Salty Squid

The Big Belly Bilbao Break

2011-09-24T17:22:00.018+01:00

Their names: forgotten. The food: written down somewhere upstairs that I am too lazy/drunk/food coma'd to go fetch. The important thing: Bilbao rocks in the pintxos league. More so than it did a few years ago. What's my authority on making such a statement? I have no authority, anywhere, just that we really really both seemed to like the pintxos more than last time, which was... what, already four years ago??? And as there is nothing more boring than flicking through someone elses holiday snaps... Here just some of the pintxo bars we've been to:

Typical lunch in Bilbao's Puerto Viejo:

There we go, but wait, we'll be back, soon again, with a few more pintxo-related illustrated stories!

A weekend of eating outside

2011-07-05T11:50:00.011+01:00

Mushrooms on toast

On a rare sunny Sunday in summer, try saying that with a mouthful of raw onions, Team SaltySquid decided to hang, hungoverly outside. Breakfast - also know as food of the un-hungover, was missed like the last bus home when you were sixteen and your parents thought you were watching a movie in a friends, but the truth was you were really watching a movie alone because you had no friends. That or smoking crack. Well, snap out of that haze now and take that crack pipe out of your mouth. This tasty fungus will clear the cobwebs.

The most important thing about mushrooms on toast is Harissa. A very spicy, salty, garlic, amazingly paste that originated in Moroorroccco (along with the crack too probably!). The shit is amazing. You can add it anything - except porridge - I tried it once and let me you tell you it was disgusting. Soups, stews, toasts, pestos, sauces - anything at all. It will give anything you make a good grab by the goolies.

Anyway, I digress. Toast bread. Instead of butter spread Harissa all over the toast. Add the nicely cooked mushrooms, well seasoned of course, top with some random cheese lying in the back of the fridge and pop under the grill to melt. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!!

Spaghetti with pork & leek sausages, squid and peas

If the mushrooms on toast have failed you like a child riding his bike for the first time, then this is for you. Cook your spaghetti, but do it properly. Water - lots of it and boiling. Salty as the sea.

While the pasta does its thing, score your squid tubes with a sharp knife and slice. Cut your sausages in to chunks and have some garlic cooking away in a pan with some oil. Add the sausages and get a good colour on them. Followed by the squid then some frozen peas and a small bit of chicken stock. About a cup. Add the pasta once almost cooked, toss and add lots of fresh parsley and black pepper.

Stir-fry with loads of greens and minced beef

The trick is to have all your veg ready before you start cooking. Over a high heat cook your onions, ginger, lemongrass. Add an egg and scramble it, followed by the minced beef and garlic and season well. When the meat starts to colour add the veg - carrots, broccoli, green beans - whatever you have and toss well. Add toasted sesame seeds, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, fish sauce, sugar, fresh chilli and coriander. Toss well and add noodles that you cooked off already and cooled under cold water.

Gooseberry & Almond Cake
stolen from Nigel Slater

180g butter, 180g muscavado sugar, 2 eggs, 80g ground almonds, 150g Self Raising flour, vanilla extract, 350g gooseberries

For the crumble blitz the flour and butter and add the sugar.

Cream the butter and flour until pale and fluffy. Slowly add the eggs. Fold in the almonds and sift in the flour. Use your hand to incorporate if you want but be gentle. Add the vanilla extract and pour mixture in to a cake tin. Add the crumble a bake at 175c for 60-75mins

Beer and bloating in Austria & Germany

2011-06-27T10:44:00.045+01:00

One thing worse than food blogs with 'what I ate' entries, is when the bloggers put up a self indulgent post about their most recent holiday. Here is ours.

In short, we went to Germany and Austria. First stop was Frankfut where we ate mostly meat. Lots of meat. Huge amounts of meat. Especially sausages! Sausages, Schnitzel, and sautéed potatoes. Always started and followed by beer... enough beer to fill a swimming pool with it.

Frankfurt

Austria

I had never been to Austria before, nor had I eaten cake in a car before. Two firsts!! We had a six hour drive to Austria so I guess our friend Ingrid figured the best way to keep me quiet was to feed me her Almond cake.

Ingrid's Mallorquin Almond Cake

8 eggs (separated)
250 g icing sugar
250 g ground almonds
1 tsp cinnamon
peel of 1/2 lemon
1 tbsp caster sugar
few drops Vanilla essence
1 tsp baking powder

Beat the egg whites. Beat the yolks with sugar and Vanilla essence until creamy and pale. Fold in almonds, cinnamon, baking powder and lemon peel. At the end fold in the beaten egg whites carefully. Bake approx. 40 minutes at 175 degrees.

We stayed in a place called Mittelberg, second last spot where you can leave your car before starting the climb up the mountains. An amazing place with only locally sourced foods and wines. The place below was definately the best by a long shot. Waitress was serving us wearing a "Dirndl" (a traditional dress based on the historical costume of Alpine peasants), and all the meat is sourced from the mountains around, even the farmers get a mention and a photo! Seriously recommended.

"Die Walser Ravioli"
A lamb a cheese ravioli with crispy shallots to start! Named after the Walser region. I swear I knew that!

„As Wild mit Blauchruudknöödel ond Türggastrudel“
This was deer leg roulade, stuffed with porcini mushrooms, with a polenta strudel, deep fried red cabbage and chocolate dumplings and a vanilla and juniper berry sauce!

„Bachene Fleischkrapfa“
Lamb mince, wrapped in studdel pastry, deep fried, served with a wild mushroom sauce.

We finished our meals with a regional cheese board with a Quark mouse:

We drank:

2009 Grüner Veltliner „Ried Kreutless“ Federspiel
Smoky and nutty with a core of quince. A hint of pink pepper. A decent white to start a meal.
Vineyard Knoll, Unterloiben, Wachau
2007 Cuvée 7², Sieben Sommeliérs Kleinwalsertal
Ruby-red with violet reflexes. Distinctive flavour of cherries, damson plums and cinnamon. Compact and full-bodied, lots of Tannins, and ripe fruits, really enjoyed that one!
House-red, in cooperation with the Vineyard Gager, Deutschkreutz

Widdersteinhütte
(Chalet at the foot of the "Widderstein" peak, 2500 m)

"Walser Germknödel"
Like Dampfnudeln, Austrian Germknödel are a flour-based dessert, a proper house-made speciality. "Germ" is the Austrian word for yeast and these yeasted dumplings hide a surprise inside. A spoonful of "Powidl" (plum butter) is placed on the dough, which is then formed into a ball. Served either with melted butter or vanilla sauce and poppy seeds crushed with sugar.

... and "Apfelstrudel"
(we got the first slice, straight from the oven...!)

flushed down with a pint of a local "Weizen" beer:

Later on we got hungry again (surprise!), this was our chalet-dinner:

Beef & pork sausages with Sauerkraut

Speck-Knödel with Sauerkraut

Vegetable Omlette with mountain herbs

Our last pint at the second chalet, the "Mindelheimer Hütte", shortly before we hit the road down from 2000 metres ...

5 hours, 2 bus trips, few blisters, legs like jelly and absulutely idiotic-looking sunburnt later (despite using SPF 50+), hunted by a vision of spending the rest of the day (and probably night) stuck on the way, covered in mud because cought by a coming up storm, we arrived back in our village, where we luckily found a hotel room to spend the last night. And there it was again, a thunder storm! On the next morning, back to 29 degrees, we headed back towards Mrs Saltysquids parental residence. Unable to walk for days, we committed to more BBQs, beer in the sun and maybe this time a little more salad and veg...

Fish Gouijons, Potato-Skewers and Fried Manchego Rolls

2011-05-16T17:37:00.015+01:00

Blogging, blogging, blogging. Who cares? Really, who cares what we cooked and how we made it and how great it was. You were not there. You didn't taste it. You have no idea whether it was good, burnt or ordered from the local take-away.

We take beautiful pictures of our food with well placed spoons and forks, adding dimensions to the photos like they were our own children and we were entering them into a beauty pageant. We fold napkins in a 'this isn't folded I just threw it onto the side of the plate/table/board' way that takes so much time to get exact. It's the 'straight out of bed look' for food. We spend hours, minutes or days cooking a meal and for what? For it to go cold while it gets violated by a camera?

Food was supposed to taste good not look good and most of the food I eat anyway, is supposed to be eaten bloody hot. And why? Why do we care? Why do you care? Do you even care? It's hard to have a real genuine interest in food and want to learn more about, but you have to sort your way through blogs and text that make everything sound so nice. Everything sounds so perfect. So amazing! So seasonal! So inspiring! Oh! I wish I was there eating that. Rubbing that all over me or maybe Miss Salty Squid if she is drunk enough. It's hard trying to see past all the shite out there. I don't know what the point to this text is, so I guess it will blend in nicely with most of the other blogs out there.

We did manage to get a few minutes last weekend however, to think of and cook, three tapas and post about. It felt good. Just wish we could do it more often.

Fried Courgette & Manchego Rolls

Ingredients:
Manchego cheese, slice into cheese triangles; a courgette, thinly sliced, some breadcrumbs, a beaten egg and some seasoned flour. Salad leaves if you fancy.

Peel the courgette, then thinly slice and blanch in hot water for less than a min. I prefer to hire a personal trainer, stand him on a box and have him time the one minute. Perhaps the trainer could shout motivating slogans at the courgette - suggestions welcome dear reader. Plunge them under cold water - or in cold water, the main thing is that they get cold and stop cooking and don't loose their colour. Putting them under cold water literally, probably won't do anything. Leave to drain. Breadcrumbalise your manchego and fry in oil until nicely coloured. Remove from the pan and roll up in the courgette.

Potato Skewers with Parma Ham and Sage

Ingredients:
3 potatoes, washed and cut in thick wedges; fresh sage; Parma Ham; vegetable oil; salt, pepper & smoked paprika; wooden skewers

Roast the potatoes until tender. Remove from oven and season. When cool enough to handle skewer them and some Parma Ham. Stick back into the oven for 10mins to crispen up the ham. Remove and eat. Purple monkey dishwasher.

Fish Goujons with Mayo(s)

Ingredients:
2 white fish fillets (we used Oirish whiting), skin removed; breadcrumbs; beaten egg; flour; salt & pepper; lemon juice
For the mayo: 2 egg yolks; rapeseed oil; white wine vinegar, Dijon mustard; Harissa; tomato puree; fresh herbs (thyme, dill, chives, parsley...)

Make the mayo by beating the egg yolks in dark room, with a lightbulb hanging from the roof furnished with a solitary chair, with the mustard and vinegar then slowly adding the oil. Finish with the fresh herbs and or the harissa mayo.

Skin and portion your fish into bit size portions. Breadcrumbalise the fish and fry in oil until golden and the fish is cooked.

On the stereo:
Nelly Furtado, Beck. Tindersticks

The Supper Club Pop Up Restaurant

2011-03-29T21:46:00.018+01:00

Sunday 27th March,
Ormond Wine Bar, Dublin.

On Sunday 27th, Salty Squid was very lucky to attend the first night of a new, monthly, communal eating binge in Dublin. Two very talented and slightly insane chefs undertook the ever more insane task of cooking a 10 course tasting menu for 35 hungry people served by kind, friendly wait staff.

To say the food was amazing would be an understatement. In fact the whole night itself was great. That sing along at the end, was the 11th course! Thank god we have no photos.

Salty Squid cannot even spell the names of what we were served, nor can our limited grammar or below par writing skills describe how good this was. But we can stick up some photos to try give a sense of how great it was. Amazeballs.

Some background: The Supper Club is the brainchild of chefs, Sandy and John. The whole idea is that once a month they will pop up in a different venue, in Dublin city, and cook a load of amazing food. Visit popuprestaurant.ie to book or The Supper Club on facebook for more information on the next one. Spaces are limited.

Goats cheese, Baby Beets, Pistachio, Aged Balsamic, Purslane

John & Sandy

Sweet Corn Veloute, Lyonnaise Onions, Smoked Bacon, Girolles...Sweet Jesus

Wine Glasses, Random People Making Friends, Cake Stand

Dark Chocolate Silk Cake, Honey Combe, Coconut Sorbet

Petit Fours: Bon Bon, Marshmallow, Chocolate Fudge

Braised Veal Brisket, Gnocchi, Gremolata, Capers, Desmond Cheese

Foie Gras, Braised Chicory, Salted Grapes, Golden Raisin

Cod, Clams, Shaved Cauliflower, Baby Gem

An ordinary Saturday

2011-03-26T14:44:00.018Z

Along with many of Salty Squids' new year resolutions, regularly doing our little blog is lying discarded on the 'failed to keep up' pile along with eating less, frying less and not classing chorizo as a fruit or vegetable. I do hold onto hope that one day I will have a t-shirt that reads ' Chorizo counts towards your five a day'. I think I should stop talking about chorizo about now.

Saturday's Breakfast

Morning time usually comes around early in the day. It heralds a new beginning in which you have 24hrs to eat as much as is possible. Avoid fluids like water which can take up space in your stomach and aim for the healthier drinks, like coffee, wine and coffee. It's important to eat a big breakfast in case you get stuck talking to a chatty neighbour for half and hour where you will find it hard to consume food. Or if like me, it is possible to hang a bunch of grapes from your head and pick at them if you do find your self cornered without a sandwich.

Poached eggs, with harrissa, mushrooms and shrubbery should keep you happy for half an hour or so.

Saturday's Tart

Miss Salty Squid is a dab hand at tarts. And there is nothing better to come home to than a home cooked tart. I have no idea how Miss Salty Squid made this, but I know it involved a lot of Irish veg and cheese.

Ingredients:
For the filling (whatever is most fresh at your local market. I went to the Newmarket market in Dublin 8. Here is what I found): 2 handfuls organic cherry tomatoes (different shapes & colours); purple carrots; purple sprouting broccoli; fresh springs of oregano; 3 sweet potatoes; 175 g Irish Goat Gouda; 250g Quark or Ricotta and Feta would also work); few stripes of good bacon; onion & garlic; salt&pepper; some spices, whatever you have or like.
For the pastry: 100 g frozen butter; 100 g flour; each pinch of salt and nutmeg; a bit of cold water

Make the pastry by adding the nutmeg and salt to the flour and then by rubbing the flour and butter together until they form breadcrumbs. Add a beaten egg and combine using a little water if needed. Rap the pastry in clingfilm and flatten it out, as this will make rolling a whole lot easier. Rest and fridge for and hour before rolling it out and lining your tart mould. Bake blind for 25mins covered with greaseproof and some baking balls.

