Offaly Good Food!

After the fun and success of last year’s Taste of Offaly I was delighted when Midlands 103 invited me back for a second year!

We have SO much good produce in Offaly and it’s a privilege to be asked to come up with ideas to cook with this wonderful food.

I have to admit I was a little starstruck when I saw my name in the Sunday Business Post (thanks Vivienne and Gillian ;-)!)

This year we had a much ‘posher’ demo kitchen thanks to Flogas  – I could actually cook in the oven this year (last year we had to pretend the oven was working!!!)

The exhibition hall was hopping all through the day and it was great to catch up with all the food producers. Thanks to everyone who supplied the ingredients and I hope I haven’t left anybody out!

• Pigs on the Green
• Deverell’s Farm Direct
• O’Donohue’s Bakery 
• Kilbeggan Organic Oats
• Lough Boora Farm
• Ballyshiel Chocolate
• Mossfield Organic Cheese
• Coolfin Gardens Organic Bakery
• Tullamore Meats Co-operative
• Boozeberries
• Coole Swan (with the best salesgirl ever!)
• The Wine Buff
• Tullamore Dew 
• Derryvilla Blueberry Farm
• Glenisk

This year I also had the opportunity to watch the other demos and really enjoyed watching Feargal O’Donnell from the Fatted Calf and Numb from Bang Thai cooking with our local produce – it’s great to learn from other chefs!

Plus I owe a big thanks to Feargal for helping me out with frying pans, cheese etc (though I’m a bit peeved he didn’t share the fresh tarragon!) . The Fatted Calf is definitely on my ‘to visit’ list – if only to taste more of the smoked beetroot!

As promised here are the recipes from the day…..

Pigs on the Green Pork in Tullamore Dew Whiskey Sauce

 What you need:

• 1 tbsp rapeseed oil
• 1 Pigs on the Green pork steak,  cut into medallions
• 50 g butter
• 5 tbsp Tullamore Dew whiskey, plus a little extra!
• 1 red onion sliced
• 300 ml chicken stock
• 200 ml Glenisk Cream 
• Good dash Highbank Apple Syrup
• 1 tsp chopped tarragon

What you do:

• Heat the oil in a large frying pan over a high heat. Cook the pork  pieces on one side for 2-3 minutes until golden-brown.
• Add the butter to the pan then turn the pork over and cook for 1-2 minutes until browned on the other side. Transfer the pork to a warm plate and set aside.
• Pour in the whiskey  to deglaze the pan,making sure to scrape up any bits of pork  on the bottom of pan. Reduce the heat and add the onion and sauté for 5 minutes, until softened but not coloured.
• Then turn the heat back up, add the stock and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat again and leave the sauce to simmer for 15-20 minutes or until reduced by approximately half.
• Pour in the cream and whisk in the syrup. Season, to taste, then add in another little dash of whiskey!
• Add the cooked pork back into the sauce along with the tarragon, and heat through foe a few minutes before serving with rice.

Deverell’s Farm Direct Spiced Lamb Burger

What you need:

• 450g/1lb Farm Factory Direct lamb pieces, minced
• 1 onion, grated
• 2 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp coriander
• 1 garlic clove
• Grated zest of orange
• Handful fresh coriander
• 1 tsp salt

What you do:

• This is a nice easy recipe – you just mix all ingredients together in your food processor and then form into burgers.
• If you have time, chill the burgers for a while – I think this helps them hold their shape
• Cook the burgers for about 5 mins each side.
• I served them in O’Donohue’s burger buns which Cathal kindly made for me, beautiful salad leaves from Lough Boora Farm and my own red onion marmalade.

Kilbeggan Oats Biscuits

I knew I was under pressure when I tasted the biscuits on the Kilbeggan Oatmeal Stand – they were seriously good!  Pat’s wife , Lily had made beautifully crisp cookies so we had a great chat about the differences in our recipes – the main one being the that I used the jumbo flakes whereas she uses the finer flakes. the recipe I use is a childhood favourite that my Mum always makes – I hope you like them!

What you need:

• 6oz butter
• 6oz caster sugar
• 1 dsp golden sryup
• 1 tsp bread soda
• 6 oz flour
• 8 oz Kilbeggan Jumbo Oats

What you do:

• Melt the butter and sugar slowly over a low heat.
• Add the golden syrup and remove from the heat. Stir in the bread soda
• Fold in the flour and the oatflakes.
• Make sure everything is well mixed before rolling out the mix. Stamp out into small discs
• Bake at 180C /Gas 4 for 10 mins until golden brown.

I never got to take photos of the mini banoffees made with Ballyshiel Dulce de leche;  mini meringues with compote made using Derryvilla blueberries and  Boozeberries blueberry liqueur; and decadent chocolate delight made with Coole Swan and Glenisk organic cream ………for some reason these all disappeared rather quickly……as did the cocktail sausages!! (If anyone has any pictures from the day I’d love to see them)

We really have an amazing wealth of local produce in Offaly – please support these dedicated food producers and choose local!

Thanks again to Midlands 103, all the food producers, everyone who came along to the demos and a special thanks to my Mum and James for being my assistants on the day!

Happy Cooking!

PS there’s another exciting local food project coming up – watch this space!