I'm so hungry I could eat a horse...

What a hullabaloo - horse meat in the burgers no less. But why are people buying frozen burgers of questionable origin when it couldn't be simpler to make your own from lovely Irish beef. Buy your meat from a good butchers or even the supermarket, there are not many horses trotting through either. You can buy premium steak mince but the cheaper stuff is also nice and the extra fat keeps it lovely and juicy. But the real secret to a really, really great burger is a splash of fish sauce. You know the stuff, smells disgusting and fetid, it is made from elderly anchovies after all, but its pure umami brings out the savory depth in foods and will make the best burger you will ever taste. So here's what to do.

Burgers
2 lbs minced beef
1 1/2 tablespoons Fish Sauce
1 egg
1 teaspoon fresh ground Black Pepper

Burger sauce
4fl oz good quality tomato ketchup
2 tbsp mayonnaise
1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp sweet paprika
A good few drops of hot sauce or tabasco

Other stuff
4 tbsp olive oil
2 large red onions
2 large handfuls of crispy lettuce leaves
2 juicy tomatos, sliced
4 gherkins sliced thinly
6 slices of cheese
6 plain wholemeal rolls or sesame buns

Directions:
In a bowl, combine all burger ingredients together, smushing the beef with your hands. Leave to sit for 20 minutes. Shape into a balls and then flatten into burger patties.

While the burger mix is resting, caramelize your onions by slicing them very finely and then cooking them in  3 tbsp of the olive oil over a low heat in a heavy based, non-stick pan. The onions take around 15-20 minutes to caramelize properly but it's worth it. Cook until golden, sticky and just starting to get a little crispy and then add a pinch of salt.

In between watching the onions, mix together the ingredients for the sauce, adding the hot sauce at the end cautiously and tasting after every drop or two until your preferred level of 'zing' is reached.

Put the bread into the oven to warm while you cook the meat patties in a non-stick pan with a little olive oil over high heat, for a couple of minutes each side. Don't fry them slowly or they will get tough and loose all their juicy-ness. Pile on the lettuce, gherkin and fresh tomato, add the hot beef patty and top with the cheese so that it melts deliciously on top. Use your favorite cheese but I like processed sliced cheese for a proper melty cheese burger experience. Feel free to mix it up with any other condiments of your choice, I like a few jalapenos sometimes or maybe some beetroot if you are a lovely Australian. Then the caramelized onions and pink burger sauce. Pure beefy perfection.

This makes quite a lot of big, meaty burgers, I often make them quite a bit smaller especially if I am serving them with chips and salad and shape the left over meat mixture into walnut sized balls which I freeze or put covered in the fridge and cook the next day in a tomato and basil sauce for a second dish of Italian style meatballs

And there you have it. Delicious, juicy, healthy burgers, without a trace of 'my Lidl pony' in sight.

Sushi & Sashimi at Wa Cafe.

Rice Balls with sesame seeds and steamed edamame beans.

For the majority of the population of the world, it would be unthinkable to sit down to dinner without a pot of hot rice on the table. There to soak up sauces and juice, sitting at the centre of the plate, making it a meal. We Irish, of course, take similar comfort in potatoes, refusing to have a main meal without them. Boiled, roasted, mashed with butter, even pizza or pasta come with a side of potatoes in some households.

The crimes committed by everyones favorite Uncle, 'Ben', has put a generation of Irish off eating this glorious grain. They imprisoned it in a perforated bag jail cell and stripped it of taste, nutrition and dignity. It deserves so much better. Long-grain, short-grain, brown, black and red, there is a rice for every dish, from a classic risotto or paella to biryani and kedgeree. And who among us could say no to a creamy rice pudding with a dollop of homemade jam?

Older people especially regard rice with deep suspicion. My own dear father nearly starved to death on a recent visit to Japan. A well travelled gent, he bowed at traditional tea ceremonies and enjoyed being the tallest man in the room for a change. But the raw fish and rice was not something that any Irish septuagenarian would willingly ingest. A giant Toblerone from the airport duty free that he had in his suitcase was the only thing that kept him from certain death. But I digress.

