Buttermilk Custard Tart with Blackberries and a meal in the Pig's Ear restaurant

I recently had a fabulous meal in a restaurant that I am just itching to visit again soon because I enjoyed the food tremendously and also because there are so many things on the menu that I really want to try when I return.

The Pig's Ear, located on Nassau Street, Dublin was bustling on the Tuesday evening that I recently visited and given that this is generally one of the quietest nights on Dublin’s social scene, I took this as a positive sign and evidence that the food must be as good as it is reputed to be.

I love eating out… I love trying different foods and eating things that even as an enthusiastic amateur, you would never think of cooking for yourself at home. Certainly, in the aftermath of my MasterChef Ireland trials and tribulations, I am now a more confident cook with a renewed enthusiasm for the food I cook and eat. I learnt a lot during my time on the programme and find that I now seek inspiration not only from books and magazines but also increasingly from eating out – and surely this is what food is all about, the actual eating and the enjoyment of the dining experience? I’m not advocating greed or gluttony, but rather an appreciation of good food and quality produce cooked with love and a desire to please.

Good food and fine dining is not only about using the most expensive cuts of meat and luxurious ingredients; it’s also about making humble, inexpensive ingredients really shine. In the right hands this can look as if it has been achieved so effortlessly, despite the fact that so much time, care and attention has doubtlessly gone into sourcing, preparing and cooking the food! Certainly, dining in the Pig’s Ear, you really get the sense that a great deal of thought has gone into developing the menu and that a whole lotta love has gone into the finished dishes.

The menu in the Pig’s Ear has something for everyone. There is a distinct focus on using seasonal Irish ingredients and the dishes contain quite a few quirky elements, designed to delight diners and push boundaries without being alarming or too avant garde. This is a restaurant that provides delicious, well-cooked food that looks beautiful on the plate and at a reasonable price. There is nothing pretentious about the food on offer here – it just tastes darn good!

For our meal we had...

 

Starters:

• Gold River Farm Beets, St. Tola Goats Cheese, Pickled Onions, Apple Molasses, Fried Sourdough
• Tartare of Kettyle Irish Veal, Tarragon, Beef Dripping Fried Bread & Leek Ash

Both the starters were lovely and looked beautiful on the plate. Whilst the beetroot and goats cheese combo seems a little clichéd these days, it tasted great and I loved the little blobs of apple molasses. The pickled onions added a piquant note and really brought the dish to life.

 

Some people may be a little squeamish about eating raw meat, but if you visit the Pig’s Ear, I urge to put any prejudices aside and order the veal tartare. This is a dish which succeeds or fails on the quality of the meat used and it did not disappoint. It takes a certain amount of confidence and belief in what you are doing to serve a dish like this. I loved it. The veal was hand-chopped and beautifully seasoned. Tiny nuggets of gherkin brought everything alive and made the meat taste even sweeter. Small crumbs of bread fried in dripping intermingled with the meat and added textural contrast but I would have preferred thin slices of toasted bread served on the side. I am a little suspicious of dusts of any description and I’m not sure the leek dust added anything to the dish. But that’s a personal opinion and overall the dish was a triumph.

 

Mains:

• John Stone’s Irish Beef Cheek cooked in Stout, Marrow Bone, Smoked Garlic Mash, Roast Onion
• Wild Irish Game’s Venison, Organic Beetroot, Cavolo Nero, Butter Roast Potato, Pickled Blackberries

The beef cheek cooked in stout was a melt-in-the-mouth dish and had a real comfort-food factor to it; but don’t think that this was something rustic looking, just heaped on the plate. As with all the food we ate, it was beautifully presented. The long slow cooking had worked wonders with what is a humble cut of meat and elevated this dish into something that was so much more than the sum of its parts. The background smokiness provided by the garlic mash worked perfectly with richness of the unctuous stout sauce – I licked my plate clean.

 

I also loved the venison. Here loin had been used which had been beautifully cooked. This was such a well-balanced dish with sweet beetroot, iron-rich cavolo nero and fruity but tart pickled blackberries. I would have added or taken away nothing.

 

We ate the mains with a side order of Duck Fat Roast Potatoes and really what more can be said. Everything tastes good when cooked in duck fat!!!