For the filling sweat off the onions with a bay leaf until soft. Remove the leaf and add the bacon and carrots. Add the peeled chopped sweet potatoes cook until soft. Add the oregano and tomatoes and cook for another few mins. Add the quark and season before pouring the mix into the tart. Arrange the broccoli on top and grate the goats cheese on top and bake for another 30mins.

Hangover Chips with Harissa Mayo

2011-02-13T17:23:00.009Z

Ingredients: Hangover x 2; organic Irish potatoes x 3 ; an egg yolk; grainy mustard; white wine vinegar, rapeseed oil; Harissa; salt, salt salt and pepper

'Staying in' on a Saturday, simply means it is possible to drink as much as you like, fall asleep where you are sitting and wake up in the morning, cold, sore and with a slipper in your mouth, on the floor. The hard cold floor below the warm snug sofa with cushions and a sofa cat (it's a cat that smells due to some sort of warming bag thing inside it that you can heat up, which means instead of sharing a bed with Salty Squid and the countless number of random, stuffed rejected animals, Sofa Cat lives on the sofa. What the heck am I talking about Sofa Cat for??)

Potatoes slice thickly, skins on. Cover in salt, pepper, oil, herbs or spices or whatever you feel. Put onto a baking tray and place on the bottom shelf in a cold oven. Turn the oven up full and wait.

Or you can mix the egg yolk, vinegar and mustard together and the slowly add the rapeseed oil, whisking all the time while you wait. Finish with Harissa and some seasoning.

After this we had three pizzas. I recommend you do the same.

Portuguese inspired Pineapple Cake

2011-02-07T10:34:00.006Z

Blame it on one rainy and restless Sunday afternoon. When there is really nothing else left to do than heating up the oven, putting together a simple cake recipe and waiting until the sweet smell of a holiday oozes of of the kitchen. Despite the other half's this month's resolutions ("No more cakes, please...!", as if anybody would feel like this anyway), yep, this was a prefect day for a cake.

Pineapple Cake
(Tessa's Kiros recipe from the "Piri Piri Starfish" cookbook)

Ingredients:
350g caster (fine) sugar; 1 fresh pineapple, or 1 canned, drained; 4 eggs, separated; 200g unsalted butter; 200g cake flour (00); 1 tsp baking powder

Heat your oven up to 180 degrees and grease and flour gently a 12 x 4 inch loaf tin.

Make caramel, by mixing 115g of the sugar with couple of teaspoons of water in a non-stick sauce pan. Heat up until sugar melts and swirl the pan around (don't stir otherwise sugar will crystallize). When the sugar turns golden brown and starts to burn, pour carefully into the tin and let it cool down.

Arrange about 10 pineapple rings (drained) over the base of the tin, overlapping.
Whip the egg whites into peaks, and mix the butter with the rest of sugar until it's creamy.
Add the yolks, beat well and then sift in the flour. Fold in the egg whites.

Spoon the mixture into the tin, and bake for 55 minutes to 1 hour until the top if puffy and golden. Take out and let it cool, then loosen the sides with a knife and turn upside down. Voilá!

Year Of The Rabbit

2011-02-04T09:23:00.017Z

The year of the Rabbit. What in gods name does that mean? I have images of giant rabbits taking over the world, stomping building to rubble with their huge feet, shooting lasers from their eyes, pretty much wreaking havoc and being a general pain, which, to a lot of farmers is what the normal, smaller, non-laser shooting rabbits are anyways. I have no idea what the 'Year of the Rabbit' holds fur us, sorry, I mean for us, but an educated guess would leave me to believe that we will all grow a shoe size or two and our hearing will improve. And we will probably be non too fond of Elmer Fudd.

Right now you are probably wondering what all this has to do with food and our tapas entry? The answer as always Dear reader, is nothing.

Sweet and Sour Sauce

Ingredients: 1/2 cup brown sugar; 1-2 tbsp Ketchup; 1-2 tbsp light soy sauce; 1/2 cup pineapple juice (fresh or canned); 1/4 tsp salt; 1/4 cup Chinese Shaoxing wine (or dry Sherry); 1/4 cup Chinese rice vinegar (or Cider vinegar); 2 tsp corn flour, dissolved in 2 tbsp water

Mix all ingredients together in a small sauce pan and bring to boil. Reduce heat and add the corn flour, stirring well. Keep simmering until the sauce thickens. Use hot or allow to cool down. So simple the Karate Kid could.... oh wait that was Japan right?

Green Beans with Sweet and Sour Pork

Ingredients: 200g pork mince; handful of green beans, blanched and halved; 1 x onion chopped; 1 x clove garlic, sliced, 3tbsp home made sweet and sour sauce; some Chinese 5 spice; Szechuan pepper, Chili powder

Heat your pan and add the onion and garlic and colour on a high heat. Add the pork mince and brown, then add the spices and a splash of rice vinegar or white wine vinegar or whatever you have. Add the blanched green beans, and continue to cook for another minute, add the sweet and sour sauce and stir. Continue to cook on a high heat for another minute, allowing the sauce to caramelise and get sticky on the pan. Serve. Love you long time.

Duck pancakes

Ingredients: 1 x duck leg; Szechuan peppercorns, Chinese 5 spice; 1/2 cup Oyster Sauce; 1/2 cucumber, thinly sliced into batons; Pak Choi, cooked before hand

The night before, marinate the duck leg with about 10 Szechuan peppercorns, some Chinese 5 spice and Oyster Sauce. Remove from the fridge 30mins before cooking. Preheat the oven to about 130, add the duck and cook for about an hour, basting from time to time. Make sure the duck is nice and tender before removing, it may take longer.

Once cooled, flake the meat from the bone. Lay out your spring roll paper and fill each with some duck, cucumber, pak choi and season. Roll up the pancakes and the dip into a mixture of Chinese 5 spice, Oyster Sauce and Chili powder. Bake in a preheated oven at 180c for 20mins

until crisp and sticky. You BIG American!

Stir fried crispy Tofu with Choy Sum, Enoki mushrooms and other Asian sounding weird things

Ingredients: 100g tofu, chopped up however you want; 50g Choy Sum; pickled ginger; 1 x onion chopped; garlic sliced, some chopped chili; bunch of coriander; Enoki mushrooms; Chinese 5 spice; Szechuan pepper; sesame oil; soy sauce

Freeze your tofu the night before, then defrost a bit before it's needed (great tip from a Chinese friend!), this helps it keep it's shape and bite, not that there is much bite to tofu. I should probably lay my cards on the table here and say my love for tofu and soy related products is non-existent since the discovery of a rare breed of humans that frequent the cafe and order soy lattes, de-caf-soya-cappa's (what the sweet mother of fu** is that!??) and have an air of arse about themselves. But that's a blog entry for another day.

Heat some oil in a pan and fry the tofu. To help hide the taste and texture add some onion and garlic and pickled ginger. Next add the spices and peppers, followed by the Chinese cabbage and mushrooms. Add some soy sauce and chili after a min or two and continue to cook. Add the coriander and sesame oil. Stir and serve. Five dollar!!

On the stereo

Pitchfork 500 album on shuffle

In the glass
Arthur Metz, Reisling, Alsace, 2009

King Pie The Almighty Pie-y-One Of Pie Town - Pie

2011-01-31T19:36:00.013Z

It was a cold dark evening and I wanted pie. Lots of pie. Really lots of pie. So much pie in fact, that if King Pie The Almighty Pie-y-One Of Pie Town came to visit even He would think there was a lot of pie here. Sadly however, King Pie The Almighty Pie-y-One Of Pie Town doesn't exist. And neither does Pie Town. Bollox anyway.

For this pie, now named King Pie The Almighty Pie-y-One Of Pie Town - Pie. There are, there is, no there are lots of ingredients but do feel free to use less and make a lesser pie. If that's how you are going to show your respect to the late King, then fine, you lesser pie lover.

You will need: 1 x pack of puff pastry; 1 x squash, peeled and chopped, 2 x Sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks; bunch of kale; bunch of spinach; mushrooms chopped, maybe 500g, or maybe not; 300g goats cheese, I used Ryefield from Sheridans; 500g of walnuts roasted; few cloves of garlic; some spices, I used hot smoked Paprika, cayenne pepper, ground ciniminimaoninm.

Preheat your oven to 180c and roast the Squash, which was mixed with the ground cinionmoninim, and on the same tray roast the sweet spuds which have been mixed with cayenne pepper and paprika. Add some whole cloves of garlic too. Give them all a good season and a drizzle with some oil. Rub the spices into them and the roast until cooked. The sweet spuds will prob cook a bit quicker. Remove when cooked and blitz.

At the same time, roast your walnuts for about 10mins. Remove and set aside.

While the above are roasting, fry off your mushrooms with some rosemary, season well and set aside. In the same pan fry off the kale, season it and set aside. Still using the same pan fry off the spinach for about 30secs, remove and squeeze out the excess liquid.

Mix the spinach, kale, half of the walnuts, slightly crushed and some of the goats cheese together with the pureed veg. Taste and season if needed.

Next, roll out your pastry to fit your dish. Line the bottom with the roast veg mix, followed by a layer of mushrooms. Top with the rest of the goats cheese and bake at 180c until brown gooey and golden. About 10 before the end add the rest of the walnuts. It's nice to add some sliced chili also.

No tapas, but still, we have to eat...

2011-01-23T18:20:00.023Z

Ratatouille with Chorizo-Butter-stuffed-Chicken

Not exactly a tapas post, but a post none the less. And we managed to get chorizo in there somewhere too! On a cold Sunday with a fridge full of veg, a sort of made up ratatouille was born. Simply sweat off your onion, celery and garlic until soft. Add your tomato paste, fresh tomatoes, chopped veg, whatever you have, we added some courgettes, mushrooms, and roasted aubergine (halve an aubergine, score the flesh, season and rub in some oil and roast alongside some garlic cloves. When done, simply scrape the flesh from the skin into the ratatouille). Add some chicken stock, bay leaves, thyme and rosemary. Cook gentle for about an hour.

We had it with champ, simply add some sliced spring onion to your mash. If you want to you can stuff a chicken breast with chorizo butter and roast it.

Chocolate Sponge Cake
(filled with with blackcurrant cream)

Salty Squid is partial to some sweet spongy cakeness. Not always, but sometimes. This cake was made by creaming equal parts butter and sugar (I used 125g) until pale and fluffy, like a ghost-sock. Add an egg, fold in 125g of self raising flour, sifted and about 60g of melted dark chocolate. Bake at 180 for about 20mins and allow to cool on a wire rack.

Slice in half and fill with cream, or if you want you can add some nice homemade jam to your cream and a little bit of Kirsch. A short but sweet post.

Stuffed Cucumber, Morcilla and Leek & Sweet Potato Tart

2011-01-09T18:43:00.029Z

A new year and a new post! It was about this time last year since the rent-a-brain duo of Salty Squid had the great idea to start a blog. And oh how great it has been! Salty Squid has had a great year cooking chorizo in various ways a disguising it as a new dish each week. We were also busy finding random reasons to deep fry anything that could fit into the pan. And yes, we did buy a particularly big pan.

As mentioned at the start of this post, it is a new year, 2011 in fact. And around this time of year we all get a bit caught up in 'food trends' and 'what will be big for 2011'. After browsing many (1ish) blogs on this subject they all seem to concur that tapas or 'tapas style' (real words used on this very blog in like, 2010!!!) will be big in 2011! Rock on we say! That means that Salty Squid has in fact been ahead of the trend by about a year! Look no further dear reader (thanks Ma x), the future of Irish food is right here at Salty Squid!

So sit back, stand up and tuck in to our new post. Just remember, at least you will be able to say you read this blog when nobody else did!

Stuffed Cucumber with a) Tomato-Feta, b) Kale-Feta Pesto

Ingredients: A cucumber; block of feta; 2tbsp cream cheese; 2tbsp tomato paste; smoked paprika; squeeze of lemon juice; bunch of Kale; nutmeg; s&p

This is really straight forward. Mix about a cup of feta or maybe just over a cup, or perhaps just a little less, depends really, with the cream cheese. Take half of this mixture and combine with the tomato paste and paprika. Give a squeeze of lemon juice - but make sure to do this from a height. As that's what they do on TV. Stand on the counter and place the mix on the floor if necessary to achieve a good height. Although not in that order. As in, place the mix on the floor first THEN climb atop of the counter. Unless of course you have really long arms, then you should be able to climb on top of the counter and then place the mix on the floor. Although, if you have really long arms you probably wont need to stand on the counter and place the mix on the floor, you could probably just raise your arms to a sufficient height to achieve the desired effect. Season to taste.

For the kale pesto, simply fry of the kale in a little stock or water, season and set aside to cool. Mix the cooled kale with the other half of the cheese mix, a little nutmeg here will make it taste like a little nutmeg was added.

Using a peeler, peel strips of cucumber. Place some filling at one end of the cucumber and roll. Perfect as a food when hungry.

Morcilla with Kale, Chickpeas and Pine nuts

Ingredients: Morcilla, casing removed; 1x tin of chickpeas; 2tbsp pine nuts, toasted or 'tewsted' if from a posh neighbourhood; large bunch of kale, chopped; white wine; chicken stock; 3x cloves of garlic, sliced

Heat some rapeseed oil in a pan, add the morcilla and cook for a few mins. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Add the drained chickpeas and pine nuts. Add the white wine and reduce, followed by about a cup of stock. Cook for a min or two, just to reduce, you don't want it too wet, it's not a stew. Season well with lots of black pepper.

Leek & Sweet Potato Tart

Ingredients: 3x leeks, cleaned and trimmed and chopped; 1x large sweet potato, peeled, diced and blanched; 1x clove of garlic, chopped; feta and any left over fillings from the cucumbers above;

For the pastry: 150g flour and butter, pinch of salt, nutmeg, some cold water.

Roll out the pastry and line your tart mould or moulds

Sweat the leeks and in some butter and oil until soft, add the sweet potatoes that you cooked earlier to the pan and toss. Season it well, lots of s&p. Remove from the heat and add to the tart moulds. Dot with feta and bake fir about 25mins at 180c

In the glass:
Marques de Caceres, Rioja, Crianza 2006, 13%

On the stereo:
Tina Dico, Telegraph

Xmas cookies are back

2010-12-06T11:29:00.006Z

Citrus Snow Flakes and Chocolate Whirl-Wheels

Settling in the new place, and the green island turns white...

