Wobbler's Big Fat Belly

Bowe Selectah

2008-10-13T12:21:00.000-07:00

Hi again. Since my last pub related post got just as many comments as most of my other posts, I think it's time I wowed the world with more of my pub knowledge.

This time I'm talking about a nice little spot on Fleet Street called Bowe's. Situated beside (and I think owned by) the noisier, messier, horribler and popularer Doyle's, Bowe's is a nice place to have a pint. Which is what you want in a pub really, when you think about it. The staff are quite nice, pretty good music is often played at an accecptable volume (ie very quiet), the Guinness is pretty nice and they have a large selection of tasty malt whiskys. One night I tasted a few of these whiskys and I can confirm that, yes, they do contain alcohol.

So, it's a nice place. The weird thing is, nobody seems to drink there. Except me

Pies and simple

2008-09-28T08:12:00.000-07:00

As many of you will know, one of the biggest problems with boozers in Dublin is the lack of decent food, some places don't do food at all, which is fair enough, or limit themselves to toasties, which is even fairer enougher. Generally speaking though, if you want something more substantial with your Carlsberg, seriously lower your standards. Pub food over here is usually disgusting. There are exceptions though. Bull and Castle do pretty good stuff, although it can be quite greasy, they seem fond of the deep frier.

The South William on errr... South William Street is different though. Not for them, the usual carvery, burger, battered catch of the day holy trinity. No, they do pies. Just pies. Delicious pies. For 9 quid. The selection changes a little bit with the seasons, but some have been a constant on the list since it started, such as the fantastic bacon and cabbage pie with parsley sauce. Trust me, this is fucking gorgeous. Another highlight is the lamb mousakka pie. There's always about seven or eight to choose from including two vegetarian options. They all come with a simple, well dressed leafy salad and although not huge, they make a fairly substantial dinner. For 9 quid, which I think is just super.

So what about the pub itself? It's only ok. Because of its location, it's bound to attract a few cunts anyway, but I think the pub actively courts the cunt pound. You know the sort of place, dark trendy, beautiful staff and a bit too noisy. Having said that, I still quite like it. The music is pretty good (nicely boring house and decent reggae mostly) and the staff are pretty nice, even if they're only partly interested in serving drinks. The beer selection tries and fails to be intersting. I mean, there are quite a few available but they all appear to be pale lagers and wheat beers. Unimaginative. I normally order Hoegaarden and hastily intercept the bar man before he throws a lime slice (I mean what the fuck?) into my glass. They do nice cocktails too, but I only order them if I'm trying to fuck my companion.

So, come for the delicious food, stay for the average bar.

Offal Long Way to go

2008-09-22T11:22:00.000-07:00

Interesting article here going on about a supermarket in the UK stocking formerly disused cuts of meat. I think it's a great idea.

Graham's beer goggles #1

2008-09-22T11:12:00.000-07:00

So a mate in London and I, in Dublin, decided to start this game. Basically he tells me where in London he wants to drink and I, using the power of the world wide internet and my two good beer guides, recommend him a decent boozer in the area. He then drinks in there and comes up with a full report the next day. Since I've got nothing else to talk about, I thought I'd put it in my blog. The first one was about two weeks ago, I sent him to a place called The Harp in Covent Garden.

First up, the beer selection was good. Normal beers there as per usual and a few fancy ones…Timothy Taylor (I drank it & I liked it), Black Sheep (I drank it & liked it but not as much), Witches Brew (I drank it and cant’ remember what I thought of it), a guest Lancaster Ale (I didn’t drink but it looked a bit p!ssy for my tastes) and another one I can’t remember. Des got a cider which was poured from an unmarked bottle stashed below the counter. I was impressed. It was very sharp tasting. A nice palette cleanser I thought but I wouldn’t drink too many of them I thought again.

Second up, the pub. The décor was nice. Wooden stuff mainly with old paintings on the wall. Lots of browns. I remarked that one was a portrait by Bobby Sands of the girl waiting for him on the outside. I said that was romantic. Nobody agreed. Not loads of seating. We stood outside. The street was loudish but that’s London for you.

