Pork rillettes - Taste of France

Today is 14th of July - Bastille Day, so I thought it would be only right to post a recipe for a traditional French dish.
Rillettes is the French word for meat or fish that has been gently cooked, then shredded and potted with a layer of fat on top to preserve it. If left completely covered in the fat in a sealed jar, it will keep in your fridge for a few months.
Served with toasted sourdough bread and cornichons, these coarse pates make a delicious starter or a lunchtime snack.

Pork rillettes (recipe adapted from Rachel Allen's "Entertaining at Home")

(Makes 4x250ml jars)

Ingredients:
500g pork belly
500g pork shoulder
200ml dry white wine
6 cloves of garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
2 tsp coarse sea salt
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp chopped thyme

Preheat the oven to 130 degrees Celsius (fan ovens).
Remove the fat and rind from the pork belly, chop it roughly into a few pieces and place in a roasting tin. Cook in the oven for about 1 hour to render the fat, then pour the liquid into a bowl and discard the cooked rind. Set aside until later.

Cut the pork belly and shoulder into 1-2cm cubes. Place the meat together with all the remaining ingredients in a casserole dish or oven-proof saucepan. Place on a medium heat, stirring to mix everything together.

Bring to simmering point, then cover with a lid and transfer to the oven.
The rillettes need to cook for about 4 hours, all the fat on the meat should be rendered into liquid and the meat should be flaky. 
Break the meat up with a fork, taste for seasoning and transfer to sterilised preserving jars, packing the meat down tightly. Pour over the rendered fat to just cover the meat. Allow to cool to room temperature so the fat has solidified before serving.

Bon appetit!!

New potato and smoked mackerel salad

This is a simple but elegant salad that's perfect for lunch or a light summer supper. You can experiment with the ingredients, replacing mackerel with smoked salmon, adding some beetroot or other vegetables of your choice. If you are counting calories, you can swap the mayonnaise for crème fraiche, natural yoghurt and add a little horseradish for an extra kick.

New potato and smoked mackerel salad

Serves 2

Ingredients:
300g baby new potatoes
100g baby Chantenay carrots
50g frozen peas
150g smoked mackerel
2 tbsp mayonnaise
1/2 small red onion, finely chopped
2 tbsp capers
salad of your choice: rocket salad, baby leaf salad work the best in this dish
salt and pepper

Cook the potatoes in a large pan of salted water for about 20 minutes or until tender. Drain the potatoes, halve the bigger ones and set aside to cool. 
Using the same saucepan cook your carrots, drain them and set aside to cool. Repeat the same process with the peas. The veg should have a bit of bite, so be careful not to overcook.

Mix the mayonnaise with chopped red onions and capers, then gently mix it with the cold vegetables, so it coats them. Adjust the seasoning.

Arrange your salad on a plate, top with the potato salad, then add chunks of smoked mackerel.
Serve it with fresh crusty and a glass of white wine:) Enjoy!!!

Salted Caramel Ice Cream

Salted caramel is one of my favourite flavours, so when I found this recipe for salted caramel ice cream, I had to try it straight away. The result was delicious, creamy ice cream with a hint of salt, just the way I like it, definitely a keeper!
All that butter, cream and dark sugar add up to a rather indulgent dessert. But hey, a girl needs to treat herself once in a while, right? Plus, if it's good enough for the Obamas, it's good enough for me!!

Salted Caramel Ice Cream:

Ice cream base
2 1/2 cups double cream
1/2 cup milk
4 large egg yolks
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Add cream, milk and sugar to a medium saucepan. On medium high heat, stirring occasionally, heat the mixture to just before the boiling point and then remove from the heat.
In a separate large bowl, beat the egg yolks until pale yellow. Slowly pour the warm cream mixture in to the eggs, gently mixing as you pour. Return mixture back into saucepan and cook over low heat. Continue to stir and cook until the custard coats the back of a wooden spoon. Don't let the mixture boil. Put your bowl of ice cream base into an ice bath or a sink filled with very cold water to help the cooling process. Refrigerate the ice cream until completely cold.

Caramel
1 1/4 dark brown sugar
1/2 cup double cream
1/4 cup milk
1 1/2 tsp flaky sea salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

Add all ingredients except the vanilla extract to a small saucepan and cook over medium low heat until it starts to boil. Keep at a low boil for about 6 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla extract. Pour into a bowl and cool it. Once the caramel is at room temperature, add it to the chilled ice cream base and mix together. Freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

I've served the ice cream with sliced bananas, dark chocolate and whipped cream turning it into a deconstructed banana split.

Summer in Dublin

The weather has been really fantastic these last few days. Today the temperature climbed to a tropical  25 degrees Celsius - we're talking about Ireland, this just never happens here!!!! I've even heard of people taking pictures and movies of the blue sky and beautiful beaches full of people enjoying the sunshine, just to be able to prove to their kids a few years from now that the summer of 2013 really happened.....We are all enjoying it immensely and hoping that it will last at least another week.

With the hot weather upon us, we don't really feel like eating big warm meals and opt for BBQ's and light meals such as burritos, omelets and lots of salads.

Earlier today we had a lovely lunch: selection of Italian meats, French cheeses, olives, mozzarella and tomato salad, thick slices of French white boule with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. All washed down with a chilled Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. It was delicious! I've also made some some refreshing lemonade and salted caramel ice cream. I will post the recipe for the salted caramel ice cream later this week .

Delicious lemonade

Ingredients:

3/4 cup sugar

1 cup water

1 cup lemon juice

4 cups cold water

Make simple syrup by heating the sugar and water in a small saucepan until the sugar is dissolved completely. 