2010-12-04T14:40:00.003Z

No Post, Well Except This One

2010-11-22T10:06:00.002Z

The good news for all of our millions of die hard followers is that Salty Squid has not been dipped in batter and deep fried - nope, just that the 'brains' behind Salty Squid are busy moving house and thus have been away for a while.

The great news is that the move should be complete this week and Salty Squid will have a new kitchen and new surrounds to inspire us.

We will be back very very soon!

Salty Squid x

Goats Cheese & Rocket Bread, Mini Yorkshire Puddings and Autumn Rolls

2010-10-22T18:42:00.023+01:00

I get the sneaky feeling that summer is over. When you wake in the morning to find the room even darker than before you went to bed, you do tend to think that it couldn't possibly be morning, until you realise that cold, harsh, dark reality is staring you in the eye and it's time to kick off the 6 duvets and venture out into the wind, the rain and the cold. You can hear the wolves in the distance. You venture out into the cold armed and ready for the armies of the undead that await you. Zombies dragging themselves to zombie banks, Ghosts quietly floating out of ghost estates. You turn on the radio and all you can here is Jedward. You flick through your Ipod only to find all you music erased and Jedward the only option, playing on an continuous loop.

How did things end up like this? When was the last time you saw daylight? When is the last time you had human contact. You cough into a tissue and notice blood. It's beginning. It's happening to you. You are infected. Your only option now is to take a video camera and run into the woods.

You run. And you keep running. Filming all the time. Shouting out random names - people you know, maybe people you knew, maybe people you thought you knew.

You notice a wall ahead, you approach cautiously. There is something written on it but you can't quite make it out. You get a bit closer only to see written in large letters written with blood: 'I KNOW WHAT YOU DID FOR TAPAS LAST NIGHT!!!!!!'

Potato, Goats Cheese & Rocket Bread

Ingredients: 1 x goat and someone that can milk it and also make cheese. Alternatively about 150g of nice goats cheese should do. I used Ryefield; 4 x spring onions, thinly sliced; bunch of rocket mister!, chopped; 175g self raising flour, 1 x potato, peeled and grated; pinch of cayenne pepper; lots of black pepper, pinch (ouch!) of salt; T of mustard; one beaten egg, no witnesses; splash of milk

Sift the flour, pepper and salt into a bowl. Grate the potato into the mix and mix. Lots of mixing. Don't get mixed up. Add the rocket and spring onions, mix well (more mixing!) using the back of a knife. Beat the egg, milk and mustard together - and add to the (DEEP BREATH) mix and continue to - (HOLY MOSES!!) mix (I CAN'T STOP IT) well with the knife. Give it a good season of black pepper and (ah for gods sake!?!) mix. Add most of the goats cheese to the cursing MIX - AAARRRRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!!. Turn out onto a floured tray when it formes a rough dough. Press the rest of the cheese into the mix (NOOOOO THERE MUST BE ANOTHER WORD!!!!!!), give a dust of flour and bake for 40-50 mins at 180c. Simple.

Steak With Mini Yorkshire Puddings and Pea & Wasabi Purree
(from the Ballymaloe Cookbook)

Ingredients: bunch of frozen peas; some wasabi; a dollop of creme fraiche; 55g plain flour; 1 egg, 150ml milk; 5g butter

Preheat the over to 230c. Sift the flour into a bowl and make a well in the centre. Drop in the egg and beat or whisk drawing in more flour from the edges while steadily pouring in the milk. If you are and Octopus this is easy. Once you have mixed in all the flour and milk add the cooled melted butter and allow to rest for an hour or so.

Season your meat well and cook in a hot pan with some oil for a couple of mins each side for medium rare. Remove and rest. Don't be a donkey like myself and overcook the meat a little as you can see from the photos!

Heat your muffin type tray in the oven. Once hot, grease with a little oil and fill each half way with the batter. Pop back into the oven for 15mins or until crispy brown.

Vietnamese Autumn Rolls

Ingredients:
Rice paper squares; 1 carrot, thinly sliced; 1 courgette, thinly sliced; handful of oyster mushrooms, chopped; handful of bean sprouts; bunch of fresh, chopped coriander; some rapeseed oil for frying
For the dip:
juice of 1 lemon; 2 tbsp fish sauce; 1-2 tbsp sugar; 1 clove garlic, finely chopped; opt. 1 hot chilli finely chopped

Have a bowl of hot water handy. Dip each sheet of rice paper in to it to soften. Lay on your work top and fill with a little of each of the veggies and herbs. Roll tightly. Repeat until all the filling is used. Heat the oil in a pan and fry, turning until they are coloured each side.

For the sauce, just mix all the ingredients together.

In the glass
Basiano, Tempranillo, 2009, 23.5%

On the stereo
Pantha Du Prince; Basement Jaxx

Nachos, Sesame Chicken Wings, Prawns On Toast

2010-10-03T16:19:00.024+01:00

Another week and another post - well apart from the fact that we didn't post last week, but who's counting? We are actually. We have also been struggling a little with time lately and as the Salty Squid ethos is something along the lines of only doing something that you love and enjoy, well we tend not to do a post if it's not going to be given 100% love and attention. But we will be trying so much harder not to miss any more postings!

Please bear in mind that the Salty Squid ethos is free to change repeatedly to suit us and be used as an excuse for whatever we need an excuse for. But lets not get bogged down in all this legal This is a food blog, by food eaters, about eating food so let's get to business.

Nachos With ....

Ingredients: Corn or flour tortilla; an avocado, good cheddar, creme fraiche, chilli - lots of chilli, beans or mince - I used chickpeas!; onion, garlic, paprika, fresh tomatoes, coriander

There is something very comforting about nachos. Surprising really considering that what we have here is heart-stopping amounts of melted cheese on posh crisps - with some salsa, guacamole, chilli straight from the mine and bucket-fulls of creme fraiche. Yep a real surprise.

Make the tomato and coriander salsa by chopping your fresh tomatoes, coriander, crushing a clove of garlic and giving it all a good mix and an even better seasoning. Refrigerate overnight if possible or until needed. This gives the flavours a chance to mingle. But I have bored a tiny hole in our fridge and spent many a night spying on such salsas and have never seen them mingle. A little bit of small talk but honestly, there is just awkward silences.

Cut your tortillas into triangles and fry until golden and crispy, sprinkle with salt and paprika and set aside. Repeat until all the tortilla has been fried.

For the guacamole, crush your avocado, and mix it with red onion and lime juice and a tiny blob of creme fraiche. Season.

To assemble, plate some tortillas first with a healthy topping of grated cheddar and pop into the oven to melt the cheese, Remove, add another layer of nachos, followed by more cheese, guacamole, salsa and creme fraiche. Sprinkle with sliced fresh chillies.

Darina's Sesame & Ginger Chicken Wings

Ingredients: 400-500g chicken wings
For the marinade: 30 ml soy sauce; 30 ml red wine ; 30 ml honey; 2 tsp (or as much as you can take) freshly grated ginger; 30g untoasted sesame seeds

Clean the chicken wings and separate joints if not already done. Mix all ingredients for the marinade together in a saucepan and bring to boil for 2-3 minutes. Allow to cool down and then combine with the chicken wings. Set aside for at least couple of hours, or overnight if you're better prepared than me.

Take the chicken wings out of the fridge and bring them to room temperature. Pre-heat the oven to 180c and bake the chicken wings for 30-40 minutes, until golden brown and sticky.

This recipe was robbed from the Ballymalloe Cookbook.

Prawns On Toast

Ingredients: Prawns, fresh or frozen; garlic; chilli, lemon juice

Clean the prawns if using fresh ones. A nice shower will do or a bath if time allows. Prawns do like a nice bubble bath - but be careful as they do tend to fart and giggle and try blame it on the bubbles. Don't believe them.

Heat some oil in a pan and add the prawns, garlic and chilli. Cook for a couple of mins until the prawns are done. Add a generous helping of parsley and serve on some toasted sourdough

In the glass
Chateau Cotes Du Gros Caillou, Saint Emilion, 2008

On the stereo
The Cure, David Bowie, retro baby

Fish Rillettes, Leek Fritters and Liver on Toast

2010-09-26T18:07:00.012+01:00

Salty Squid starts to get very excited around this time of year. After a summer of eating nothing but leaves and hay, Mr Salty Squid is looking forward to stuffing his face with stews, casseroles, hot pots, curries, mash potato, and baby elephants. And what of the beautiful picture above, you ask? Well that was a plum and chocolate cake Miss Salty Squid whipped up. It has nothing to do with this weeks tapas, nor does the rant about stews etc, but hey, that's the essence of Salty Squid, pointless, in a meaningful kind of way.

Mackerel and Tuna Rillettes With Toasted Croutons

Ingredients: 2 fillets of fresh mackerel; 1 tin tuna steak; 1/2-1 red onion; handful chopped chives; 2 egg yolks; white wine vinegar; 2-3 tsp Dijon mustard; rapeseed oil; salt & pepper; 2-3 tbsp capers; juice of 1 lime; 1/2 baguette or few slices of bread or toast...

First, bake the mackerel fillets in oven, 180 degrees, for 15-20 min. Allow to cool and carefully flake the fish (taking out all fish bones you can find). Set aside and prepare the mayonnaise, by whisking the egg yolks together with the vinegar and mustard. Slowly add the rapeseed oil, while whisking like a world champion whisker. Drain the canned tuna and add to the mackerel flakes. Combine with finely chopped red onion, capers (which you fry for 2 min in a hot pan first), as much mayonnaise as you desire, and chopped chives. Season, and enjoy with some toasty fingers!

Leek Fritters

Ingredients: 2 Leeks, one in the sink the other in a bucket; 1x red onion diced; 1/2 tsp of whatever spices you have, I used tumeric, ciminaminoninon, fenugreek, chili powder and hot madras curry powder; 1x egg white well beaten and one whole egg, 110g flour, 1tbsp baking powder; .

Gently cook the leeks and red onions until soft. Add the spices and mix well. Set aside to cool. Whisk the egg white like a mo'-fo' and gently fold in the onions. It's best to make a better batter by mixing the flour, baking powder and egg together - whisking in some milk until its has the consistency of a troubled teenager. Add this to the onion mix - sorry I mean gently fold into the onion mix. I came up with this recipe and if Yotam Ottolenghi and his Plenty cookbook have a problem with well they can just sue me**

** suing not recommended, your book rocks Yotam, I have a wife and kids - sue them!***

*** original joke by Homer Simpson - please don't sue me either Homer!

Heat some oil in a pan and spoon in the better-batter, say 2 tbsp per fritter. Serve with a squeeze of lemon juice and some creme fraiche.

Liver on Toast with Sherry Vinegar

Ingredients: 100g of fresh lambs liver; some sherry vinegar; bread, slice and toasted

Get your pan good and hot, maybe some Barry White and dimmed lights will do the job. Add a drop of oil and fry the liver for about 2mins each side. Remove from the pan. De-glaze the pan with some sherry vinegar. Slice and arrange the liver on the toast and pour over the sauce.

In the glass
Chateau Cotes Du Gros Caillou, Saint Emilion, 2008

On the stereo
Arcade Fire, Nick Cave

Black Pudding Croquettes, Eden Smokies, Duck with Parsnip

2010-09-19T17:39:00.017+01:00

Looks can be deceiving. Think of that ugly duck we all heard about as kids. Where is he or she now? Probably writing agony duck columns in some duck tabloid newspaper for all the other ugly ducklings. Giving them advice about how it doesn't matter what's on the outside or how you look, it's what's inside that counts. A bit like this weeks tapas entry.

You see, the black pudding croquettes may not look like a, eh swan? but they taste really really good. Any left overs are particularly good the next morning with scrambled eggs with Harissa on toast. Yes we could have breaded these babies up - but we chose not to and we are standing by that decision. Kinda. The point is, they taste so nice regardless. As do the Eden smokies - which are so easy to make and, if you scale up the recipe, they are a perfect thing to give you a big kiss on a cold autumnal eve. Assuming that kissing smoked fish is your thing. If not ! Fear not ! Kill the aforementioned duck and have it with parsnip crisps! Enjoy!

Black Pudding Croquettes With Sweet Woodruff & Whiskey Jelly

Ingredients: 3 potatoes; black pudding (as much as you can handle); 1/2 red onion; 3 tbsp cider vinegar; 2 tbsp Dijon mustard; salt & pepper

Cook your potatoes in salted water until done, drain and mash without adding any milk, cream or butter. Season. Peel the black pudding and cook in some oil for a couple of mins. Add to the mash along with the mustard, sliced red onion, vinegar and mix. Taste and adjust your pants.

Form croquette shapes using your hands and allow them to rest for about 30mins in the fridge. You can get croquette beds that fit in fridges in good kitchen supply stores.

You should probably roll the croquettes in some breadcrumbs for a nice golden finish - alas Salty Squid didn't. We just fried them off and the finished result - while tasting great, they were a bit harsh on the eye.

For the jelly, just add some hot water to some Woodruff jelly - add a drop or a pint of whisky, mix well and leave in the fridge to set for two hours or so.

Eden Smokies

Ingredients: 350g smoked cod, diced; handful of cherry tomatoes, halved; few spring onions, springs removed; 3tbsp of creme fraiche, yum; lots and lots of black pepper, ah-chew; couple of elbow fulls of grated cheddar, cheesy

This is best done on a camping stove set up on the back of a trailer. Heat your pan or whoever's pan, I really don't care, on a moderate heat, not so moderate that anything goes, but not so unmoderate (another salty makey uppy wordy) either. Add the smoked cod and cook for a minute. Next add the tomatoes and spring onions and continue to cook. Add 2 of the tbsp of creme fraiche, then the third, Stir well - as in stir the pan well, not run to the end of the garden with a huge - HUGE wooden spoon and stir the well. In fact, you might not even have a garden. Or a well. Or if you do have a garden with a well, maybe you don't have a big enough wooden spoon.

Portion up the creamy mess into small individual dishes and pop under the grill. Or you can just sprinkle cheese over the lot and stick your pan under the grill for a minute, trying to lick some of the crispy cheese off the pan as it grills. Painful but worth it. Then serve.