The toilets were quite cramped but I can deal with that as I subscribe to Wobbler’s theory on the relationship between good pubs and dodgy WCs. It had a nice open front too. The bar area was nice with a good amount of people lingering around it to banter (or to utter nonsenses if you will). Which brings me nicely to the third category…

The staff were excellent in my view. The bar was womanned by three women. None of these women were particularly attractive, and that didn’t bother me.

One of these women I could take or leave, she wasn’t around much anyway which was good and she seemed to be doing more tidying up. The other two ladies were quite big and good for a bit of bar chat. One warned me that the pint I was about to receive was coming in a slightly ovuluar (it appears this isn’t a word but it should be) shaped glass. Just a warning as this could confuse and anger someone unless they were alerted to it. I agreed. She also bantered us out the door with tales about Withnail & I. The service was also prompt.

I recall no music.

RATING: 7 and half. Points lost for lack of seating/attractiveness of staff.

Keeping it in the Farmleigh

2008-09-14T13:57:00.000-07:00

Firstly, I know the title pun is a wholesale rip off of Farmleigh's website, "Farmleigh Affair". In my defence, I liked it so I thought I'd change it slightly and steal it.

I'm just back from September Fest, an Irish craft beer festival on this weekend in Farmleigh in the Pheonix Park. Usually in Ireland, "beer fest" just means another excuse for the Porterhouse to put up some flags and play even worse music. I'd a feeling this was going to be different (well obviously it was going to be sort of different, it wasn't in the Porterhouse for a start).

So, after a pint of Galway Hooker with my estranged wife, I took a stroll from Park Gate St to Farmleigh on Saturday afternoon. Since the weather was excellent, I thought a twenty or so minute walk would be a lovely way to work up a bit of a thirst. Unfortunuately, my sense of distance is fucked and the "stroll" was more like an odyessy. I arrived parched and knackered about an hour later. The friends who I was meeting wisely took the Pheonix Park shuttle bus and were there way before me.

Anyway, apart from a really dodgy band playing old favourites (Fields of Athenry, Dirty Old Town....) what I got to was really worth while, a tent full of all the smaller Irish breweries selling their best beers, several on cask. The fact that the sun was beating down also helped. Since there were about 20+ beers to get through, I decided to stick more or less exclusively to cask ales. The two Northern Breweries (Hilden and Whitewater) as well as Porterhouse, Messr Maguires and Carlow all had cask ales available. My favourites were O'Hara's Celebration and Messrs Imperial. It was wonderful to be able to try beers like that on cask. Cask ale in Ireland still sometimes seems like an alien concept. Least favourite? Hilden's Chocolate Stout. It's a style of beer I love, Hilden's offering just tasted fucked up.

I was disapointed that Galway Hooker did offer something special for the festival, either a cask conditioned version of their pale ale or their excellent but rare Irish coffee porter but I suppose for most people it would have been nice to saple the tastiest Irish session beer. I didn't bother though.

My only other gripe (and I admit this is minor) is the glass situation. Beers were served in those flimsy plastic cups, unless you were prepared to spend 2 quid on a sturdier glass. Fair enough, but I would have prefered if the glass you paid for was actually glass rather then just stronger plastic. Why not charge 4 quid and offer a 2 quid refund or something?

Went along again today, it pissed rain but there was still a great turn out. Fair fucks to the organisers and roll on next year.

Wits about you

2008-09-02T11:55:00.000-07:00

Right, I know I'm a failure so don't bother pointing it out. The plan with my last post on Belgian beer was to do a triumphant return to the blogging world with an encyclopedic post on Belgian beer. I was going to describe all the major styles with colourful and amusing prose, recommend a few from each style and give some tips on how you can spot interesting bottles. Then I got tired and went to bed. I might have said something about finishing my post the following day. The avid Wobblerites among you will know that I never keep my promises. I'm not even going to apologise anymore, I didn't complete my Belgian beer post, I probably never will, now you fucking deal with it.

Anyway, I picked up a beer called Korenwolf in Supervalu on Aston Quay today. It's a Dutch beer which I was always keen to try since reading about it in a Michael Jackson (not that one, you fucking moron) beer book a few years' back. The beer is a Belgian style wit beer brewed by Gulpner in Limburg in the Netherlands.

