now and again the vents at the side of the shed are opened and the turkeys - totally institutionalised - peep out and a few brave souls venture forth.  So free range really is a word that has little or no meaning. 

I have chickens primarily for eggs but we have killed some for the pot in the past.  I do not eat eggs any more from the shop.  Firstly, despite what they are labelled they are not free range and secondly they are not even fresh.  If I have to buy chicken I buy "free range" with a heavy heart knowing that it really is not.

At least with chicken you have a choice - with pork there is none.  I don't know of any major supermarket or butcher selling free range pork.  Unless you buy from a friend or a specialised producer, what you buy is intensively reared.  The local craft butcher told me he would not be able to sell free range pork.  I assumed this was because of cost, but no it was because of fat! Consumers have such an abhorrence of fat that they would consume antibiotic-pumped lean pigs producing lean but tasteless meat??

Now I have my own pigs I am looking forward to having my own pork and bacon and so are all my family.  If I get any more customers that will be great but for now I am going to produce only what I can use or distribute among friends and family.

Tags: Pig Farming  Free Range Pigs  Pig Husbandry