While the sugar is dissolving, extract the juice from about 6-7 lemons, enough for 1 cup of juice.

Mix the juice with the syrup, add the cold water. Refrigerate for about 1 hour. If the lemonade is a little to sweet for your taste, add a little more lemon juice.

Serve it with ice. Enjoy!!

Rustic Stone by Dylan McGrath

I wanted to try this place since I've first seen Dylan McGrath on MasterChef Ireland in 2011.
Dylan is an Irish celebrity chef, he was the owner of Michelin starred restaurant Mint which closed in April 2009. In August 2010 Dylan opened "Rustic Stone Restaurant by Dylan McGrath" on Georges Street in Dublin. The restaurant claims to create tasty but nutritious food. They cook seasonally with olive oil, using lots of fresh herbs and salads growing by local farmers.

Last Saturday we went for a stroll around Dublin City Centre. We visited all my favourite spots: mainly bookshops, kitchen supplies shops and did our weekly shopping at the Temple Bar Food Market, Fallon and Byrne and Sheridan's Cheesemongers. We were in a mood for a nice light lunch and decided that The Rustic Stone will be the perfect place.

We were quickly seated and given two very extensive menus, the "Raw" menu and the main menu which consisted of bites, starters, pasta, "on the stone" (meat or fish is served on a heated basalt stone and you get to cook it yourself) and "off the stone" main courses, salads, sides and desserts. The very helpful waiter explained the menus to us and informed us that we can choose a few dishes from both menus.
Everything on the menu looked good but we were intrigued by the raw dishes and decided to start with a selection of dishes from the "Raw" menu.

We went for citrus cured salmon, carpaccio of salted beef, sushi-style tuna and little duck rolls with celery, orange and green olives. All of the little dishes were very tasty, my favourite was the salmon dish served  with a little lemon puree.

Next, P decided to go for chicken wings and a side order of truffle chips with truffle mayonnaise, while I opted for a small portion of the "outrageous orange" salad. My salad was absolutely delicious, light and refreshing with lovely crunchy caramel pecans. The portion was huge and I wondered how big are their regular portions?? But the salad was so good, I managed to clean the whole plate.

The chicken wings simply done in soya sauce and crushed roasted sesame seeds were also very good. Mr PB was only a little bit disappointed with the truffle chips, they were a bit heavy and totally covered with parmesan cheese.

We really wanted to try some of the desserts but couldn't eat another bite, so we just relaxed, sipped our wine and finally asked for the bill which came to just under 50 euro.

Overall we really enjoyed our lunch, the atmosphere was relaxed, yet the waiters were very attentive.
The food was very tasty and "different". I think the nutritional information about each dish included on the menu is a very good idea. You are given a choice to opt for a healthy meal, indulge yourself or choose a little bit of both if you wish to do so.
Dylan said that he "wanted to design a restaurant aimed at women" because "women pick restaurants and us guys do as we're told". Well, thank you Mr McGrath...I wish there were more guys with that kind of attitude:))
We definitely will be back soon to try some of the other dishes on the menu.
They also have HALF PRICE COCKTAILS all day every Monday!!!! I had a look at their cocktail menu and it looks gooood!!!

Rustic Stone by Dylan McGrath
South Great George's Street
Dublin 2
www.rusticstone.ie

Katz's Delicatessen New York

Katz's Deli was high on my long list of PLACES THAT I NEEDED TO VISIT during our stay in New York. By Sunday morning I realised that we are running out of time and we won't be able to try all of them but I was determined to get my pastrami on rye, so we decided to take a train to the Lower East Side and have an early lunch at Katz's.

Katz’s is located on 205 East Houston (corner of Ludlow Street). Established by a family of Russian immigrants in 1888, Katz’s Delicatessen prides itself on being New York’s "oldest and best delicatessen."
At the start of the twentieth century the Lower East Side became a home to millions of immigrants, many of them from Eastern Europe longing for "taste of home". Katz's became their main meeting point and on Fridays the neighborhood turned out for franks and beans, a long time Katz tradition.
During World War II, Katz's encouraged parents to "send a salami to your boy in the army" which became one of the deli's famous catch phrases, along with "Katz's, that's all!" which is still painted on the side of the building.

As we entered the restaurant, we were told that they were celebrating their 125th anniversary that weekend and that they were organizing a street party on Sunday evening with music and food stalls.
We were then giving 2 printed numbered tickets which we had to present to the staff at the food counter, our order was written on one ticket and we had to show both tickets and pay the bill upon exiting.
Remember to keep you tickets safe (even the blank ones), if you lose a ticket, an additional $50 surcharge will be added to your bill.

We ordered 2 sandwiches: Mr PB ordered pastrami on rye and I went for the Reuben sandwich and a side order of pickled gherkins. While preparing the sandwiches the cutter let us taste the meat, it was delicious, the pastrami just melted in my mouth.

At $16.95 and $17.45 the sandwiches were quite pricey but they were HUGE!!! They are easily big enough for two (or three) to share. I only managed to eat half of mine Reuben and a couple of gherkins and honestly I didn't need anything else to eat all day.

The food was sooo tasty! Definitely the best pastrami I have ever tasted, it was delicious and tender.
The gherking were lovely and refreshing and tasted just like the ones my Mum used to make when I was little.
If you are planning a trip to New York you should definitely try it out! To me it felt like a real New York experience and I definitely we'll be back to try their potato latkes, knishes and matzo ball soup.