Just to fill you in, wit is dutch for wheat and a wit beer is a wheat beer. These are usually very pale in colour, cloudy and usually about 5% alcohol. At their best, they can be wonderful on a hot day, great thirst quenchers, so they are. Hoegaarden is the most famous example. In the French speaking part of Belgium they're called blanche beers. Fascinating.

Anyway, this one is only ok. Nice spicyness to it but a bit thin tasting.

Hell's Bels

2008-08-14T14:10:00.000-07:00

Hello. I'm back. Did you miss me? So, it's been a good while since I've posted last, I won't fill you in on the details but the past few months have included some of the best and worst times of my life. Anyway, I'm back living with my parents now so I won't be cooking as much. On the bright side, I've been drinking a lot more so expect mostly beer posts from now on.

I'll start by talking about Belgian beer.

What is Belgian beer?

Belgian beer is beer that has been brewed in Belgium.

Is it any use?
Many people (mainly Belgian) consider it to be the best beer in the world. Once you avoid the lagers, you're likely to find some interesting, unique, tasty beers. Some Belgian beers are incredible.

Which ones?
I'll tell you in a minute. First let me tell you a bit about the beers in general.

Go on then......
Right. Belgium is famous for strong, dark, malty, sweet ales. This doesn't describe all Belgian beer but it describes a lot of it. A few of these beers are brewed by monks, many, many more pretend to be. If a beer has any real monk involvement in its brewing, it will have a little logo which says "Authentic Trappist Product". These beers are all worth trying.

Fuck this.... I'm knackered, I'll finish off tomorrow. Sorry

Soup-er Size Me

2008-04-27T11:58:00.000-07:00

It seems that almost every post on this blog begins with me apologising for not posting more often. Anyway, I've been busy. Sue me.

Yesterday, I roasted a chicken and I made a stock out of its carcass today. Since I had fresh stock and loads of tomatoes to use up, I thought I'd make a tomato soup. Since the stock I made was way too salty, I wanted the soup to be quite big tasting to balance out the saltiness. The recipe is sort of an amalgamation of a few recipes I saw on the internet.

Roast Tomato Soup

What you need is

Tomatoes - 4 or 5 medium or whatever you have
A fair few cloves of garlic
Basil (I ended up using dried but fresh would have made a nice difference)
Olive Oil
Onions, I used celery too but it's not necessary
Stock (about 500ml). Chicken or vegetable. Fresh is best but use a cube if you like, it should be grand.

And here's what you have to do

Chop up the tomatoes a bit and put them in an ovenproof dish. Chop most of your garlic cloves in half across-ways leaving the skin on and throw this in with the tomatoes. Tear up some basil and throw this in too. Other herbs should work well too actually. Pour in some olive oil and mix it all together. Put in a preheated oven for about 40 minutes.

About twenty five minutes later (less if you're a slow chopper), warm some oil in a big pot. Chop an onion and throw it, then a clove or two of garlic in and some chopped celery or leek if you like. Cook this over a fairly low heat for about ten minutes until they're golden brown. While this is going on, slowly bring your stock to the boil in another pot.

When the tomatoes are done, take the dish out of the oven. You'll need to remove the garlic cloves from their skin (they slide out when they've been roasted). Add your hot stock to the onions, give it a stir then add the tomatoes (and the garlic and basil) to the pot. Bring everything to the boil and let it simmer for a few minutes. Now blend everything together. See how it tastes. If it's too thick, put in a bit of water or stock and add some salt and pepper. Put it back on the heat for a minute or two and serve.

Beer with me a moment

2008-03-26T16:02:00.000-07:00

Holy fuck, I spend more time thinking about titles for these posts then the actual posts themselves. This post is going to be about lager and I was struggling to come up with a decent lager pun. If anyone has any suggestions for future posts, please comment below. Ta.

I mentioned yesterday that it's hard to find decent lagers that are brewed outside of Germany and the Czech republic, today I'm going to discuss this in more detail. Firstly, this is far from a universal truth and there's no real reasons (that I know of) why good lager can't be brewed anywhere. For the record, the Harviestoun brewery in Scotland do a nice lager called Schielallion. The trouble is, shite lagers are brewed all over the world, and are made available in Ireland at premium prices. I blame the immigrants. Of course, when I say shite lagers, nearly all beers are drinkable including all of these, they're just way over priced. Here's a nation by nation run down.