Pretentious Pan-Seared Duck Breast with Parsnip Crisps and Roast Parsnip Puree and Red Wine and Quince Jus (yeah whatever)

Ingredients: Duck breast, fat well scored ideally 3 goals per game; parsnip, a little bit shaved, the rest chopped; clove of garlic; smoked paprika, a bit of milk, a bit of red wine; a bit of quince; a bit of love

Heat the oven to 180c. Add the chopped parsnip, clove of garlic and smoked paprika to a tray and drizzle with oil. Mix it all together and stick it into the oven until the parsnip is soft and cooked. Blitz, using a bit of milk to loosen it and give it a pureeeyeey consistency. Season well. Loads of black pepper.

For the parsnip crisps, heat some rapeseed oil in pan, add the thinly shaved parsnips, fry until golden, remove and drain on some kitchen paper. Sprinkle with salt.

Heat a pan on a medium heat, add the duck breast skin side down. Don't add any oil or butter to the pan as you want to render all the fat out of the duck breast. Continue to cook skin side down for about 5 mins until the skin is brown and crisp. Drain the fat from the pan and flip the breast over the the flesh side. Seal the flesh for about 2 mins then turn again back to the skin side for another 3-4 mins before giving the flesh side another final blast for a min or two. Remove and rest the breast for about 10mins before slicing it with a sharp knife. You can cook it for a bit less if you prefer it more rare.

Arrange the breast on top of the puree with the crisps on top of the duck. Drizzle with the red wine, which you made by reducing some wine (which also had some quince paste thrown in) to a syrupy consistency and seasoned well.

In the glass

Domain Grand Nicolet, Rasteau, 14.5%

Chourico Cake, Steamed Moules, Courgette Volcanoes

2010-09-12T16:41:00.021+01:00

On a week where tickets for The National sold out faster than baseball bats at a Jedward gig, it would be hard to imagine how the weekend could be enjoyable. I am still asking myself as to exactly how that happened.

Another question I was asking this week was how did I manage to get covered in red wine whilst catching up with some friends earlier this week. I remember the amazing foie gras terrine and the excellent dark celeriac puree that came with the rack of pork, I just don't remember how wine jumped from Miss Salty Squids glass (YES! the very same 'angel' that takes these beautiful photos and cooks some top nosh , eh nosh) and landed on me. All over me. Down the back of my shirt, over my right shoulder and down the front of my shirt to my belly button fluff holder. Perhaps I was getting a bit too much pleasure from the food? I don't know. It was as if Miss Salty Squid suddenly found a tiny frog on her hand and tried to shake it off. While holding a glass of wine. Quite a big glass of wine in fact because even after giving me the tie-dyed shirt luck there was STILL wine in her glass! You know it's time to leave a restaurant when the waitress brings your a spray of carpet cleaner.

Alas, ticket-less, shirtless (kinda) and stuffed on rich food, Salty Squid waddled into this weeks tapas determined to make something that will set the tone for the week ahead. Fresh Irish mussels, a chorizo cake and courgette volcanoes....what more does one need, apart from tickets to the National and a new shirt?

Chourico Cake

5 eggs; 100 g melted/cooled butter; 4-5 tbsp olive oil; 185 ml milk; 310 g flour; 2 tsp baking powder; salt; 250 g chorizo (the best quality you can get); chopped fresh coriander/parsley; 1 small onion; 2-3 garlic cloves - finely chopped.

When oh, when will we run out of chorizo recipes? Or when will we turn into chorizo ourselves? One excellent way around 'not' having chorizo again is to cook a recipe from the excellent 'Piri Piri Starfish' cookbook from Tessa Kiros.

Sweat the onions and garlic off until soft. Add the chopped chorizo and cook for about 5 mins. Add the chopped coriander and set aside to cool. Season.

Beat the eggs until fluffy and add the butter and oil, continuing to whisk. Mix the baking powder and salt into the flour and whisk into the mix. Then add the milk and continue to mix until it is all nice and smooth.

Add the chorizo and mix well. Pour the mix into a greased and floured cake tin and pop into a pre-heated oven at 200c for about 25-30mins.

Moules Mariniére with Crémant-cream

600g fresh mussels; enough garlic to cancel Season 3 of True Blood; couple of shallots; chilli; a sarcastic handful of parsley; cream to taste; butter to cook; a big pot with a lid; white wine or Crémant

Wash your mussels in plenty of cold water. I really want to make jokes about mussels here but I am going to rise above it. Nope, not going to do it. It's childish and we here at Salty Squid are really really mature. Half German remember!! For washing the mussels, I like to fill the bath with water, add the mussels then dive in myself in full scuba diving gear and pretend that I am actually catching them myself, but you don't have to do do this.

Perhaps, placing them into a big bowl or pot and leave the cold tap running over them for few mins would better suit your lifestyle. If the shells are open gently smack them off your neighbours car - they should close. If not, feed them to Jedward.

Finely chop the garlic and shallots and chilli and cook gently in butter until soft. Not coloured. Add some white wine or Crémant*, the mussels, crank the heat up to 11 and put the lid on. Shake the pot about from time to time - well you are only cooking them for 3 or 4 mins so don't go for a trek in the hills or anything. Once they have opened, add the cream and parsley and remove from the heat. Serve with crusty baguette.

* we happend to be drinking Crémant, and were not going to but some vino just for this - 15 eur budget and all that!

Courgette Volcanoes w/ Fennel & Ginger purée

2 x courgettes; 2 x fennel; knob of ginger, finely chopped; 2 x onion chopped; 2 x garlic crushed; 1 celery stick chopped; bunch of coriander; 500ml chicken stock; thin slices of Parmesan; thin slices of prosciutto

Depending on the size of the courgettes, cut the into 3 or 4. Remove the seeds with a knife. Cook one of the onions and some garlic until soft. Add the courgettes and the hot chicken stock and cook until the courgettes have softened a little - about 3 mins. Remove them and set aside. Reserve the cooking stock.

To make the fennel puree, sweat of the rest of the onions and garlic and the celery and ginger. Once softened, add the fennel which has been roughly chopped and cook for a few mins. Add the chicken stock and cook until the fennel is soft. Blitz and pass through a sieve. Season to taste.

Line the courgettes on a baking tray and fill them with the puree. Arrange a slice of Parmesan and a slice of prosciutto on top and place under a hot grill until the ham is crispy. Devour at once!

In the glass
Crémant De Loire, 12.5% Bodegas Abanico, Eternum Viti, Toro 14.5%

On the stereo
Lali Puna, Red Hot Chilli Peppers (why?), The National (Cry!)

Salty Holidays

2010-09-05T16:14:00.018+01:00

After a 2 week break, we are proudly back, introducing a new blog layout - again ;)

Actually if we do the maths - which we wont, it's more or less a four week break with random comings and goings - and also the week our blog deleted an entry itself and re-added it in a font we can't change or do anything with. What an August that was!

We also kinda disappeared from the tweeting and gossiping pages... which if any of you have ever followed us on twitter, this means we have gone from one tweet a month to... one tweet a month - ish.

But fear not as a break is as good as a holiday - and as part of this break was a holiday and while on holiday we did break something (tray of food jumped off a table all by itself) - Salty Squid is back, more eager and hungry than ever.

However, until our tapas blog kicks off next week, here are a few photos of what we were up to while holiday-ing or breaking. Not that you care. But you can pretend you do! Stand by stomach, here comes banana.

Late August saw Miss Salty Squid celebrate another 21st (a-hem!). I made this - under the strict supervision and stern eye of Caroline from Nelly's Cafe on South Circular Road. Black forest gateaux was the aim - Black forest roulade was the result!

Black Forest Roulade

Fresh Porcini mushrooms, freshly picked from a German forest - the most efficient foraging ever:

Fresh Porcini Mushrooms

Fresh Porcini, butter, parsley and s&p. I have never envied a plate before but every time I look at this picture, I really really envy this plate. Stupid delf.

Vegetable Moussaka

Only back two days and already Miss Salty Squid is full cooking mode. Yesterday's vegetable Moussaka......perfect thing to greet you as you walk in the door on a wet Saturday eve!!

Sardines On Toast, Fresh Fig Salad, Peppers w/ Roast Onion & Pork stuffing

2010-08-10T11:06:00.015+01:00

This weeks tapas friday was a taste of Spain, I think I stole some inspiration from some of the Spanish cookbooks I have - apart from the figs and feta.

Sardines on toast reminds me of my dad, eating them for tea when I was a kid. The smell and look of them turned me off them for a long, long time. It's funny that now I can't get enough of them.

The onion puree is similar (identical) to the one I did a couple of weeks ago. It is just so nice. I did tart it up with cider vinegar etc. Really worth trying.

Roasted Sweet peppers w/ roast onion & pork stuffing

Ingredients:
3x sweet peppers, onions, garlic, oregano, 25g creme fraiche, 1tbsp cider vinegar, breadcrumbs, some leftover pork shoulder from the terrine you all made last week.

First off, roast the peppers until the skin blackens, peel them then marinade in good olive oil with some garlic and 'erbs. If you can do it overnight it's better but not so important.

Next up, roast the onions, garlic, oregano with a good bit of salt and pepper until the onions and garlic are soft. Squeeze the garlic out from the skin and combine with the onions, creme fraiche and cider vinegar. Blitz to a paste. Add some breadcrumbs and flake in the cooked, tender, juicy pork shoulder. Season well

Remove the peppers from the marinade and gently tear (by accident), or cut along one side. Fill with the onion puree and roast at 180c for about 15mins, slice and serve on bread.

Fresh Figs, Feta with balsamic reduction

Ingredients:

6 fresh figs; some feta; balsamic

Slice the figs any way you like. Crumble over a good quality feta. Reduce some balsic vinegar and drizzle over the dish. I could try to make it sound harder or complicated but nope, that's it.

Sardines on toast w/ fresh tomato sauce

Ingredients:

4x fresh sardines fillets, black olive tapanade, rustic bread, toasted, 3x good tomatoes, onion and basil or oregano

For the sauce, sweat off a chopped onion until soft. Slice the tops off the tomatoes and scoop out the seeds. Finely chop and set aside. Add the tomato paste, cook for a min and add the tomatoes. Cook on a low heat for about 20mins. Taste and season. Remove from the heat.

Clean the sardines and pat dry. Arrange flesh side down on a baking tray, drizzle with olive oil and season really well. Grill on a high heat until cooked and the skin is crispy.

Smear some tapenade onto your toasted bread, arrange the fish on top. Tear up some basil, add to the sauce and spoon over the fish and eat!

Roast Beet Gazpacho, Butter Beans & Peas On Toast, Salty Squids' Country Terrine

2010-08-04T20:40:00.034+01:00

Looks like the Internet gremlins have struck! Yes we had this post up last week - late again admittedly, but then we noticed yesterday that this post had gone for a walk. Fear not, as we can stick it back up with a pretty rushed vague text.

Beetroot Gazpacho

Ingredients:

Beetroots, creme fraiche, dill, cucumber, diced, garlic

Roast the beets with some garlic. Remove when done and when cool enough to handle, peel and grate some of them and blitz the rest. Mix with the diced cucumber and chill.

Mix some lemon juice with creme fraiche and arrange a blob on top before serving

Butter Beans & peas on toast

Ingredients:
Fresh butter beans, removed from pods, frozen peas, mint, garlic, bread, stomach

Cook the peas and beans separately in salted water until cooked. Drain and mix together with some mint. Roughly mash with a fork. Slice your bread and toast. When done, rub with a clove of garlic, spoon over the beans and peas and shave some Parmesan over the top. Easy peasy, or beansy

Salty Squids Country Style Terrine

Ingredients:
Pork shoulder (400g-ish), some chopped up and some minced, 2x chicken breast, onions, garlic, bay leaves, cream, oregano, 2x eggs, dijon mustard, patience.

Fry off the onions and garlic until soft. Add the meat and cook until coloured a little. Blitz the eggs and cream and herbs with some nutmeg. Remove the meat from the heat and let cool a little. Mix the eggs and meats together with the bay leaves, spoon into bread tins and bake in a water bath for 2-2.5hrs.

This will need about 48hrs in the fridge to set.

Shopping List:
Because this original entry was removed we cant do the shopping list as we don't have a clue anymore

Drinks:
Rosé da Peceguina, 2009, 13.5%

On the stereo:
Can't remember what we listened to either.

Stuffed Chicory, Corn On The Cob 3 Ways, Minute Steak

2010-07-27T09:05:00.016+01:00

If this were school, I would have detention by now, and probably a lot of late slips - as they were called in my school. If you got three late slips in a week, you got Wednesday detention - any more than that and you got both Wednesday AND Friday detention. Can you imagine the drama, detention on a Friday afternoon while stressing to get home and do Tapas Friday - although, maybe I could spend my detention time productively and actually start the text and thus stop delaying these blog posts!! This was to be posted on Sunday, maybe Monday if I could swing it. Thursday didn't even come into it. The good news is that you wont have to wait very long for the next post as the Salty Squid kitchen gets ready for tomorrows Tapas Friday, but first, here is what we had last week. Sorry it's late guys. Enjoy.

Stuffed Chicory

Ingredients:
chicory, onions, garlic, mustard, cream, s&p, shallot, chicken stock, walnuts

Roast the onion and garlic in a hot oven with some ‘erbs until soft and tender. Blitz to a paste adding Dijon mustard and cream to get a thick consistency. Season well.

Remove the outer layers of the chicory and slice finely. Dice your shallot and cook it slowly in oil until soft. Add the chopped chicory and cook for another minute. Add the rest of the chicory that you have separated but not chopped. Add some hot chicken stock and continue to braise for about 15mins. Remove the chicory leaves and fill the centre with the roast onion and garlic puree, top with some toasted walnuts and seal them with a chop stick. Stomach rumbling!!!

Minute Steaks

Ingredients:
Sirloin steak, garlic, butter, elbow grease, s&p

First of all, remove your meat from the fridge (stop laughing down the back!), to bring it to room temp about 30mins before cooking. Line a board with cling film, lay the steak on top and season well on both sides, cover with more cling film and proceed to beat the living be-jasus out of it with something heavy. I used an old oak tree that has been growing outside for thousands of years. Slice into mini steaks and fry in a hot pan for about a minute on each side, throwing a blob of garlic butter into the pan towards the end. Lie atop some sliced baguette and top with more of the butter and drizzle with truffle oil.