Japanese green tea.

At Wa Cafe the rice is soft, sticky and delicious and the food is excellent. Even my dad would find something to eat in here. A cosy little spot just off the docks, the lovely and unassuming Yoshimi is the woman behind Wa Cafe. They've got Sushi rolls, Miso soup, Japanese style sandwiches, salad, bento boxes and authentic Japanese green teas. The menu is short with a rotating choice of specials ensuring there is always something new. Knowing as we do, that the Japanese are the only people on earth to ever manage the culinary magic trick of making tofu palatable, it is no surprise that there is a good choice for vegetarians. There are chopsticks, but they will give you a fork and not laugh at you if (like me) you need one.

We met up with my new BFF Mona Wise, the food columnist for The Sunday Times. As the food writer for the Galway Advertiser I am contractually obliged to hang around with another food writer and we are geographically convenient for each other. She is the Jay Rayner to my A.A. Gill, if you will. Mona had the sashimi plate, ten generous slices of raw fish. Salmon, tuna and sea bass for €12, straight from the boats, the fish could not have been any fresher. The Tempura Don with prawns at €10 was the choice of my current husband, with plentiful prawns, peppers and other vegetables in a perfectly fluffy and crisp tempura batter served on some of that excellent rice.

Pork Katsu from the Bento Box.

I had a Bento set of two Osouzai (Japanese Tapas). I choose Pork Katsu and Teriyaki Beef Burger with some refreshing grated daikon radish, both very delicious and served with a bowl of rice balls anointed with sesame seeds and one of delectable edamame beans for €9. The Bento set is quite generous, it's hard to finish one by yourself and two would be enough between three. A Bento is a take away lunch box in Japan, and all of the fare at Wa is available to go at a lower price.

Considering everything is made fresh, the order was very fast to arrive at the table. Along with a couple of mugs of deeply savory miso soup to warm the cockles when we first arrived and an apple and elderflower juice the bill for the three of us came to €39.

A warm mug of miso soup.

The daily specials are written on a cute blackboard and so too is a tea of the month, currently chrysanthemum tea for January. Wa is a friendly cafe with efficient service and tasty food, a must for fans of sushi and sashimi and those who need a bowl of rice steaming on the table to make it a meal.

We passed on the small selection of desserts, enticingly exotic as they sounded. Matcha green tea marble cake or aduki bean ice-cream, anyone? I just treated myself to a Toblerone for afters instead. It seemed like the right thing to do.

Wa Cafe, 13 New Dock Street, Galway City. Tel:091 895850. E-mail:info@wacafe.net
Opening hours: Monday-Thursday 12-3pm & 5-9pm. Friday-Sunday 12-9pm.
Wa Cafe have a stall at the Galway Market every Saturday also.

Written for and published in the Galway Advertiser. January 17, 2013.

custard creams...

"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me". 

So said C.S.Lewis and while one small cup of tea a day is plenty for me, I do feel sad when a good book is finished. My real love will always be children's books, the feel of the paper, smell of the ink, the weight of a hardback in my hand, and the charm and colour of the illustrations.

There is nothing quite like a feast of Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl or Edward Lear to keep me happy, except maybe my little people to read them to. A good book demands tea and the accompaniment of a proper biscuit. These are the most proper of all biscuits, the classic custard cream. They are great to make with children as they are so easy, quick and fun. They taste so much better than the packet ones and they are another way for me to use up the big canister of custard powder I have been left with after Aunty Angela's unexpected septuagenarian romance allowed me to purchase the wretched stuff. For those of you wondering, custard powder is basically just cornflour (cornstarch) and a touch of yellow food colouring and can be substituted for same.

Ingredients
Biscuit
100g butter
120g flour
50g caster sugar
2 tablespoons custard powder
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Filling
40g icing sugar
25g or two tablespoons butter, softened
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
2 teaspoons custard powder

Preheat the oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6. Cream together the butter and sugar, sift in the flour and custard powder and bring together with the vanilla essence until a roll-able dough is formed. Alternatively combine all ingredients in a food processor, and then form the dough by hand.