Brazil
Brahma

China
Tsingtao
Truth be told, I actually quite like this beer. Not sure why though and it's rather expensive.

Poland
There are quite a few Polish lagers available here and in fairness they're all quite nice. Still, for the same money, you could get a decent Czech or German lager which are much nicer. It's worth noting that Poland produce some fantastic porters which are hard to find but well worth the effort.
Lech
Zywiec
Okocim
Tyskie

The rest
I was planning on covering loads more countries one by one, but it's getting late. Lagers from Australia, Lithunia and Singapore should be avoided.

Ale to the chief

2008-03-25T03:11:00.000-07:00

Jayzis, I'm getting well lazy at this blogging shite. Sorry. Anyway, it's about time that I started talking properly about beer. It's an area that I know I have a reasonably extensive knowledge in but I've never been sure where to start. What I'm hoping to do is to write little pieces which might be useful to people who are curious about getting into decent beers rather than people who already know what they're talking about. I'll start off on the basic stuff by talking about lager and ale.

What's the difference between lager and ale?
You don't really need to know this, but a little knowledge might help you make better informed purchasing decisions. Ale is beer that's brewed at a warmish temperature and the yeast goes up to the top when it's fermenting (ale is sometimes called top fermenting beer). Lager is brewed at much colder temperatures and the yeast goes to the bottom when it's being fermented. That's it really. Oh yeah, brewing lager takes at least a month, ale takes a week.

A little bit about lager
As I mentioned above, a lager is defined by the temperature which the beer is made in therefore has nothing to do with its strength or colour. The most well known lagers are pale yellow and between 4-5.5% alcohol but stronger and/or darker lagers are available and some are well worth checking out. Lager was invented in Germany at around the 15th Century (I think) before that, all beers were ale. Up to the 1840s all lagers were dark until the world's first golden lager was brewed in a city called Pilsen in the Czech republic, known as a Pilsners. This first Pilsner is still readily available and is called Pilsner Urquell. It's quite nice. The pilsner style of beer vhas been imitated so much that when most people mention "beer" they are referring to a pilsner or something similiar. Pilsners or pale lagers are brewed all over the world, but in my opinion there are very few decent examples made outside of Germany or the Czech republic.

Other examples of lagers style include dunkel, schwarz, Oktoberfest and bock. These are all worth seeking out and some day I'll hopefuly be able to do a proper post about these in detail.

And a word on ale
Like lager, ale can be any strength or any colour (within reason of course). In fact, there's an almost dizzying range of ale styles available. Here's a woefuly incomplete list.

English bitter
Irish red ale (such as Smithwicks or Kilkenny)
Mild
Stout/Porter
India Pale Ale
German Wheat beer (Erdinger etc.)
Belgian Wit beer (Hoegaarden)
Barley wine
ESB
Strong Belgian ales
Fruit beers

Shitloads more really. In my experience, the best ales come from Belgium, England and USA (actually, now that I think of it, the Yanks make really good lagers too).

In the coming weeks I'll go through some of these ale producing countries in more detail

Carbonara Footprint

2008-03-15T07:04:00.000-07:00

It's funny how sometimes the nicest dinners are also some of the simplest and quickest. This simple fact, more than any other, puts me off using frozen pizzas or ready meals. I love to cook but tha doesn't mean that I want to spend all my time doing it. Carbonara is a staple of every cheap Italian restaurant, it usually comes with a sickening white sauce and tasteless chicken. My version (I use this term loosely, I got the recipe from Delia Smith) is much tastier, pretty frugal and really, really quick.

To cook it for two people, you will need:

Pasta
Enough for two. I'm not sure how much this weighs, and even if I told you, I'd doubt you'd bother weighing it anyway. Over the years I've made this with spaghetti (as Delia suggests), tagatelli and penne. I don't think it makes much difference what you use.

Parmessan Cheese
A lump. If you can't find parmessan, other hard, white Italian cheeses will do. Ready grated or parmessan powder won't. Parmessan is quite expensive but keeps for a while and is very useful.