I made the garlic butter with truffle oil but the flavour was lost so learn from my mistake. Just get some butter at room temp, add some minced garlic (use the wide end of your knife to crush the clove – sea salt with help to grind it too), finish with a squeeze of lemon juice – a great simple little tip, distilled on me from my stern instructor.

Roast Corn On The Cob 3 Ways

Ingredients:
Fresh corn, husks removed, harissa, lime, butter, smoked paprika

Cook the corn in boiling salted water for about 20mins. Remove and lay on individual sheets of tinfoil. Rub one with butter, s&p, another with harissa, lime juice and olive oil and the third with smoked paprika, pepper and olive oil. Wrap them up and roast in the oven for about 10mins at 180c. You will just want more of these, really good and easy.

Shopping List:
Fresh Corn €1.50
Fillet Steak €6.20

Chicory €1.18
Walnuts €2.85
'erbs and other veg €2.65
Cream €1.50
.................................
Total €13.88

Drinks:
More Planter's Punch (white rum, orange juice, lemon juice, lime juice, Grenadine)
Rosé da Peceguina, 2009, 13.5%

On the stereo:
Arcade Fire, Sia

Roast Spiced Squash, Sausage Rolls, Sweet Potato & Goats Cheese Croquettas

2010-07-18T13:47:00.021+01:00

Roasted Butternut Squash with Sweet Spices, Lime and Chili

Ingredients:
1 butternut squash; 2 tbsp cardamon pods; 1 tsp all ground spice; 2 limes; 4-5 tbsp olive oil; salt & pepper; handful of fresh, chopped coriander; juice of 1 lime; 100 g Greek yoghurt; 30 g Tahjini paste; 1 green chili

This recipe was stolen, altered and passed off as our own from the excellent 'Plenty' cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi.

Make the spicy marinade by grounding the cardamon and removing the shells. Mix it with the ground spice and some olive oil and chopped coriander. Slice your squash as desired and toss with the marinade. Season and roast for about 15-20mins depending on their size.

Mix the yoghurt and tahjini together. Remove and segment the limes and marinade in olive oil.

Once the squash is cooked remove from the oven onto a plate. drizzle with the yogurt and segmented limes. This was pretty heavy on the cardamon, Yotam, not sure if I would agree with you there - but my god the Saffron tagliatelle with spiced butter on pg 260 means I will go easy on you. Drool on keyboard.

Sausage Rolls

Ingredients:
4 good quality sausages; a handful fresh, chopped coriander; 1 red chili; salt & pepper; 1 onion; 200 g flour; 100 g (frozen) butter; little cold water; 1 egg yolk (for egg wash)

Make the pastry by mixing the flour and grated butter together with a knife adding a little water if 'kneaded' (bad-dom-dish!). (Long silence). (Longer silence). (Sound of man coughing in the distance). Bring it together with your hands and form it into a ball and chill the pastry for 30mins.

While waiting for the lazy pastry, remove the casing from the sausages and mix the meat with the coriander, chilli and diced onion and season well.

Remove the pastry from the fridge and give it a little knead. Roll it out into a thin roundy, neat, eggy-type shape. Or if you are like me, try to roll it this way, but you will probably end up with pastry that looks more like Africa or Thailand.

Form a sausage shape with the eh, sausages, this is confusing, at one edge of the pastry and roll it into the shape of an, eh, other sausage. Slice along the tops with your laser eyes and bake at 180c for about 25mins maybe. Oh don't forget the egg wash!

Sweet Potato & Goats Cheese Croquettas

Ingredients:
2 sweet potatoes; goats cheese ; 4 garlic cloves - roasted; salt & pepper; flour mixed with paprika, breadcrumbs

Roast the sweet potatoes (and garlic) until tender. Remove the garlic from it's skin and mash with the sweet potatoes - season and allow to cool. Once cooled mix the goats cheese with the sweet potatoes and a beaten egg. Shape into whatever size you prefer and toss in flour, shaking off the excess before dipping into a beaten egg and finally into breadcrumbs before frying them off until golden and crispy.

I served them with a smoked paprika mayo. Mix and egg yolk with some Dijon mustard, white wine vinegar, smoked paprika and salt. Slowly add the rapeseed oil whisking all the time until it reaches your preferred consistency.

I cannot believe that something so easy and tasty has not passed my lips before.

Shopping List:
Butternut squash €2.00
Coriander €2.00

Goats Cheese €3.00

Limes €1.20

Tahjini Paste €3.49
Chillis €2.50
Sweet Potatoes €2.25

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Total €16.44

Drinks:
Planter's Punch (white rum, orange juice, lemon juice, lime juice, Grenadine)
Pojega Valploicella Ripasso, 2007, 13%

On the stereo:
Chet Baker, Harry Belafonte

Artichokes With Tarragon Mayo, Aubergine Ravioli, Fish Goujons With Home Made Ketchup

2010-07-10T18:11:00.038+01:00

I just made Banoffee Pie and to be pretty honest, I have no real desire to be hammering away here, talking rubbish. I would rather be face down in the tray of Banoffee - a bit like Al Pacino in Scarface, you know the scene towards the end?? Anyway, after two helpings, then seconds....I can safely say that I still want more. And what has all this toffee-Banoffee talk got to do with Artichokes or this weeks Tapas Friday blog entry which again happened on a Saturday? Nothing at all, as per usual.

Artichokes with Tarragon Mayo

Ingredients:
3x artichokes; 2x egg yolks; 1tsp of Dijon mustard; some white wine vinegar, tarragon, rapeseed oil

Have a pot with water and squeezed lemon juice ready. Break off the stems of the artichokes and discard. With a sharp knife, slice the ends of the outer leaves moving the artichoke at an angle. reading back over this it makes no sense. What you want to do is just slice the leaves at the base so they fall off and you don't lose all of the flesh. I guess you can tear them off and trim with a smaller knife. Once done, cut the top of the artichoke off and put into the lemony water. Next, boil some salted water and give it a good squeeze of lemon. Add the 'chokes and cook till a knife meets no resistance - but don't over cook. Remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool, leaving the 'chokes in the water. When hot enough to handle, remove, and slice in half. Remove the choke and discard. Slice the Artichokes into half again.

Next make your mayo by beating the egg, mustard, vinegar and salt together. Slowly add the oil, whisking all the time until you get to a thick consistency. Add a lot of chopped fresh tarragon and season. Perhaps some lemon juice if it's a weekend.

Now, re-heat your Artichokes in a pan, by melting a bit of butter - add the chokes and s dash of water, and some pepper, get a nice glaze on the them and serve at once!! THAT IS AN ORDER!

Aubergine Ravioli with Ricotta, Cumin, Almonds & Herbs

Ingredients:
1 aubergine; 200g ricotta; 1tsp cumin, basil & parsley, 25g ground almonds, dried chili flakes.

Thinly slice the aubergine length-ways into an even number of strips. Sprinkle with salt and set aside for 20 mins. Pat dry with kitchen towels and grill on both sides, season well and set aside. Next up, mix the ricotta, herbs and spices and almonds together. Give it a squeeze of lemon juice and season. Taste it and adjust to your liking. I think this dish can take a good bit of salt and pepper but what do I know.

Next, take the smaller strips and fill them with the ricotta mixture. Layer the larger slice on top and press down gently around the filling forming a seal. Repeat with the rest and bake in the oven for 20 mins. Serving drizzled with drool.

Fish Fingery-Goujons with Home Made Ketchup

Ingredients:
4x whitling fillets, skins removed. Flour, beaten egg, Japanese breadcrumbs. 1 tin plum tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, Worcestershire sauce; sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg, s&p

Make the ketchup by adding the tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, Worcestershire sauce and spices to a pain. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and allow to simmer for ages. Once reduced and at a good consistency, taste and adjust the seasoning and or sugar.

Heat some oil in a pan. Dip the fish into the flour, shake off the excess, then into the egg, then into the breadcrumbs before subjecting them to the pan. Fry until golden brown - then turn and fry until golden brown. remove, drain on kitchen paper and give them a good seasoning of salt before giving them to Miss Salty Squid to photograph. For every three you fry, eat one yourself, sneakily.

Shopping List:
Whiting €3.32
Aubergine €1.00

Ricotta €1.70

Artichokes €4.50

herbs and spices and bits n bobs €4.70

.........................................................

Total €15.22

Drinks:
Pojega Valploicella Ripasso, 2007, 13%

On the stereo:
Germany Vs Uruguay, Vuvuzelas

Spare Ribs With Huli Huli Sauce, Roast Stuffed Peppers, Potted Mackerel

2010-07-04T18:02:00.016+01:00

This blog entry was supposed to be something so different. You see, we had a Hawaii tapas theme. Slow roast spare ribs in a rich Hawaiian bbq marinad, dry-cured salmon, slightly seared with a lime salsa and sweet potatoes roasted in a ridiculously spicy Huli Huli sauce (yeah I know, what the f...?). Sounds great right? And it was... the problem however, is we can’t share the photo’s with you because we, as in me, failed to charge the battery for the camera. So after enjoying some food at the temperature it was intended to be eaten, it was decided that we would simply have to prepare three more dishes for the following night. Tapas Saturday. Basically, we would be doing a double this weekend. Good thing we love this blog and the food we do on it so much.

We will feature Hawaiian tapas at some point down the line, but for now, here’s a picture of a chocolate mouse with some pineapple and coconut.

Stuffed Roast Peppers

Ingredients: 3 peppers of any colour, class or sex, halved and seeds removed; 4 cloves garlic

Sauce: 250g mince beef; 1 carrot, 1 celery, 1 onion, 4 cloves garlic – all finely chopped. 4 tomatoes chopped. Squirt of tomato paste; pinch of saffron threads; cup of chicken stock

Pre-heat your oven to 180c. Sprinkle some oil over your peppers and garlic and season well. Roast for about 20 mins.

While the peppers are roasting prep the sauce. Sweat off your veg except the tomatoes. Add the mince which should be at room temp so as not to loose all the juices. Once coloured add some smoked paprika and hot paprika and stir. Add the tomato paste and cook for another min or so. Add the tomatoes and cook until they are soft and mushy. Once you are happy with how things are going, dissolve the saffron in about a cup or so of chicken stock. Can’t help thinking of Marco P W here. Add to the pan and let it reduce down to a happy consistency. Take the roasted garlic and while still hot squirt them into your sauce and give it a good stir. This will do things to your sauce that you never dreamed possible. If those dreams were about how to make it sweet and garlicky that is. Pour your sauce over your roasted peppers and return to the oven for another lets say maybe 15 mins? Serve with an air of confidence.

Spare Ribs With Huli Huli Sauce

Ingredients: spare ribs for the marinade we used about 100ml soy sauce, 3 tbsp oyster sauce, 2 squirts of ketchup, One shake of YR sauce, 1 tsp harissa, chilli flakes, 3 tbps brown sugar, 50ml rice vinegar, black pepper, chopped pineapple and crushed garlic.
Huli Huli Sauce: Soy sauce, minced garlic and ginger, juice of one lime, crushed chilli and a tsp of brown sugar.

We managed to salvage something from our proposed Hawaiian tapas. We had spare ribs spare, as in left over and some Huli Huli sauce. We marinated the ribs overnight, turning them in the morning. To cook, simply heat your oven to about 200c. Put ribs covered in marinade on a tray or oven proof dish and stamp into the oven. Turn the heat down to about 170c and cook for 3-4 hours basting every time you could be bothered. This is pure indulgence. I just had a dinner and am actually getting hungry thinking of this right now.

Potted Mackerel With Capers

Ingredients: 4 fresh mackerel fillets. A cup-ish of sour cream; 6 shakes of Tabasco, chopped chives; some capers, flash fried; butter, melted.

Pan fry the fish skin-side down for 2 mins, turn and continue to cook for another minute. Remove, let cool slightly and peel away the skin. Flake the flesh into a bowl. Season well. Lots of pepper. Do the hippy-hippy-shake with the Tabasco and add the chives and sour cream. Mix and mix and mix some more. Tightly fill cups, bowls, ramekins or whatever you have with the mixture. Pour over some of the butter. Add the capers and slide into the fridge to set. Demolish with grilled sourdough. We used a marker to get the grill lines.

Shopping List:
Minced Beef €3
Mackerel €3.82
Spare Ribs €3.80
Veggies, herbs and spices €4.20
.........................................................
Total €14.82

Drinks:
Rosé da Peceguina, 2009, 13.5%

On the stereo:
Nouvelle Vague, Vuvuzelas, The Bronx

Pork Pithivier, Prawn Cocktail, Wild Mushrooms

2010-06-26T20:29:00.037+01:00

I had a serious mushroom craving last week, and being aware that we did mushrooms on toast as a tapas previously, I knew that I would have to be creative to feature the same dish twice, therefore breaking the strict rules of Salty Squid and Tapas Friday. Also, I went over budget this week. So to summarise, I wanted to feature a dish we already had (not that we would ever do that, chorizo and calamari are just two foods that we have had to get really creative with over the past 6 months!) and I went over budget, trashing the '3 dishes for 15Eur' stipulation. Thankfully, I had just the creative thinking that gave us the opportunity to have mushrooms in an original way. Simply, remove the toast. Enjoy!

All you need for this amazing dish are mushrooms, enough garlic to kill a vampire, butter and some crusty bread. Personally, a stage of cheer-leading girls chanting M.U.S.H.R.O.O.M.S - R.O.C.K, would help, but we have two fridges in our already over crowded kitchen so it wasn't possible. Such a shame.

Heat some tasteless oil, like Rapeseed, add the fungus and season - be pretty heavy handed with the pepper. Mind you, I have the palate of a cushion and I find 'subtle flavours' to be a phrase used to describe under seasoned dishes.

Also recommended would be to check out the National at Glastonbury. They were amazing. But you can't add them to your pan. Or have them on toast.

Did I finish the recipe? Probably not but who cares. Once the mushrooms start getting some
colour add the garlic. I like a strong almost raw garlic hit that's why I add them here and not at the start. Give it all a toss and add a knob of butter and some fresh chilli. Parsley would go down well too. A squeeze of lemon juice is all we need to be happy. Very happy in fact. So happy you want to grab the underneath of your chair and hop around the room. Well maybe.

Back to the 80's we go or perhaps even further, maybe a breakfast meeting in MadMen? But if we focus on the 80's, you will need a mullet and shoulderpads. Thankfully, both seem to be making their way back to the 'high-street', as a fashionista might retort. Yes, shoulder-pads are back in vogue and I am currently designing my own brand of aprons with shoulder pads, so stay tuned for more info!