Flour a surface and roll out dough to roughly 6mm thickness. Press your choice of cutter in to the dough, ensuring there is a duplicate of each shape you cut. Place shapes on a baking tray, greased and floured). Remove and cool on a wire rack.

Beat the icing sugar and vanilla together in a bowl with a wooden spoon. Sift the icing sugar and custard powder together and beat gradually into the butter, and then use to fill the custard creams once they are cool. Place a bit on the bottom of one biscuit, and sandwich with another on top. Once set the custard creams can be stored in an airtight container for up to a week.

roast garlic & talegio bread...

Garlic butter is a compound butter, basically a 'flavoured' butter. These butters are endlessly versatile. A flavored butter acts as a sauce, in essence and any flavoring can be added. Chopped herbs with lemon zest will go great with fish or red wine and shallots with steak for example.

Now, I have never met a cheese I did not like, but Talegio is one (from a very long list) of the cheeses that I love. A compound butter made with Talegio is a glorious thing. It is quite a strong smelling cheese, but its flavour is comparatively mild with a sweet tang to it. When heated, it loses most of its strong smell and is just sweet and salty and delicious. If you can't find any then Fontina is a reasonable substitution and a ripe Brie would do if you were stuck.

Roasting the garlic first gives you loads of garlic flavor without the harshness of raw garlic, and it is delicious on toast as well. You could just add some sliced parma ham, dressed rocket, a nice bottle of red wine and you'd have a one of my favorite easy suppers for two. 

I always make plenty of this butter as it freezes very well, and I do it in small batches. Then whenever you have limited time to make a meal, take some chicken breasts or a pork chop, add this on top and simply bake in the oven for a quick meal with some salad or steamed veg. Or cook some wide ribbon pasta like tagliatelli and toss through a spoon or two in the hot pan pan, finish with some basil and you have a mac and cheese for grown-ups. 

Ingredients

1 head of garlic

300g Talegio cheese – softened

200g butter – softened

1 bunch chives – chopped

Sea salt and cracked clack pepper

1 sourdough loaf - a day or two old.

Method

Roast the garlic first. Preheat the oven to 170ºC. Cut a garlic head in half around the middle and wrap in aluminum foil and put it into the preheated oven. Cook for an hour or so. When done, you'll find the garlic cloves have turned into a soft, fragrant and caramelized mass, that will practically jump out of its papery case. Just squeeze the garlic flesh out or remove with a fork. 

Remove the rind from the Talegio, cut into chunks and mix with the butter and chives. Season liberally with pepper and sparingly with salt. Empty all the garlic flesh into the cheese and butter mix, then mash it around with a fork a little. C'est tout. 

Cut slices vertically into the bread and stuff full to bursting with the butter mix. Wrap tightly in aluminum foil and bake in a hot oven (about 200ºC) for 20 minutes. Remove, unwrap and serve immediately.

Il Porcetto & Organic Veg

There are many little jewels hidden round the town, villages and countryside here in the West. I have written here before of the importance of having a few good recommendations to avoid the soulless food of the forecourts. In Loughrea, a town whose bypass has done it many favors as the traffic is not manic as years gone by, there is just such a jewel and a reason to pause there awhile.

II Porcetto at Christmas time.

Il Porcetto's dining area is divided into a number of small, cosy dining rooms. Nostalgic and rustic, it's like a New York neighborhood Italian restaurant has been picked up and dropped on the main street of Loughrea. The rustic style red and white checked tablecloths bring to mind all the great Italian cinematic references, 'The Godfather', 'GoodFellas' and 'Lady and The Tramp'. The owner seated us. Gavino, a native of Sardinia has one of those accents you could listen to all day long. Service is fast and efficient and comes with a charming smile.

The lunchtime starters are mostly bruschetta and there is a selection of mains of chicken, pork, steak or sea bass served with salad and a choice of rosemary potatoes or chips. Priced mostly at €8.99 and up to €15.50 for the beef, their prices are more than competitive. We had come purposely to try the pasta and pizza, however, as good friends of ours had been recommending them to us for some time. So try them we did.