Eggs
Two plus one extra yolk. I always found seperating eggs quite tricky but if you fuck up, just use three eggs, it's not really going to make a difference. If you're not the sort of person who normally uses free range eggs, it might be a good time to make an exception, the dish relies heavily on eggs so the quality of the eggs will affect the quality of the meal.

Unsmoked Streaky Rashers
Four or five. Pancetta would be better but normal rashers are grand.

What you have to do is
Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the back of the packet. While this is going on, chop up the rashers and fry them with a bit of olive oil. Once you have the rashers on, beat the eggs and grate in the parmessan into the eggs and season with salt and pepper. Once the pasta is cooked, drain and then return to the pot which it was cooked in. Straight away, stir the eggs and the bacon into the pasta. Give it a really good stir so that the egg cooks off the heat of the pasta. Then divide it into plates and grate some more parmessan on top. Serve straight away.

Variations
If you're lucky enough to have some spicy Italian style sausages (The Hick ones are really expensive but taste great, Fallon and Byrne sell them) take the skin off them then roll the meat into little marbles and fry up with the rashers. They take much longer then rashers to cook so put them on a few minutes before you put on the pasta.

If you want the dish to be garlicier, fry up some crushed garlic with the rashers and then proceed as normal.

I think it's more authentic to put some double cream with the eggs and parmessan but I actually think it's nicer without.

Pipe and kippers at the ready

2008-03-09T12:42:00.000-07:00

It's been ages since my last post, sorry. I bet you've all lost any modicum of interest any of you may have had in this blog. Oh well. The problem is that I've got a really shitty internet connection so I just can't be arsed posting too often. That and the fact that I've been avoiding my house all week since we have mice (if anyone has any tasty mice recipes, please share). I'll try to post more often in future.

I bought some kippers in Athy's farmers' market this morning and had them grilled for lunch. I never had thm before. All you have to do is grill them (skin side up) for 1 minute, turn them over pour on melted butter and then grill for another 4-5 minutes. I then served it with a squeeze of lemon juice and a pinch of cayenne. Lovely.

The more the Merrion

2008-02-26T14:16:00.000-08:00

I'm getting married next May. Instead of spending thousands of quid feeding dozens of people we hate dodgy food, we've decided to spend significantly less money feeding fewer people we hate (namingly our families) good food. We reckon somewhere swanky, so we're just testing out our options. On Friday we tested the Cellar Restaurant in the Merrion for lunch. The food was simple fare, cooked simply using really good ingredients. In short, exactly the sort of food I love the most. For starters I had smoked salmon and craime fraiche and I had fish and chips for mains. Everything was spot on, the chips were lovely, the batter on the fish was nice and light and the fish was beautifully fresh. There was even mushy peas. She had a salad of pears, winter leaves and blue cheese to start and rabbot for mains. She let me have some of our rabbit and it was only gorgeous. My dessert was a dark and white chocolate moose with pistachio ice cream. Fucking savage. She had a panacotta thingy which was really nice. It works out at 27euro a head for the three courses which I think is extremely good value. We ended up getting sherry, a mad expense bottle of wine and tea so the bill came to about 110. Worth it though.

For a fairly swanky place, th service was a bit dodgy. The staff were really nice but they made a couple of fuck ups. Still though, a real option for our wedding lunch. We're going to check L'Ecrivain next and then make up our minds. I'll let you know what we decide on

Cathal O Shark-aigh

2008-02-24T13:35:00.001-08:00

Sorry, I've been quiet lately. I've been trying to post here every day or two but sometimes it can be hard to find the time. I'll try to do better next week.

I went to the farmers' market in Athy this morning. I decided a fish supper would be nice so went to the seafood stall. The man there convinced me to buy some shark, which cost me about six quid for a little enough slice. I also bought some beautiful looking spinach and a few taters.

Since the shark looked a bit like a tuna steak, I decided to treat it like one. I fried it a pan iwth some olive oil for a few minutes each side. It was only ok. I served it with baked potatoes (spuds rolled in olive oil and sea salt, pricked several times and heated in an oven at 200C for an hour or so) and the spinach. The spinach was fantastic.