Shred your lettuce, preferably iceberg. You need the crunch. Make some mayo and add some ketchup and harissa for your sauce. Clean and de-vein the prawns, not in that order and cook them in some oil with some good seasoning. Set aside till cool and needed. arrange in a bowl or glass or pocket. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.

Easier than playing England. Sweat off an onion and some garlic. While this is happening, dry fry some coriander seeds, cloves and nutmeg, then crush to a powder. Add 300g of minced pork to the pan followed by the ground spices. Cook for a while, then add some white wine vinegar and sherry. Season and transfer 2/3 of the mince to a blender, leaving the rest in the pan to get crunchy. Add some mustard, cream an egg and more sherry if you feel giddy, to the mince in the blender. Oh and some apricots. Blitz to a consistency you like and mix in the reserved mince. Roll out your puff pastry and cut circles of desired size. Egg wash one half and fill with the mix and seal with a top layer. Give it a good egg wash and repeat with the remainders. Add a fancy cut on the crust if you could be bothered - I don't exactly have the hands of an angel - although I am getting excellent lessons in pastry and baking from a very talented chef - but that aside I am so awkward and messy it makes me laugh and the chef angry, my point is I do not have a soft touch.

Shopping List
Minced Pork €5.00
Prawns (1/2 price)€2.40
Mushroom €3.60
Puff Pastry €3.20
Veg and salads €2.50
.........................................................
Total €16.70

Drinks:
Franziskaner Weissbier 5%

On the stereo:
Spoon, Vuvuzelas, Gorillaz at Glastonbury

Leg Of Chicken In Cava Sauce, Black Pudding And Cashel Blue Crostini, Jambon De Savoie With Melon

2010-06-20T19:14:00.025+01:00

The problem, if you want to call it that, with summer is that this hot weather encourages the eating of salads. The problem with salads is that they are salads. Now now don't start flipping out dear reader, I like salads - in fact I probably like them a lot, but they are no substitute for some hot, non-salad food. I have never really found it 'too hot to eat'. Even if it is a hot sticky day and I get a whiff from the local Thai take-away or even the smell from a BBQ, I can safely say, that I do not under any circumstances utter to myself 'ooh I would love some lettuce right now'. Nope, give a steaming hot bowl of noodles or a burger the size of my head, with some lettuce and tomato of course.

In this weeks fascinating tapas entry, we tried to combine the delicate and light, with the rich and heavy. Tried I said!!

After a busy week of hot stickiness, there is no better dish suited to this weeks Tapas Friday than Melon and what we hoped would be Serrano Ham. Sadly, it seemed everyone else in Dublin had the same idea as Salty Squid and I found it hard - well impossible - well I only tried one place but I was in a rush, it was hot and I didn't fancy going on a Serrano-Hunt. We were forced to settle on a French Jambon de Savoie and personally, I am not the greatest Parma ham fan. I like it, but...and there is a but. If that makes sense. Which it doesn't. For a change.

Now to insult your intelligence, chop your melon. Remove the seeds and fold, throw, catapult your chosen ham onto the same plate/board/table and munch away like a little mouse eating a nut. Or maybe I mean squirrel. Eating a nut that is, not being eaten by a mouse.

Some good free-range or organic chicken legs are essential. Brown the legs in a hot pan on both sides with a good bit of seasoning. Remove and set aside. Next cook off a chopped shallot and some garlic until soft. Add some white wine vinegar, mustard and Cava. Let it come to a boil and reduce the heat and simmer for a minute. Give it a good season – lots of black pepper. Next add a touch of cream and then re-add the chicken and a good bit of thyme or tarragon or parsley. Stick it into the oven for about 20 mins to cook the chicken – adding a touch more Cava and some lemon juice at the end. Some nice bread to mop up the sauce is highly recommended.

Alternatively for a vegetarian option, omit the chicken, shallot, cream, garlic, whatever 'erb you chose and white wine vinegar and the cooking. Simply serve the Cava in a glass like object, preferably a glass.

A summer dish it is not. In fact this little slice of brilliance is so comforting you almost get the impression it WANTS to give you a big hug, if it had arms. But again, that's probably the Cava working it's magic on my hungry self.

Get some really nice black pudding – we got ours from our local friendly butcher. Some good blue is also required and we hear at Salty Squid are always trying to find the cheapest way of producing these meals – we had some Cashel Blue frozen – it did the job perfectly.

Fry off some slices of black pud and arrange them onto of some sliced baguette– which also came from our local freezer (cha-ching!), and top with the blue cheese. Stick it under a hot grill for a minute. Serve with home made red onion relish – which we didn’t have. I forgot the red onions. But we had a pear so I just cooked it with some butter and cinnamon and a sarcasm of honey.

Shopping List
Chicken legs €3.00
Black Pudding €1.20
Melon €2.50
Cream €1.30
Shallots €0.60
Jambon de Savoie €4.22
.........................................................
Total €12.82

Drinks:
Cuvee Des Contis, 2009, 14%
Rosé da Peceguina, 2009, 13.5%

On the stereo:
Basement Jaxx, Vuvuzelas

Pan Fried Hake With Salsa Verde, Chorizo Polenta, Warm Goats Cheese Salad

2010-06-13T15:32:00.033+01:00

It has been a busy 7 days. In fact, I am so late writing this today that it is more than 7 days, but you get that some times. In a week that saw the leaving certificate exams kick off, the World Cup started Oliver Dunne of Bon Apetite in Dublin 'boycots' the Restaurants Association of Ireland 'Awards', because they are, well s*ite and Máire Flynn of the Tannery tells him to take a chill pill as the restaurant awards are only a bit of fun. We also saw Irelands finest boys in blue escorting Israeli spuds - I mean I know we love our spuds but do they really need Irelands answer to McNulty and Co protecting them - and why would anyone want to buy Israeli spuds - apart from just for the obvious reasons. Right now we have amazing Irish spuds here, boil them and cover with butter, salt, butter, black pepper and butter. We made a great potato salad with celery, carrot, spring onions, home made mayo, harissa and chives. You will not beat it. Think we might have photo on our flickr page. It was so good.

Did I also moan about the 'Taste of Dublin' where the chefs want to be 'celebs' and the 'celebs' think they are chefs... no I didn't and I won't. I'll leave it for today as our blog is late.

Roll your goats cheese into a sausage shape and stick in the fridge until needed. Wash your salad leaves, slice your pear and fennel thinly and mix with the leaves. Add some crushed walnuts and mix. Next make your dressing by using a table spoon of dijon mustard, honey and some white wine vinegar. Mix well then slowly add some good olive oil, mixing all the time. Season and maybe give a squeeze of lemon juice to loosen it up. Next, chop up your cheese into small but thick slices. Press some walnuts into them and roast under a hot grill for a couple of mins until the cheese begins to melt. While doing this, dress the salad and add the warmed goats cheese at the end.

Or Spongebob with spicy sausage. Boil some salted water and then using a whisk get a nice bit of 'motion in the ocean'. Add the polenta (is used 200g and it was way to much!), olive oil and another pinch of salt. Bring to the boil and cook for 5 mins. Remove from heat, cover and stick it into a pre-heated oven for an hour and a half, stirring occasionally.

Next, slice your chorizo and cook in hot oil. Remove and set aside. Reserve the cooking juices from the chorizo. Now remove the polenta from the oven a whisk in a good knob of butter, chorizo oil and soem chopped cooked chorizo. Put it into a dish of some sort, lined with parchment paper and refridgerate overnight.

When ready to eat the following day, remove the polenta, slice and bake with some chorizo on top. Serve with a salad....maybe a warm goats cheese salad?

Rinse your hake and remove any bones etc if your fishmonger has been too lazy. Portion it as you like and set aside while we make the salsa verde. Take a bunch of parsley and mint and finely chop. Flash fry some capers and finley chop. Chop some gerkins and a clove or two of garlic and...finley chop. Tear up some basil and mix it all together. Add a tbsp of mustard and some white wine vinegar. Slowly add some oil and mix well. Season. You can also use anchovies in this but i decided not to.

Next, heat a little oil and add the fish, skin side down. Cook until crisp then turn and cook for another min. Romove from the pan and plate with a topping of salsa verde.

Shopping List
Fresh hake €6.00
Veg, 'erb, salad and polenta €6.70
Chorizo €2.00
.........................................................
Total €14.70

Drinks:
Cuvee Des Contis, 2009, 14%
Montezovo Bardolino, 2008, 12.5%

On the stereo:
Josh Rouse, Justin Timberlake, Vuvuzelas

Cauliflower Fritters With Beetroot Raita, Baked Potato, Salmon & Asparagus Gratin

2010-06-05T14:54:00.027+01:00

This weeks Tapas Friday was the toughest yet. I don’t mean that in the hyperbolic drama type voice you might hear on Hells Kitchen USA, but it was really tough. Not in a culinary (think that’s another new word from the Salty Squid dictionary) challenging way – not here at Salty Squid HQ where we like to keep it simple. It was tough because it came so close to not happening. And that is no exaggeration. We here at Salty Squid pride ourselves on refraining from exaggerated dramas and as this is a food blog, there is no need for drama. We are happy to let the food and photos speak for themselves. But inside this safe tame world of food blogging a very small drama was unfolding.

You see, passing by The Barge pub on Friday evening with its throngs of Lobsters outside, all drinking their pint bottles of something sweet and refreshing or perhaps a nice over-priced bottle of terrible white wine, or, if you are a total beer snob like me, a freezing cold bottle of something German, everybody looked so refreshed, chilled and happy. I was in jeans, dark leather shoes and a t-shirt that seemed to be acting as a catalyst for heat. I needed refreshment. I deserved a beer on the way home. This weather does not come about too often so it is my civic duty to go drinking. That was the bad Squid talking. The good Squid told me to get home and start the prep for tonight’s tapas because there is not such thing as ‘just one’, especially not in the sun. Also, while cooking drunk is perhaps fun to watch, it’s not fun to do. Good arguments from both the Squiddies, I thought to myself but the bad, evil Squid was louder and stronger.

I could almost hear the strangers drinking alfresco calling me by name, beckoning me over for a drink in the sun. ‘Come on Michael, be one of us’ kind of moment. My eyes had glazed over, they got me. I was hooked and there was nobody to save me or this week’s blog. The weeks menu planning (I swear we do plan it sometimes...sometimes. And by ‘week’ I actually mean 5 mins. And by ‘5 mins’ I actually mean panic buying last minute shopping) wasted. When suddenly without warning (sorry but I just really always wanted to use that sentence) Miss Salty Squid appeared from across the canal. ‘DON’T DO IT!’ she roared, ‘think of the blog and the readers we have!’ I turned my head and stared. I recognised her, but the evil Squid was running the show now. My eyes red with ravenous desire for beer. Gnashing my teeth I snarled across the canal, ‘you can’t tell me what to do’. I began to lumber towards the bar, knocking over anyone that got in my way. Miss Salty Squid knew she needed to save me. She dived into the canal, swimming against the waves, beaten back by the current and the baby ducks, she emerged from the canal. ‘NOOOOOOO!’ she roared, her arm outstretched before her. I was at the bar. About to order. I could hear Miss Salty Squid calling my name. I turned and looked at her when suddenly images of tapas flashed before my eyes. Asparagus and salmon gratin. Baked potato with herb butter. Fried cauliflower fritters with beetroot dip. The good Squid was fighting back. When suddenly, without warning (sorry but it is such a good line, and I am on a role here so...), the sun dipped behind a cloud. The reverse vampires of the canal started to burn in the shade. The spell had been broken. Miss Salty Squid dived into the bar and dragged me out. Within minutes the bar had exploded. There was smoke everywhere. Myself and Miss Salty Squid, knocked to the ground from the force of the explosion, looked at each other, our faces black from dirt and ash, we smiled. Salty Squid had been saved for another week, but the fight is not over. Fighting for something you love never stops.

The inspiration for this was taken from the Koek blog: http://maclarty.blogspot.com/. Thanks Robyn, you're amazing!

Blanch your cauliflower head, which has been cut into bite sized pieces in boiling salted water until they are almost cooked. Drain and dunk into iced water. Make a batter by beating 3 egg yolks, ½ cup of water, ¾ cup of corn flour, smoked paprika and chili powder and a finely chopped red onion. Mix it all together the fold in the beaten egg whites. Add your cauliflower florets to the batter and fry them off in batches. Serve with beetroot raita, by mixing cooked beetroot with natural yoghurt, ground cumin, mint, s&p and lemon juice.

This is so simple I will rap the recipe to you in the style of a gangster potato locked up in jail. Check it out. I am a mo’ fo potato. Skin so tough, I’m so hard, it ain’t no bluff. What you gotta do if you want a piece of me, it’s so simple like A,B, C. They got me locked in this cell. They is hungry I can tell. But I aint nobody's dinner, but as a tapas, I am a winner. Once washed a dried, I am ready to be oiled. Sprinkle me with sea salt, serving time for robbery and assault.

I got some crushed black peppercorns, friends of mine, cover me with the ‘erb, maybe some thyme. In this jail, is where I toil. I am seasoned, now rap in tinfoil. Baked me like my home-boy, ovens heated, way up high. After an hour things smell good, take me out from my hood. Slice me up using a knife, I can take it, this baked potato life.

For this you really want to try use the in season British or Irish asparagus. Sadly, when I went to get some, they had sold out. So I was forced to get the stuff from Peru, but I though that I could lie to you and not confess.

First sweat off an onion in some oil until soft. Add some white wine or white wine vinegar, a tsp of Dijon mustard some water a couple of slices of lemon and a prayer that this will work. Give it a stir to mix the mustard up. Add the salmon fillets, which have been cleaned and the skin removed. Cover and let it to poach gently for a few minutes. Add a good dab of fresh parsley too. When the salmon is done, remove from the poaching liquid and put aside.

Turn the heat up high and reduce the liquid way down. Pass through a sieve giving it a good squeeze to get all the flavour out of the bits. Taste the stock and season. Arrange the salmon in the bottom of a small oven-proof dish and layer some blanched asparagus over them. Sprinkle with some frozen peas and mint and pour on the stock. Sprinkle with breadcrumbs and if you want to, you can sprinkle with some cheese but I prefer not to. But that is a domestic myself and Miss Salty Squid will have to resolve over time. Put under a grill to crisp up and heat.