A half portion of the Spaghetti Carbonara was the choice of the littlest one. There's nothing like a good carbonara. Unfortunately, most carbonaras are nothing like a good carbonara either. Carbonara can be tricky to make well, mostly, I suspect, because it is so simple. Egg, cheese, cured pork, pasta and black pepper with little margin for error. This one arrived to the table as good as ever I have encountered. The plentiful, rich and creamy sauce coated the perfectly cooked pasta, all crowned with an avalanche of grated parmesan. I had to taste quite a bit of it you understand, to make sure it was not to hot for the little one. I am an exemplary mother.

The other little lady ordered the Pizza Margherita with a choice of two extra toppings. For €8, this 12" was exceptional value with plenty for her and slices to share with me. The crust was fantastic, chewy, yeasty perfection. Spaghetti Cozze e Vongole for the current husband was a generous dish of pasta, again expertly cooked with fresh clams and mussels in a white wine sauce. The clams were plump and tender, the sauce bolstered with exactly the right amount of chilli to make it zingy, not stingy.

It being January and as I am on the obligatory diet, I had a salad. 'Insalata Con Pollo' an undressed mixed salad with grilled chicken and lots of parmesan shavings, provided to the table with balsamic in a bottle. It was nice, but I was a bit full after all the pasta and pizza I had stolen to properly enjoy it.

The ladies had a single scoop of good quality ice cream for dessert. Ice cream here comes in the three most important flavors, chocolate, strawberry and vanilla or 'plain' as we Irish call it. Desserts are made in-house and a small tiramisu was light and lovely. I celebrated the success of my diet with a dessert which proved to be the sole misstep of the meal. A chocolate panna cota, which had been overly gelatined. The set was far too solid and it had, alas, lost its wobble. The girls and I ate it anyway, it was chocolate after all.

Desserts come on some lovely earthenware delph,
with not a slate or mirrored plate in sight.

Make sure to get to an ATM before you go as cards are not accepted. Don't worry. You won't need that much cash as our meal for four with one childs portion, fruit juice for the kids one coffee and desserts all round came to only €44.17. If you pass through Loughrea on business or pleasure and if you are hungry this is the place to go. The prices are modest for food of this quality and the room is picture postcard Italiano. I wish there was an Il Porcetto where I live.

Il Porcetto Ristorante, Pizzeria, Wine Bar. Main Street, Loughrea. Tel: 091 870 633

My new year's 'diet' brings me nicely onto my next subject. I am, of course, a great believer in eating well and apart from the water we drink there is nothing more important than the food we consume. If it is fresh, healthy and free from man-made chemicals then it will help us stay happy and healthy. But it is surprising how difficult it is to accomplish the simple task of eating well.

This is the work of the people at Green Earth Organics farm. "People are busy and there are so many conflicting facts out there; sometimes it is hard to actually know what is good and what isn’t good for us," said Kenneth Keavey of Green Earth Organics. "I like the idea of being able to turn to one place and get all I need to prepare great tasting meals, and know without having to look at labels that this is proper food; food that has the freshness and taste our grand-parents were used to."

It is time to begin harvesting two of the year’s most sought after crops at the farm, purple sprouting broccoli and the first local fresh organic salad. You can get these delivered to your door at no charge in a lovely fresh organic veg box. Why not start the year in a convenient and healthy way? Get a box delivered to your door each week. There is no charge for delivery and I have found that when you know the produce is coming it encourages you to get into the kitchen and use it.

The good news is that you and I can order online today at www.greenearthorganics.ie  (Get 10% off orders over €20 by using the code RF0519 when you order online) or by calling 091-793768.

Written for and published in the Galway Advertiser. January 10, 2013.

Taxing Times for Wine...