Buttery nutmegy spinach.
I got this from Delia's complete cookery course. Melt a decent bit of butter in a pot and then throw in the rinsed spinachand a rouch of salt. Put the lid on and let it cook over a medium heat for thirty seconds. Stir and give it another thirty seconds. The spinach will have melted to a fraction of its previous size. At this point you may regret not cooking more, tough. Anyway, put it in a collander and squeeze out some of the excess water (Delia suggests putting a saucer on the spinach). Now return to the pot and stir in some more butter, some black pepper and some grated nutmeg.

I'm having some cheese I bought in the market for dessert.

Give it up for lentil

2008-02-21T13:28:00.000-08:00

I'm just after eating a sausage and lentil stew type thing. I got it from a Nigel Slater recipe (what a guy) and it's piss easy to cook, fairly quick and absolutely delicious. It's also perfect for these miserable evenings. I got the recipe for The Kitchen Diaries but a very similiar recipe appeared in the Observor a few years' back

What you have to do is
Heat up some olive oil in a big pot and then throw in some chopped up onions and then after a few minutes a sliced clove or two of garlic. Now get a small (200g) salami and chop it up into little strips and throw it into the pot. Let this cook away for a few minutes stirring every now and again.

Meanwhile fry up 4 or 5 sausages. You don't want to cook these completely, just give them a bit of colour on the outside.

Add 150 g o green or brown lentils, 500 g of pasatta (crushed tomatoes0 and 500 ml of water to the pot with the onions. Bring this to the boil, add the sausages and a few bay leaves, cover and simmer for half an hour or so. Serve when the lentils are nice and soft.

Lovely

Beery Mc Beererson

2008-02-19T14:22:00.000-08:00

It's probably time I talked about beer.

Most Dublin based beer nerds will tell you that it's next to impossible to get decent beer for take-away in the city centre. There are decent off licences in Ranelagh, Stoneybatter, Rathmines, Artaine and Kilbarrick but fuck all in the city centre. Super Valu on Aston quay do stock decent beers though. apart from the usual selection of mainstream lagers, bland central European beers (see The Beer Nut's blog posting for a proper bitch about this epidemic) they also stock a few daycent English ales, a few nice Trappist beers (from La Trappe and Chimay) and Duvel. The real attraction is their selection of beers from a small(ish) Canadian brewery called Unibroue. As far as I know these beers aren't available elsewhere in Dublin and all three are world class. They're Belgian style ales and cost in and around €7 for a 75cl bottle each. They're called Trois Pistoles, Maudite and La Fin Du Monde

Trois Pistoles
This is a strong dark beer in a similiar style to Chimay Blue. I reckon it's a touch nicer though.

Maudite
A copper coloured beer, stylistically similiar to Duvel only quite a bit stronger

La Fin Du Monde
A pale beer, in a style known as Abbey Tripel. Well known beers of a simiar style include Chimay White and Westmalle Tripel.

These beers are all world class and I think are a steal at seven quid when compared with the type of wine available for seven quid.

Tater Modern

2008-02-18T12:58:00.000-08:00

As I write this, I've got a couple of potatoes baking in the oven. Once they're ready, we're going to have them with baked beans and grated cheddar. We're not having this because it's easy or because it's cheap but because it's exactly what we want to eat. The fact that it requires minimal effort and is unbelievably frugal is just a happy coincidence.

How it's done.
Preheat the oven to 200C. Take one big floury potato per person. Roll it around in olive oil (no point in using your single estate extra virgin for this) and salt (I used crushed maldon sea salt, but then I'm posh. Ordinary salt will do). Prick several times with a knife and put in the oven. It will take at least an hour.

Spin City

2008-02-16T05:18:00.000-08:00

Alright so I promised you I'd give you a good soup recipe, so here you go, a recipe for spinach soup. I found this restaurant in Clodagh McKenna's excellent Irish Farmers' Market Cookbook but she credits Darina Allen for the recipe. So I don't know who to thank. If you like it, thank me. I always thought spinach soup sounded fucked up, but it actually tastes delicious.