 

Desserts:

• Cuinneog Farm Buttermilk Custard, Cherry Sorbet, Winter Berries
• Home Made Brown Bread Ice-Cream, Spiced Prunes, Yellowman

Now… anyone who knows me knows that I am a dessert kinda gal and I wasn’t disappointed with what we ordered here. I have always had a penchant for brown bread ice-cream as it reminds me of grandmother who loved it. In many ways this was a simple dessert; ice-cream, fruit with textural contrast provided by the yellowman, which is honeycomb by another name. This was a perfectly lovely dessert which anyone would be happy with… but with the other dessert – the buttermilk custard – I was ‘ooohing’ and ‘aaahhhing’ with absolute pleasure.

 

I love buttermilk and often use it in my baking when making bread and cakes. I also make a panna cotta using it, but this custard was richer than any panna cotta and coupled with the intensely flavoured cherry sorbet, it was heavenly! I also loved the slightly bitter caramel edge of the honeycomb crumbs sprinkled on top of the sorbet. Buttermilk has a slightly tangy flavour, which tastes lighter in the mouth than a full cream custard would and made this dessert the perfect end to what was a very enjoyable meal.

 

Inspired by my visit to the Pig’s Ear and the lingering pleasurable memories of the buttermilk custard, I decided to do some experimenting. I love eating out in different restaurants and picking up ideas that I can bring back to my home cooking. This is my Buttermilk Custard Tart inspired by my visit to the Pig’s Ear. I am really pleased with how it turned out and am rather proud of the results.
 

Ingredients:

Pastry:

200g plain flour

50g icing sugar

85g butter, cubed

1 egg yolk

1-2tblsp cold water

Custard:

175g caster sugar

15g plain flour

2 eggs + 2 egg yolks

400ml buttermilk (I used Cuinneog Farm)

50g melted and cooled a little

Blackberry compote:

75g caster sugar

25ml water

150g blackberries

 

Method:

Pastry:
1. Sieve the flour and icing sugar into a large mixing bowl and add the butter. Using your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
2. Make a well in the centre and add the egg yolk and water. Using a fork, mix everything until it comes together and forms a dough. Turn the dough out on to a lightly floured work surface and knead briefly and shape into a ball. Cover with cling film and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

3. Preheat the oven to 180C/Fan Oven 160C/Gas Mark 4.

4. Roll out the pastry until it is about 3mm thick and use to line a 22-23cm round tart tin, about 4cms deep with a removable base. Line this with non-stick baking parchment  and fill with baking beans. Blind bake for 10 minutes and then take out of the oven and remove the baking beans and parchment. Return the pastry to the oven and bake for a further 5-7 minutes until it is a light golden brown colour. Remove from oven and set aside to cool.

Custard:

5. Place the caster sugar, flour, eggs and yolks in a large mixing bowl and using a hand held electric mixer, on a low speed, beat together until well mixed. Slowly add the buttermilk and melted making sure that they are well incorporated.

6. Pour the custard into the cooled tart case and bake in the oven for 40-50 minutes until the custard has puffed up slightly, is cooked through, but still has a slight wobble in the centre. Check the tart after 30 minutes cooking and if it appears to be browning too quickly, reduce the heat slightly. Remove from the oven when cooked and set aside to cool to room temperature before serving.

Blackberry compote:

7. Place the sugar, water and half the blackberries in a small saucepan and bring up to the boil. Reduce the heat and allow to simmer for about 10 minutes until the blackberries have softened and the released juices have become syrupy. Add the remaining blackberries and cook for a further minute.

To serve:

8. Serve the tart, in thin wedges, at room temperature and spoon over some of the blackberry compote.

 

Serves 10-12.

 

     
 

Cranberry & Orange Cake

Is it too early to be thinking about Christmas baking and cooking? Well, the thing about this cake is that although it borrows from the flavours of Christmas, it is a great cake in its own right and is something delicious to make when fresh cranberries are in season; it doesn’t have to be confined to Christmas alone.

Cranberries can be somewhat sharp, so do need a little sweetening… but if you use too much sugar you risk drowning out their distinctive taste. I have paired cranberries with orange in this cake and really feel that the orange lends a natural fruity sweetness that balances out any sharpness perfectly.

 

The cake has a close crumb and is unusual in that cream cheese is used along with butter to add richness to the cake. Despite this, the cake is not heavy and although close textured has a lovely velvety feel in the mouth when eaten. The cream cheese adds a very subtle tangy note but this is barely discernible and in my opinion adds a depth of flavour and a certain complexity to the finished cake. The other great thing about using the cream cheese is that it adds substance to the cake batter, which prevents the cranberries from sinking as the cake cooks.