Shopping List:
2 fresh salmon fillets €8.00
Veg €7.00
Natural Joghurt €1.50
.........................................................
Total €16.50
Drinks:
Cremant d'Alsace, Brut, 12,5%
Castillo de Luzón, Jumilla Crianza, 2005, 14%

On the stereo:
iPod shuffled

Chilli & Garlic Gambas, Fried Green Beans, Puy Lentil & Sausage Cassoulet

2010-05-30T16:49:00.022+01:00

Eating is the one thing that I can do without messing up. Clothes excluded. It's great, even if I decide to eat curry with chopsticks, or cut my steak with a spoon, it really doesn't matter as all I have to do is get the food from A) the plate or bowl or whatever to B) my mouth using C) spoon, fork, fingers. In fact, apart from trying to stuff food in my ears (great days!) I am pretty confident that I can get the food from A) to B) via C) most times.

This is why I enjoy eating. I am really good at it. It's just a shame that you can't be a 'professional eater' as such. Like maybe I could be one of the guys that tastes food for the President. That would be great, but I am not sure if I could hand back a great plate of food to The Pres just because, well just because they are the President.

A food critic could be a type of 'professional eater'. But then you can't just eat, you have to critique, which, to me at least, sounds too much like multi-tasking. And I haven't tried multi-tasking since trying to scratch my nose while holding an ice cream. That, and I also guess to be a food critic you have to be able to write and 'regular reader(s)' would by now have wondered if it is in fact a 5 year old writing the texts on this blog. And I also have a vocabulary that can be jotted down onto a post-it note. This would also limit me to writing such poetic prose of how 'the contrast of flavours and textures was like a ballerina slam dancing on my tongue with her rocker, stoner mates'. No, I don't think I could do that.

But all is not lost, as I can still eat despite these failings and I can still enjoying stuffing way to much food into my gob before proceeding to tell Miss Salty Squid how nice her dress is. I also imagine if you were to write about food you would need to be able to tie things in together at the end. Eh, not a chance! This is just random ramblings!

Also Tapas Friday was in fact Tapas Saturday - special thanks to our friend Sinead for the lovely nibbles and drinks on Friday.

Top and tail the beans. Blanche. Make a batter of flour, sparkly water, paprika, salt, then shallow fry and serve. They look like I sneezed on them. But these are really nice and Irish and in season!

Again, this is not really a technically challenging dish. Get some good fresh prawns. Add some vegetable oil to a wok and heat. Add the prawns. Keep them moving around the pan for a couple of minutes, then add a generous helping of garlic, chili and parsley. Cook for another min or so, give it s squeeze of lemon juice a serve straight away. Good solid, messy finger food.

First, pre-heat your oven to 180. Place the sausages onto a baking try and slip into the oven until done. Remove and let cool. Finely dice a carrot, a stick of celery and an onion. Chop some garlic and sweat the lot in a pan with the lid on. Once soft, add the lentils (about 500g) and stir. Cook for a min the add some vino and reduce. Add some stock, maybe a pint and a half and herbs - bay or thyme or whatever you have. Cook with the lid on stirring now and then for about an hour until the lentils are cooked. Add more stock or hot water if needed. Chop your sausages to whatever size suits and add them to the pan for the last 30mins of cooking. Season and serve.

Shopping List:
Lentils €2.00
Eggs and veg €2.87
Green Beans €3.10
Prawns €8,60
.........................................................
Total €15.57

Drinks:
Tesco Cava, Brut, 11,5%
Rasteau, Domain Grand Nicolet, 14,5%

On the stereo:
Basement Jaxx, Justin Timberlake, Eurovision Song Contest, Oslo 2010

Egg & Boquerones Canapes, Spicy Avocado And Bean Crostini, Lemon, Roacket And Parmesan Risotto

2010-05-23T11:16:00.020+01:00

I always find it hard to start a new entry. I never really know how to. It's easy to kick off with the usual 'another week' or 'my o my how time flies' or 'I can't believe it is another week'. Don't get me wrong, these are totally fine but if you scroll through the entries, I probably re-phrase 'here we go again' over and over. I wish I could do a better start, that's just me. Something less predictable, but not different for the sake of it. Not trying too hard. Just being able to let it flow. But I can never find a way to start the entry. I just can't find a simple, nice way to do it. Which is a shame as simplicity and nice - well, totally blooming gorgeous - are the theme this week. Tuck in!

Dice a shallot, celery and finely slice a clove of garlic and cook until soft, but don't colour, unless you have crayons close at hand. Add the risotto rice - allow about 80g per person but for our tapas I used 80g for us both. Give it a good mix like Dj whatshisface and add some white wine. Ideally you opened the bottle earlier, alone and are giggling now as you have drunk...drank? the bottle and forgot to reserve some for risotto. Nail polish remover does not a substitute make. Just remember that. If you have managed to keep some of that grape nectar, add it nnnnnow! Stir and allow to reduce. Miss Salty Squid has a habit of drilling small holes at the base of our pans and inserting a long, narrow straw like..straw and siphoning off the vino. She thinks I don't notice but I do. Oh I do. Next up add a ladle full of hot stock. I refuse to make any joke about stocks. Keep adding your stock, ladle at a time, stirring constantly and only adding the next when the last has almost been absorbed. This should take almost 20mins using up a litre and a half of stock. If you run out of stock you can use hot water. Just make sure it is hot as cold stock just stops the cooking process and gives a below par risotto. After 15ish mins taste the rice and continue to do so until you no longer feel the need to spit it out onto the floor, but don't overcook it... it's not baby food. Once you are happy with the rice add a couple of hand fulls of chopped rocket, zest of a lemon and a good squeeze of lemon juice. Stir and continue to cook for another minute and season to taste. Empty a dump truck full of butter and as much Parmesan as life throws at you and stir like it matters. Remove from the heat, put the lid on the pan and allow to rest for 2 mins. Serve with some lemon oil and thyme sprigs and some shaved Parmesan to make it look posh. If you are cooking for someone you really like, put some fudgy goats cheese onto a warmed plate and sprinkle with some fresh thyme. The when you add the risotto on top, it will melt the goats cheese into a gooey goodness. A nice surprise. Unlike the nail polish remover.

Just because these next 2 tapas are kinda easy, don't let that fool you into thinking they are any less divine. Simplicity rocks. And on a hot evening, these are perfect.You can use Anchovies here if you have no idea what Boquerones are. I hadn't a clue but pretended to be all knowledgeable when buying, you know, like 'oh wow, i LOVE Boquerones!' Running home to consult my Larousse bible. It wasn't in there.

Make your own mayo, using egg yolks mixed with mustard, vinegar and salt. Slowly add rapeseed oil, whisking all the time until you are tired and regret not just buying some in the shop earlier because it's too hot in hear to be making mayo!!! Give it a squeeze of lemon juice and adjust the seasoning when done. Next up, finely chop some boiled eggies, shallot and Anchovies or Boquerones, parsley and some lemon juice. Mix, taste, season and serve on some fresh crusty bread, toasted if you are that way inclined.

Use only ripe avocados for this. You can tell the ripeness by gently squeezing them. When they are soft, they are ripe. Bring this ripe avocado to your green grocer and hold it in front of his or her face and squeeze it as hard as you can until your fingers go through the skin and the flesh covers your hands. It's best to do this while roaring like a loin or perhaps another monster that does not exist. It really depends on how you feel. This is, sadly, the only way to 'peel' an avocado.

To the avocado we add some roast garlic, coriander, mint, chili and mashed cannellini beans. Mix well and add some olive oil and lime juice. Season to taste and serve with some excellent bread. Simple tapas that is simply amazing.

Shopping List:
Herbs € 2.00
Eggs and veg €8.50
Risotto Rice €3.80
.........................................................
Total €14.30

Drinks:
Cremant De Loire, Brut, 12,5%
Koine, Puglia Aglianico, 13,5%

On the stereo:
Blind Melon, The National (again, new album is amazing), Sun Kill Moon

Pork & Chicken Liver Pate, Caponata, Savoury Muffins

2010-05-14T20:19:00.034+01:00

While out walking in the woods one fine day, Pat felt at unease with himself. Birds were singing, squirrels were gathering nuts and a pretty little butterfly was breaking into a ferocious sweat trying to keep up with Pat and his pace. Yet despite all of these beautiful acts of nature, something was amiss. Perhaps it was the blob of custard that he had accidentally put his elbow in while sitting down to dinner with Helga. Ah Helga, how he loved her, sadly she didn’t love him. She liked him and they had know each other for quite some time, but she could never fall for him the way he had fallen for her, literally, he slipped on a sausage the first time making lunch for her. Sadly a hot pan went airborne and resulted in Helga having to take a Sunday drive to the emergency room for some stitches. Helga found it quiet charming in a way, he made her laugh and cry, a lot like a good movie but it was the 4 days in bed with chronic gastroenteritis she could not forgive after he cooked her a valentine meal.

Yep, Pat was not exactly a culinary genius or so he thought. And, as he walked home that afternoon he could feel his one true friend, hunger, calling. At home and wondering what to eat, Pat decided that, while he was thirsty AND hungry he would combine both acts and make a savoury smoothie for himself.

Pat began to gently cook a chopped onion, some garlic and celery in lard until soft, he then added some pork mince, he had just under 500g and felt that this smoothie would help in giving him some energy on such a day. After colouring the mince, he added 170g of chicken livers and continued to cook until the livers were cooked through and gave it a good seasoning with salt, pepper, chilli powder and smoked paprika, before accidentally spilling a glass of red wine on top. Reaching for the blender, Pat transferred the contents of the pan to the blender and blitzed its contents, adding butter, sherry and crème fraiche and some herbs - parsley, thyme and chive, I believe. Giving it another season, Pat was at awe with the consistency, it had turned smooth and thick, perhaps too thick to drink? He mixed in some cranberries he had been soaking in whiskey when suddenly he heard his front door open. Startled, Pat heard his name being called. It was Helga! She had just been released from hospital again, and after some thought, she felt that as Pat was the only male left in the village, she should probably just marry him, but she would do all the cooking. On hearing Helga coming down the hall, Pat panicked, he did not want her to see that he was doing another terrible thing in the kitchen, he poured his ‘smoothie’ into a cake tin he had lined earlier, for no apparent reason, and covered it with more greaseproof before hiding it in the fridge and putting some heavy bowls and plates on top, making it harder to find.

The next day, Helga awoke (well they are engaged now!) and went to the fridge. Thinking that Pat had, yet again, stacked the dishes in the wrong place, she began to unload the fridge. On discovery of the baking dish, she unwrapped the cling film and removed the greaseproof. What Helga found was perhaps the greatest thing Pat had ever made - a rich buttery Pate. Helga melted some butter and poured it over the top and returned it to the fridge to set, once the butter had hardened, Helga made sure to remove the Pate from the fridge at least 30mins before serving it with some cornichons and salad (and a beautiful Sourdough made by Mrs Salty Squid!). Perhaps she would let Pat do the cooking from now on, she thought to herself.

As the other two dishes are a bit on the heavy side and also a bit light on the veggie side, I though I would try to bring balance if not to the world, at least our world on a Friday eve.

This goes beyond easy. All your veg is to be chopped small or diced or whatever you want to call it. First up, chop the aubergine and season with salt. Leave it to stand while you prep the rest of the veg. Cook your onion, celery and garlic over a low heat, now wipe the moisture from the aubergine with a paper towel and add to the pan, followed by the 2 courgettes and the chopped red and yellow peppers. Continue to cook before adding some chopped tomatoes that have been peel and de-seeded if you are bothered, or not, if you are not bothered. Continue to cook slowly until all the veggies are cooked but not mushy. Serve it with some nice bread.

I will hold my hands up and surrender. I have cheated and before I get accused of trying to lie to you all, let me at least have the opportunity to explain myself. You see, the best thing about these Savoury muffs, is that well, they didn’t impact on our 15eur budget. We had all the ingredients already sitting around, from the flour, eggs and milk to the out of date blue cheese in the freezer – where I also found the grapes. The basil we are growing here and the other cheeses were kinda in the fridge. Every time I opened the fridge door, they all looked at me with such hope and excitement that this time I would take them out and cook with them. Eat them for carrots sake that is what they are there for! I thought to myself. Alas, I could not deny them their destiny any more. But I can bet that you can make up these with anything you have lying around the house. There are no rules, so perhaps you have an amazing tapas dish sitting in your kitchen waiting to be made! So go check, after of course, you have read the rest of the entry and left some sort of obscene comment.

You want to get a lot of air into these so borrow you neighbours ladder and sift 275g flour, a tablespoon of baking powder into a bowl. Come down from the roof and return the ladder to your neighbour. Beat one egg and the milk together and gently fold into the flour mix – you should have added a pinch of salt first though, I was supposed to say it after the ‘baking powder into a bowl’ sentence but I forgot and was too lazy to go back and change it.

Now divide the mixture in 2 and add some crumbled blue cheese and frozen grapes to one half of the mix and some grated mature Wexford cheddar, pecorino and basil to the other. Mix and spoon into muffin cases, greased ramekins or whatever you have handy. Cook at 200c for about 20 mins.

Shopping List:
Pork & Chicken Liver €5.20
Cranberries and veg €8.50
Salad €2.00
.........................................................
Total €15.50

Drinks:
Cidre Fermier de Normandie, Brut, 4,5%

On the stereo:
Lali Puna, The National, The Beach OST

Beetroot Fittata; Mini Hot Dogs, Baked - Baked Beans

2010-05-08T14:24:00.028+01:00

Sometimes, life is all about compromise - or in my case, perhaps letting friends down occasionally. One recent occasion comes to mind - Tapas Friday just gone. We were supposed to join a friend at the launch of her exhibition. Sadly, tapas took over and we never made it - it just shows how much we care about our blog, right? It was a shame and with perhaps better time management we should have made it. So in an attempt to buy her love back, the mentioned artist is having an amazing exhibition on in Bernard Shaw on South Richmond Street (http://www.treesforthewoods.blogspot.com) for the next few weeks. You should go AND if you mention Salty Squid you will get a free strange look from the barman. So Denise, we are so sorry, however, our legion of fan(s) will take comfort knowing, that while we could have been looking at art, we were busy making our own form of art, we like to call 'a mess'.