What you need
A good whack of butter
An onion
A potato or two
A pint of stock (chicken or veg). Fresh is best
A bag of spinach (around 300g)

What you do
Melt the butter in a pot and then throw in the chopped onion and the potato what you have chopped into small dice. Let this cook for about ten minutes on a low heat, stirring occasionally. While this is going on, heat up your stock in a seperate pot. Now throw the stock into the main pot and stir it around. Bring it to the boil, cover and let it simmer for a good while. When the onions and potatoes are really soft (maybe after about twenty minutes or so) throw in your roughly chopped spinach. The chances are that you'll have to do this in batches as the spinanch starts quite big but once it's cooked shrivels up. The whole process should take no longer than two minutes since spinach cooks really quickly. Once this is done, liquidise using a hand blender, an ordainary blender or a food processor. Return to the heat, season well and enjoy. Lovely.

Variations
I made this with rocket rather than spinach once. It worked really well

Not Bitter or anything buh'....

2008-02-15T10:25:00.000-08:00

VB may not be a bitter, or even a drinkable lager but it's good to see its bottles being put to good use. Thanks rossa.

Stock, lock and barrel

2008-02-15T08:44:00.001-08:00

I'm making chicken stock at the moment. Making stock is a superb idea. If you already make your own stock, you already know this. If not, let me give you some reasons.

1) Look at the ingredients list of a stock cube. I'm not a healthfreak but I do believe it's better to stick to foods you've actually heard of. If you're going to eat unhealthy foods, it should at least taste nice. Also, stock cubes are full of salt.
2)If you have some stock in the fridge, any number of delicious soups can be made very easily.
3)Risottos made with real stock taste fucking divine
4)They're actually much less hassle than you'd think.
5)Making stock justifies the expense of an organic chicken as one carcass yields loads of stock.

So I got my chicken carcass and broke it into three or four pieces and put it into my biggest pot. Then I chopped up an onion or two, a few carrots and a stick or two of celery (leeks are also good for this, I just don't have any) and threw them in. I just chop most things into two or three pieces, no point going overboard since we don't actually eat the vegetables themselves. Cover all this with water and then throw in a few whole peppercorns, a few bay leaves and a good oul sprinkling of salt. Cover and bring to the boil. Let this simmer for a few hours checking on it now and again. You'll need to slurp up bits of scum that rise to the top with a spoon every once in a while. That's it though, you can be doing other stuff for the entire time.

Once it's done (after 2-3 hours) put it through a collander and then a sieve. I store it in plastic water bottles but any container will do. It will keep in the fridge for about a week or so and in the freezer for a few months. If you want to freeze some of it (you will, unless you're some kind of disgusting soup monster) make sure you don't fill the bottles all the way to the top.

I'm going to make a soup with the stock tonight. I'll let you know how it goes but soup with real stock is next to impoosible to fuck up. Touch wood.

Everybody's talking about the bird

2008-02-15T07:56:00.000-08:00

Hello. Well I promised you I'd tell you all what I did with the chicken. I'll now put you out of your collective misery.

I started off by rubbing shitloads of butter all over the little fucker. Inside and out (rubbing butter in the chicken feels weird somehow). Then another load of butter in the baking dish in the oven (preheated to 230C). Don't leave it in there for longer than a minute or two (the butter burnt on me, making shite of the baking dish, so I had to wash it and start it again).. Then throw in some chopped thyme, a sliced garlic clove or two and three or four chopped onions into the baking dish. Stir it around the buter. Now season the bird inside and out with salt and black pepper and throw it on top of the onions and all and then into the oven.

Let the chicken roast for 15 minutes at this temperatue and then turn the heat down to 190C and continue roasting. Another 45 minutes should do it for a smallish bird but if it's big it might need an hour and a quarter. The easiest way to check whether it's done is to take it out of the oven and stick a skewer or a knife into the fattest part of the leg. If the juice that runs out is clear, it's done. If it's pink, throw it back into the oven.

Once it's done, leave the chicken to one side to rest and make your gravy. What you need to do is transfer the stuff in the bottom of the baking dish to a pot (if you have a baking dish that can go on the hob, you don't need to do this) and add about 200 ml of chicken stock (I used 200ml of water and about a third of a fairly decent stock cube, but if you have real chicken stock, you're much better off using it. I'll tell you how to make your own later). Let this bubble away over the hob for about ten minutes or so while you carve your chicken. Serve this with mash. I made an absolute balls of the mash, so I'm not going to talk more about it.