For those who don’t like rich fruit cakes, this is a lighter, although still indulgent, cake that is perfect for the festive season. I chose to bake the cake in a 28cm ring tin, but if you don’t have one, you could always bake the cake in a 23-25cm round cake tin. However, if you have a ring tin, do use it, because I think that it just makes the finished cake just look so Christmassy, especially when also decorated with the glacé icing and frosted cranberries. Unlike a traditional rich fruit cake which ideally should be made several weeks in advance of consuming to give the cake a chance to ‘mature’, this cake is made no more than a couple of days before eating. Of course, if you are anything like me, I’ll make a traditional Christmas cake AND also this one!

I sometimes make another version of this cake substituting lemon and blueberries for the orange and cranberries respectively. This is also a fab cake and one that has proved extremely popular with my nearest and dearest (and various others!!!).

 

Ingredients:

185g butter, softened
185g cream cheese
330g caster sugar
Finely grated zest of 2 oranges
3 large eggs, lightly beaten

165g self-raising flour

115g plain flour

125g fresh cranberries

Frosted cranberries:

25g cranberries

1 egg white, lightly beaten

Caster sugar for sprinkling

Icing:

175g icing sugar

Juice of ½ orange
 

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C/Fan Oven 160C/Gas Mark. Using some butter, grease a 28cm ring/savarin tin and then dust with a little flour, shaking out any excess.
2. Place the butter, cream cheese in a large bowl and using a hand held electric mixer, beat together until light and fluffy. Add the grated orange zest and mix through. Gradually add the eggs beating well after each addition until they too are fully incorporated.
3. Sift the plain and self-raising flours together and fold into the cream cheese mixture making sure that there are no pockets of flour remaining. Finally add the cranberries and mix through so that they are well distributed.
4. Spoon the batter evenly into the prepared tin and level the surface with a spatula or back of a metal spoon. Bake in the preheated oven for 35-45 minutes until well risen and firm to the touch or when a thin metal skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.
5. Allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to finish cooling completely.

Frosted cranberries:

6. Using a pastry brush, light coat the surface of each cranberry with a little egg white before tossing in some caster sugar. Set aside on a clean plate and allow the sugary surface of the cranberries dry out a little.

Icing:

7. Mix the icing sugar and enough freshly squeezed orange juice together to create an icing with a ‘coating’ consistency. Spoon over the top of the cake and allow to flow naturally down the sides of the cake.

8. Decorate the top of the cake with the frosted cranberries, by placing them on the glacé icing before it hardens.
 

Serves 10-12.
 

Curried Parsnip Soup with Smoked Haddock

I love the sweet earthiness of parsnips and truly feel that they are a much underused vegetable. When I was younger, my grandmother would sometimes serve them peeled and simply boiled as a vegetable accompaniment to her fabulous roast chicken. At Christmas, she would roast them, drizzled with a little honey in some hot oil and serve them alongside the turkey, roast potatoes and Brussels sprouts… but in reality we didn’t have them too often. I love them, but to be honest they were always a divisive vegetable, with half of the family (ironically, all the women) loving them whilst the other half (all the men) hated them.  For me, to this day, Christmas dinner is not Christmas dinner without roasted parsnips. My children aren’t keen on them, but I still make a large serving-bowl full of them, in the hopes that I will be able to convince them that parsnips are a wondrous and totally delicious vegetable!

Of course there are so many other ways that parsnips can be used other than just boiling or roasting them… Then can be thinly sliced and deep fried to make parsnip crisps, puréed and because they have an inherent intense, natural sweetness, they can even be used in more innovative ways to make cakes, ice-creams and other desserts! Here I have used them a little more simply to make a beautiful creamy curried soup which I have topped with some flakes of smoked haddock. The sweetness of the parsnips is tempered by the spicy warmth of the curry and the smokiness of the fish to create a beautifully balanced and very moreish soup – it was yum!

This was quite a substantial and filling soup, given the addition of the smoked haddock, but on a cold, wintry day it makes a delicious lunch. You could also serve it in smaller portions as a tasty starter at Christmas… It’s hugely adaptable. The great thing about it is that even people who aren’t fans of parsnips seem to love this soup… my three fussy eaters at home all loved it and I think that I achieved something worthwhile in creating a soup that they liked a lot despite the fact that it contained a vegetable that they had previously claimed to dislike!