I think it is fair to say that the developing Irish wine market has hit something of a snag. Thanks to the unbalanced and quite frankly, bizarre new tax on wine, all of our small retailers will have to increase the cost of wine in their shops at various stages between now and the New Year as their duty-paid stock runs out. This means that their customers will see various price increases per bottle, as many of the big supermarkets may very well hold their price, either by losing margin or by negotiating better deals with the big wholesalers. That some wine shops will close is certain, as the difference between what they can offer their customers and the below-cost selling of the supermarkets widens even further.

It is this below cost selling by the multiples that has been blamed as the cause of many of the social problems associated with alcohol. They unfairly use alcohol as a loss leader to build market share in the grocery sector. Yet the loophole still exists that when alcohol is sold below cost price, the retailer is entitled to a refund of the VAT differential, meaning in effect, that the Government and taxpayers (that's you and me folks!) are subsidising any large retailers who can afford to sell alcohol below cost price. This is not by any means a fair or level playing field. In the absence of any coherent, balanced national retail strategy, it is up to us as local people to buy from local businesses who wish to make an honest living by selling quality products to us.

The traditional arguments leveled against these independent traders is that they are too expensive. This is simply not true. To attract people into their shops independents have to stock wine at the lower end of the price range as well as the more expensive wines, and these lower priced wines are nearly always of a much higher quality than the equivalent you will find in many of the supermarkets. They're also probably made by a human rather than a factory and by buying one of these bottles you are keeping them and their family in business.

Neither are these mass-produced wines, but wines with character that represent a place and where you can taste the connection between grape and soil. Independent wine retailers hunt out the best of these producers, build relationships with growers and pay a fair price for the wines.  Then when they sell it to us, they do it with more than a touch of customer service and you always learn something new. The staff in good independents love to help out customers. They know their vino and love recommending just the right wine for the occasion whether its a wedding, party or a bottle to drink with a good steak. Often you get to try before you buy and if you get good advice once, you will almost certainly go back for more.

I know it's easy just to pick up a bottle or two when you are in the supermarket, but now is the time to be making more of an effort to buy from independents, it is no different to supporting your local butcher or bakery. Businesses like Cases Wine Warehouse, Thomas Woodberrys, Sheridans and McCambridges are always reaching out to consumers by running tastings and events. We should all respond by making more of our purchases from them. They also often supply to our restaurants, bars, pubs and hotels across The West, helping them to achieve that higher standard and diversity that has been recognized more and more in Galway in recent years. These will either in turn have to reflect the tax increase or find cheaper suppliers that will almost certainly come with a drop in standards.

However you buy your wine, and assuming you are lucky enough to be able to still afford it, why not pop into your local independent wine merchant and say Hello! Because, thanks to Mr. Noonan, without you they won't survive.

A good year

A year and a half of food blogging under my belt and I have to say guys, I rock at this stuff - joking of course. At the end of the year it's nice to look back on the year gone by and these were statistically my top hits of 2012. It's even better to look forward to what is to come. So if you haven't seen them before, give these posts a look over now - they are all quite good (even if I do say so myself).

In fifth place is the very yummy Lilly Higgins' Banoffi cake - I never ate a slice of the one pictured as it was a present for the child minding ladies in the creche, but I made it a couple of times after that one and it was delicious. The only thing you have to watch for is not to overcook the icing - it goes to the dry side quite quickly.

Hasselback potatoes  Bit of a surprise at number four - mostly because the people on Pinterest took an interest in it I think? Whatever way you look at it, it backs up my theory that the best things to post are the three C's - chocolate, cheese and carbs. Sorted.

My own personal favourite is at number three, Donut muffins. This was the first photo I was ever truly proud of, and it was a battle to keep some muffins for the photos as they were being eaten faster than I could snap them. So it's a totally delicious recipe to boot.

Double chocolate salt caramel brownies - this recipe has only been really, really popular in the last few weeks. It ticks all the boxes though. What's not to like?

The best of all, seemingly, according to the viewing public is the baked brunch baguette with a gigantic amount of hits - it is pretty tasty though, so you should definitely try it.

So onwards and upwards for the new year, thanks for reading along and all your lovely comments last year, I hope to see you all here in the coming months and maybe make some new friends along the way.