How did it taste?
It tasted rather good. The gravy worked out really well. I used a free range chicken because I'd no access to organic ones without going to considerable hassle (I'm never buying cheap chickens again) and it wasn't as good as organic. It was still quite nice, just not as chickeny.

Organic Chickens? Fuck off, we don't all have money to blow.
You might have noticed that the above recipe is not only expensive (if using organic chicken) but also rather unhealthy. In my book, it's better to have a chicken every month or two done proper rather than half arsed chickens every week. Pukah.

I missed that Hugh Fernley Whatisname on Channel 4. Was it any good?
Yeah it was pretty good.

Sorry

2008-02-14T13:04:00.001-08:00

The map thing below is actually a cunt to read at that size. Here's the link for it properly

If anyone can tell me how to edit posts using html on this cunting thing, I'd be very interested. Thanks

Love is in the air

2008-02-14T10:22:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentines Day lads. I know most of you lonely people are probably looking for a quiet pub the drown your sorrows in so I thought I'd take a break from my cocaine and sex marathon with my intended....and her sisters and help yiz out.
Publish Post
It's a map of Dublin pointing out my favourite boozers. I did it up in work a few months ago to pass a bit of time and I think it would suit this blog. If anybody can tell me how I put in different coloured markers, I'll include some of the better off licences in and around the city. Let me know of any glaring omissions. Enjoy.

Everybody's Porking

2008-02-13T05:29:00.001-08:00

First post. Woo!

At about lunchtime yesterday, I suddenly started feeling quite ill. Sore throat, headache and the like. It was as good an excuse as any to pig out and cook something proper. I ended up cooking the recipe that appeared in Nigel Slater's Observor column last Sunday last Sunday . It worked a fucking treat.

Pork chops with apples, cider and cream

Valentine's Day is enough excuse to get out the booze and the cream jug. There is both alcohol and dairy produce in the appley-cidery-creamy sauce for these chops. It is rich, but not when balanced by my suggestion of the perfect accompaniment: a watercress salad tossed in a sharp French dressing. There is a bit of marinating involved, but an hour will do. Even the briefest time spent in a marinade of appropriate aromatics - in this case thyme and olive oil - will add much in terms of flavour. You simply mash the seasonings to a paste with olive oil, then leave the meat in it till you are ready to cook. Serves 2.

2 pork chops

leaves from 6 bushy sprigs of thyme

6 black peppercorns

2 tbsp olive oil

2 large sharp apples

a thick slice of butter

a scant tbsp of sugar

500ml cider

150ml double cream

Strip the thyme leaves from their stems and chop finely, then tip into a mortar together with the peppercorns and ½ tsp of sea salt. Pound these with the pestle, slowly mixing in the olive oil until you have a loose paste.

Scrape the marinade into a shallow dish and turn the pork chops in it until they are coated on both sides. Leave them to marinate in a cool place for at least an hour.

Peel the apples, remove the cores and cut the flesh into large dice. Melt the butter in a shallow pan and add the apples and sugar, leaving them to cook till golden and approaching tenderness. Turn them now and again with a spoon, gently, so they do not crush, and let them take on an even colour. Lift them out and set aside.

Return the pan to the heat, lower in the chops and their oil, and let them cook over a moderate heat till they are done to your liking (probably about 5 minutes on either side), then lift them out and keep warm. Pour the cider into the pan and stir to dissolve the pan-stickings. Leave to bubble and reduce till there are just a few tablespoons left - a matter of 4 or 5 minutes.

Pour in the cream, whisk together and let the mixture bubble briefly, then return the chops and apples to the pan. This is not a thick sauce, so let it bubble for only 3 or 4 minutes or so before serving.

A very simple recipe to follow and the results were delicious. My fiancée claims that it was one of the nicest things I ever cooked. I'm not sure if that was an insult to my cooking in general or a compliment to that particular dish but I suspect it's a bit of both.

The only problem was my appetite was fucked so I was hardly able to eat it. I'll be making it again very soon. I highly recommend this recipe.

Anyway, I took today off work so I can spend a bit more time than usual cooking. I bought a free range chicken which I'm going to roast in a wee while.

I'll let you know how I get on.