Ingredients:

25g butter
1 medium sized onion, peeled and chopped
2 sticks of celery, chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
1tsp medium curry powder

800g parsnips, peeled and chopped into 2cm chunks

1 medium potato, peeled and chopped

1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and chopped

1 litre of vegetable stock

Sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

100ml cream

To finish:

250g smoked haddock

Enough milk to just cover the smoked haddock

2 bay leaves

Method:

1. Heat the butter in a large saucepan and gently fry the onion, celery and garlic over a moderate heat for approximately 5 minutes until softened but not coloured. Add the curry powder and stir through, coating the onions, celery and garlic and cook for a further minute.

2. Add the parsnips, potatoes and apple and stir again. Cover the saucepan and allow the vegetables to sweat and soften a little without colouring. Add the stock, increase the heat and bring up to the boil. Reduce the heat, until everything is just simmering. Season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Cover the saucepan and cook for about 20 minutes until the vegetables are tender.
3. Spoon the contents of the saucepan into a liquidiser or blender (doing it in batches if necessary) and purée until smooth. Pour into a clean saucepan and keep warm over a gentle heat until ready to serve.
To finish:
4. Place the smoked haddock in a small saucepan and pour in enough milk so that the fish is just covered. Add the bay leaves and place saucepan over a moderate heat and bring up to the boil. Allow to cook for approximately 5 minutes and then remove from the milk. Remove the skin from the smoked haddock and break into small flakes.
5. Add the cream to the soup and stir through. Taste and adjust seasoning as necessary. Serve the soup in bowls with the flaked fish on top.
 

Serves 6.

Chicken in Cider with Carrots & Peas

This is a delicious winter-time dish, but it is also one that suits almost any season. The original recipe was included in a book called Your Favourite Recipes by Theodora Fitzgibbon - one of my all-time favourite food-writers.

Theodora used to write a weekly column for the Irish Times and in addition to giving recipes, she would also write about the stories behind the dishes; hers were recipes you wanted to cook and taste. Most importantly, Theodora’s recipes always worked. The Christmas cake and pudding that I make every year are based on recipes that she provided, and even though I have tweaked them over the years, I still consider them to be Theodora’s.

 

I was so enamoured and influenced by Theodora that I even wanted to name my second daughter after her, but my husband was having none of it. In fairness, he has had to put up with the clutter of hundreds of cookbooks and all the gadgets and equipment that comes with my love of cookery, but I think he finally reached his tipping point when I wanted to start naming my children after my favourite food writers!

 

When you read the ingredients list for this recipe, they seem slightly strange – chicken in a cider, honey, soy sauce and cream sauce with carrots and peas just sounds a bit wrong, but trust me… it works. The cider and honey accentuate the natural sweetness of the carrots whilst the soy sauce adds a salty savoury element to proceedings.

 

Other than initially frying off the chicken, this dish cooks away quite happily by itself in the oven. You can easily double the quantities if you need to feed more people. This dish is wonderful served with some velvety soft mashed potatoes, but I also like it with crisp sautéed potatoes, as can be seen in the photographs accompanying this post.
 

Ingredients:

A splash of vegetable oil
35g butter
1 chicken cut into 4 or 4 chicken portions, skin on

2 medium onions, finely chopped

A sprig of thyme

25g flour

600ml dry cider

2tblsp honey

5-6 medium carrots, sliced into discs

2-3tblsp soy sauce

Sea salt & freshly ground pepper

To finish:

100g frozen peas

50ml cream
 

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/ Fan Oven 160C/Gas mark 4.

2. Heat the vegetable oil in an oven proof casserole dish on the hob, over a moderate heat. Add the onion and fry gently until softened but not coloured. Increase the heat season and then fry the chicken pieces for 3-4 minutes on each side until they are a rich golden colour.

3. Sprinkle the flour over the browned chicken and continue to cook for a further minute until the flour has cooked out. Pour over the cider, scraping the bottom of the dish with a wooden spoon to loosen any caramelised bits and give them a chance to incorporate into the sauce as the dish cooks in oven.

4. Add the thyme, honey, soy sauce and sliced carrots. Cover the casserole dish and place into the preheated oven for 45-55 minutes.

5. Five minutes before the cooking time has finished, add the peas and cream and stir through. When the cooking time has elapsed, remove from oven, taste, adjust seasoning as necessary and serve.
 

Serves 4.