Thank god for leftovers! Like this time, I felt really lucky to be able to recycle some fantastic Toulouse sausages we had left from the week's saucy dinners. So, the concept of mini-hotdogs was quickly created, with an enrichment of home baked sourdough rolls. Yes sir, I can do sourdough, well, at least since I brought a couple of mysterious sachets from my last visit to Germany. 'Sourdough extract' doesn't really sound trustful, even if it's manifesting itself as 'organic' of origin. All you can do is to give it a shot. And earn the fruits of the reward!

Combine 400 g whole wheat flour with 200 g normal flour, make a mould in the middle and pour in half a cup lukewarm milk, including 1 packed of dissolved dried, active yeast. Add a good pinch of salt, 1 Tbs of honey, a packet of 'Sourdough extract', 25 g melted butter and another cup of lukewarm milk. Knead well until you get a smooth ball of dough. Leave it to prove in a warm place for 45 mins. When it has doubled in size, take it out, punch it in the middle and give it another workout. Then leave it to prove for the second time, another 45 mins. Again, it should double its size, and this is when you knead it again, shape into a roll and cut to 3-4 cm pieces, which will be shaped individually into small rolls. Place into a buttered oven tray, brush the rolls with cold milk, and sprinkle half of them with sesame seeds (or poppy seeds if available). Place an additional oven dish with some hot water to create steam,into the preheated oven at 180 degrees. Bake for 30-40 mins, until the crust is dark and golden.

Now it's time for the sausages. Fry them up in a bit of oil ( I used 2 sausages for 6-7 mini-hotdogs). Cut the rolls in half and butter them slightly (feel free to use mayonnaise, or whatever yummy spread you fancy). Then simply place some green leaves, tomato, onion, piece of sausage and a slash of ketchup on top of each other, and cover with the top of the bun. Regarding some moans about the raw onions, coming from Mr Salty Squid, feel free to fry the onions before building those miniature Leaning Towers of ... eehm Ranelagh.

From the moment I saw this recipe in an amazing cookbook called "Falling Cloudberries" by Tessa Kiros, borrowed from a friend, hoping she already forgot about it ;). A truly finger licking journey through a world of family recipes from at least 5 different countries of origin. Beautiful photography goes along with some of the finest recipes. When I came across the recipe for baked butter beans, there was no way back, and a second dish for tapas Friday made it to the menu!

I got some dried butter beans, which I soaked in water overnight. Then all you have to do is place the beans in a saucepan, cover with cold water, bring to boil and cook for 1,5 hours, until beans are soft. Under NO circumstances add any salt to it, as you will end up with some hard-like-stone-like beans if you do. Only towards the end of cooking you can allow yourself to season a little bit. Meanwhile, chop a good bunch of flat parsley, 2-3 cloves garlic, 2-3 celery stalks and combine with 2 tins of tomatoes. Chop 1-2 onions and fry them in 4 Tbs olive oil, until golden, soft and not burnt. Add the onions plus oil to the tomato mix together with another 4 Tbs olive oil. Season slightly. Drain the beans, reserving the water they were cooked in. Place the beans in a buttered oven dish, add the reserved bean water to the tomato mix and pour it all over the beans, mixing all throughout well. Cover with tinfoil, bake in preheated oven (180 degrees) for 45 mins, then remove the foil and add some water if you feel the beans are getting dry. Sprinkle with breadcrumbs and return to the oven for another 30 mins.

For this beautiful summer frittata, I simply roasted 4-5 beetroots with fresh thyme leaves, garlic, pinch of sea salt and olive oil. When cooled down, peel the roots and slice in thin slices. Wash 2 hand fulls of fresh watercress, drain and de-stalk. Place 3-4 potatoes in sauce pan with cold water, add salt and bring to boil. Cook until soft (but not falling apart!). Take out the potatoes, drain and leave to cool down. Then you can peel them (I personally always prefer to leave the skin on) and cut into slices, as thin as you can get. Fry a finely chopped onion in a pan with hot oil, add 2-3 chopped garlic cloves, let it simmer, but watch the garlic does not to burn. Add the potatoes, beetroot and the watercress, reduce the heat, leaving it simmer together for couple of minutes. Break 6-7 eggs, and beat with some milk and good bit of freshly ground nutmeg. Pour over the veggies in the pan, season with salt & black pepper. Leave it cook for 5 mins without stirring, but carefully shake the pan from time to time. Before the eggs set, place some soft goat cheese ( I used the beautiful Irish Ryefield goat log) on top of everything, leaving it there for another couple of minutes. Instead of turning the pan, place into a preheated oven (200 degrees) and grill for about 5-10 mins. Take out and enjoy this yummy pan of goodness!

Shopping List:
Water cress €3.00
Dried butter beans €2.95
Goat cheese € 2.00
Veggies € 7.00
.........................................................
Total €14.95

Drinks:
Cusumano, Insolia, Sicilia, 2007, 13%

On the stereo:
Postal Service, Angus and Julia Stone

Mushroom & Blue Cheese Croquetas, Chorizo En Sidra, Seafood Paella

2010-05-01T11:04:00.023+01:00

For a brief moment last week, it almost felt like the summer was hot on our heels. The evenings were bright, heck, even the days were bright AND warm. Lunatic kids were diving into the green water of the river Liffy, emerging like some radioactive monster from a 50s horror movie. Ice creams were selling well and herbs were starting to grow. Sadly, that WAS last week and as I write today, it’s dark, wet and cold. And it is also May. And as Salty Squid was holding onto the feeling of summer.... we went for the typical tapas theme, Spanish! Sometimes, being predictable is the most unpredictable. Or sometimes is just nice to cook whatever you feel like and eat something that you know will make you smile. Sadly, Miss Salty Squid wasn’t smiling too much as it was almost 10pm by the time we ate – time management was never a strong point of mine. A bit like writing and grammar. And spelling.

The best thing about this entire dish is that it had no impact on the budget this week as I had all the ingredients already. Actually, that makes it sound like it tasted terrible. Let me re-phrase, the best thing about this dish was in fact the crispy, fried, battery exterior and the luscious, liquid interior all contrasted together like some orgy of texture and how the mushroomy Béchamel gave it a real earthy meaty flavour and the combination of flavours was blah blah blah. Yes this was really really nice. It is the type of dish that makes you want to convert your bath into some sort of deep fryer so that you can fry off hundreds at a time. It was sinfully good. And sadly our landlord refused to let us turn the bath into a deep fat fryer, so we could only do a small batch. Sob.

Melt about 90g of butter and then add a chopped onion and cook for about 5 mins. Add the chopped, soaked Porcini and cook for a few mins. Add 125g of flour, stirring until it starts to colour slightly and becomes a little crumbly. Remove from the heat and slowly mix in a cup of (warm) milk. Don’t know why I used brackets there. Or why I just typed that last sentence. Return to the heat and add about another cup of stock. I used the liquid the porcini were soaked in. Combine and stir until it bubbles and thickens. Give it a damn good seasoning and transfer it to a bowl to cool for a couple of hours (or overnight). There I go with the brackets again.

Make the croqueta shapes, ramming some Cashel Blue into the middle of each before tossing in flour, dipping in a beaten egg and rolled in breadcrumbs, then fry until crisp on the outside and liquid goo on the inside. Season then taste one. Pass out. Then as you regain consciousness serve the rest while still a little dazed. Preferably while drooling.

So easy. So fast and so so so good. Regular readers (stop laughing!!!), might be aware of our total Chorizo addiction. By cooking it in cider it makes it a little lighter and more summery. Or that is just a lie and an excuse to have it featured, yet again, on our blog. Either way all you have to do is chop your Chorizo, cook it with some shallot, garlic and a chopped tomato until it (the Chorizo) starts to colour, add some cider, let it reduce and then throw in a huge handful of parsley. There you go. It’s done. And it just tastes so so so good.

This was supposed to be a poor mans paella as to get all the ingredients would cause me to go way over budget, and seeing as neither myself or Miss Salty Squid are claiming ministerial pensions, I had to be a bit more frugal. I was able to get some prawns and a squid from our local friendly fishmonger for about €9. Bargain. I cleaned and deveined the squid/prawns, where applicable. I chopped up a little Chorizo. As in, it was a big Chorizo and I chopped up a little bit of it, not that I bought a tiny sausage... you get what I mean.

I cooked a chopped red onion with some garlic, chopped parsley stalks, red pepper and a chopped tomato, before adding the Chorizo and some white wine. Let it reduce and cook away for a few mins. Add the rice. I had Italian Arborio rice lying around which worked well. Season a give it a stir.

Next, I mixed some saffron (which I had, hee hee suckers) in some hot veggie stock and added to the rice. Boil and reduce the heat. Let it cook for 15mins, uncovered. Don’t be tempted to stir. After 15mins, add the seafood and frozen peas, kind press them down into the mix, then cover it and cook on a low heat for 10mins, ish, turning the seafood over after 5 mins. Once the rice and seafood is cooked, remove from the heat and let it rest for a couple of mins before adding a big handful of chopped parsley. Serve.

Shopping List:
Seafood €8.30
Chorizo €4.00
Veggies € 3.00
.........................................................
Total €15.30

Drinks
Cidre Fermier de Normandie, Brut, 4,5%
Valpolicella, Terre di Verona, 2009, 13%

On the stereo
Pantha Du Prince, PJ Harvey, Drive By Truckers

Andalusian Meatballs, Feta Stuffed Tomatoes, Flammkuchen

2010-04-24T11:34:00.026+01:00

Can you believe it is that time again? It feels like we have only just finished wiping our mouths from the previous weeks feast, when along comes the next Tapas Friday! Panic usually sets in when I realise that I have left it almost too late - tomorrow never comes they say - to plan. But like everything else it always works out, maybe we do just work better under pressure! And with new dishes and a new blog style, we roll into this weeks Tapas Friday for more fun, frying, food and eh... Flammkuchen. Bon Ap!

For this very simple dish, I washed few small vine tomatoes, cut each top off and carefully scooped the insides with a tea spoon. Sprinkled with some olive oil and left aside, while I prepared the Feta cheese filling. Again, very simple, mashed Feta with some fresh thyme, chives, olive oil and roast garlic (squeezed out of the skin), and seasoned slightly, depending on how salty your Feta is. Then stuff the tomatoes with Feta filling, sprinkle some more olive oil and put them into the fridge for couple of hours. To garnish just use whatever fresh herbs available, basil does a great job here:)

Super-refreshing little side to any meat/BBQ dishes!

I love meatballs. Always have. But kinda always did them in a same way, using fresh chili to bring in more diversion. Last week, sitting in front the telly, and drooling while watching a Jamie show, I got somehow inspired to try a lil' different version of the regular meatballs: meatballs Andalusian style!

This was my lucky weekend, as I found some beef mince leftovers in our freezer, which, of course, helped me a lot to maintain the budget :) I combined the mince with fresh chopped coriander, 2-3 garlic cloves, chili powder, one egg and some more happy leftovers of breadcrumbs, seasoned my mince mix and formed small meatballs. I heated up a pan, added some oil, and fried my meatballs for 5-10 mins, stirring constantly, to give them a nice colour. Take out of the pan, leaving the oil and juices, drain on kitchen paper and set aside.

Now it's time for the tomato sauce, in fact, the most beautiful one you've ever done. I added one chopped onion and more garlic into the previously used, still hot pan, fried them up, watching the garlic, so it doesn't get burnt. Then de-glaze with a good amount of Sherry (medium dry, in my case) and let it simmer for a moment. Add 2 stalks of finely chopped celery, and finally stir in a can of peeled tomatoes. I also had the tops and insides if my stuffed tomatoes left, so I added them too, nothing wrong with some fresh tomatoes ;). Seasoned slightly, and let it simmer on low heat until the sauce reduces down by half.

Finally add the meatballs and sprinkle with each handful chopped green olives, chopped almonds and raisins (dependent on the budged, I used ready stuffed olives with almonds). The beautiful, naturally sweet tomato sauce makes best friends with the spicy balls of meat. Olé!

This is one of my favourites, reminding me closely of a region I used to live, where France meets Germany, on a doorstep to Lorraine and Alsace. Seasonal around the end of summer, this onion tart traditionally comes along with 'Federweisser', a very young, still fizzy and yeasty wine (where the fermentation process has just begun), often sold by the vineyards on the side the road, when you are driving through the country. I order Flammkuchen every time I am in Germany, just to test the different ways it is prepared, mostly as a flat pizza-style version.

However, the this time I wanted to reconstruct the onion tart, which comes closer to a cake in its consistency and volume.

I started with the dough, mixing 600 g of flour with one packet of dried active east, dissolved in half a cup of luke-warm milk. Added the other half of milk, same amount of water (1 cup), one egg, teaspoon each of salt and sugar, and 75 g melted butter (feel free to use oil if you like). Now it comes to working with the dough, so knead until you feel your arms are toned like those of M. Obama, and your dough is nice & smooth. Form a ball, cover it slightly in oil and leave in a warm place for 30 min - 1 hour, until it doubles its size. Meanwhile, cut streaky bacon into strips and fry it in a hot pan plus little oil for 5 mins, then remove. Chop 4,5-6 onions and fry them up in the same pan with a handful of caraway seeds, but don't not allow them to turn golden. Remove and set aside. Next, combine Creme Fraiche (I also added few spoons light sour cream) with 4-6 tablespoons of vegetable oil, some salt, pepper and freshly ground nutmeg.

When the dough reaches its double size, punch a hole in the middle with your fist and watch it collapse. Take out and give it another sweaty workout, then place on slightly floured surface and roll out, or what I did, take it in your hands and pull apart, while constantly turning, so you get a kinda rectangular shape similar to your baking tray. Place on buttered tray and stretch the edges apart. Place the onions first, then your bacon strips and cover everything with the Creme Fraiche mix. Pinch of salt and pepper, some fresh thyme on top, and then it goes into preheated oven (180 degrees) for 20 mins, until it turns golden.

Shopping List:
Dried Yeast €2.60
Creme Fraiche €1.14
Tin Tomatoes €0.39
All veggies & herbs € 3.98
Feta Cheese €1.79
Streaky Bacon €1.49
Stuffed Olives €1.29
Caraway Seeds €0.70
.........................................................
Total €13.44

Drinks
La Croisade, Réserve Chardonnay, 2009, 13%
Hoya De Cadenas, Reserva Privada, 2005, 12.5%

On the stereo
Spex #89 Album, Billie Holiday