Mussels in cream and garlic

Over 2000 miles of coastline means mussels are aplenty everywhere in Ireland and mussel farming was actually invented by an Irishman, the bouchot method which is commonly used in France.

Mussels are extremely easy to cook, the time and effort is in preparing the mussels before cooking.

They can be a starter or a main depending on the amount of mussels you use and appetite. 

Before cooking:

Throw away any mussels with damaged shells or open ones. If they do not close after being tapped they are dead and can't be used.

Clean the mussels by putting under running cold water and and scrub the shells with a hard brush. Leave them to soak for half an hour to remove any remaining sand and run again under water.

Use a knife to remove any beards/fibre attached to them.

What you need:

1 kg of mussels

2 garlic cloves

2 shallots finely chopped 

40 grams Irish butter

120ml double cream

Salt and pepper

Parsley to garnish

Soda bread to serve

What you do:

• In a large pot on a low heat add the garlic and shallots with the butter. Soften for 5 mins.
• Add the mussels, turn up the heat and cover. The mussels will cook in the steam from their own juices. Shake the pan every now and then. The mussels should cook in about 5 mins or less. They will be open.
• Remove from heat and season to taste, add cream and parsley and shake or stir.
• Garnish with some fresh parsley and serve with soda bread.

The step of cleaning the mussels is the longest. There is a quicker way I use now and it makes it super quick and even easier without compromising on flavour or quality.

Every supermarket has mussels already prepared in bags which you just boil for few minutes. Some are even flavoured already so there is very little work involved and make nearly as quick as cereal.

One that I get a lot is the garlic butter mussels and after boiling in bag for 5 mins, I return to the dry pot and add the parsley and cream and stir. Ready to serve.

Soda bread from Sainsbury's supermarket

Sometimes you want soda bread cut you haven't got the time to make it. So what do you do? Better to have some soda bread than none. Well in this case perhaps not. This was first time I tried this product and to be honest was not impressed at all. I prefer to eat soda bread just with some good quality butter and the bread crumbled very easily (perhaps why they suggest toasting it), the taste was absent and it did not resemble soda bread I have been used to. If this is the new improved recipe I would hate to have tasted what came before.
Only a pound to buy but will not be buying again even if desperate.

Champ - mash with spring onions (scallions)

This dish is an extremely simple side dish originally from Northern Ireland (where nettle tops, parsley or peas are sometimes added) and has the most amazing name guaranteed to get children excited about their dinner. Also known as poundies.
Closely related to the more famous colcannon.

"There was an old women who lived in a lamp,
She had no room to beetle her champ"


1Kg peeled potatoes cut in half
10 spring onions
200ml full fat milk
Salt/pepper
300g butter

• Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil. Add potatoes, bring back to boil and simmer for 20 mins.
• You will know when they are done when you stick a knife through one and it slides off back into the pot
• Drain into a colander and let steam for few minutes to reduce the water on them.
• Return to the dry pot and start mashing. The more you mash the smoother it will be. Traditionally a wooden masher named a beetle was used (see rhyme above)
• In a separate pot heat milk and add chopped scallions (the more the better I say, start with 2 cups chopped). Let them simmer for a few minutes but make sure they stay green.
• Add butter 200g to the mixture then add all of this to the pot with the mashed potatoes and fold well. Season with generous salt and pepper pinches.
• Serve in a bowl with a well in the middle to add the remaining butter to melt and form a pool at the centre.

I had champ with kotlet z indyka (similar to turkey escalope) Champ should be like a firm mash but I added a lot more milk to make it runnier and therefore didn't need a sauce.

Guinness -1 stout to rule them all

I remember as child looking at my fathers pint of Guinness and thinking the cream on top must taste nice. How could it not? My dad finally gave in to my incessant pleas over a period of weeks and as a 9 year old I had my first taste in the Coat and Badge pub in Putney......disgusting! I never asked again for a long time.

Headfort Arms, Kells Co. Meath

They say its better tasting in Ireland. I cant taste the difference than London to be honest.

Of course the bitter taste with a tang has to be acquired over a period of time. Often I see adults who have never tasted it before make the same face I did many years ago to which the usual next sentence is "do you want some blackcurrant in it?", the so called 'Guinness and black'.

However, in my twenties I was fully adapted and appreciative of the flavour and would often switch over to Guinness in the winter months from my preferred lager for the warming illusion during the dark nights. The other times I would immediately choose the stout over lager would be weddings or funerals. Bound to be all day drinking affairs for some reason I always seem to be able to be able to not get as drunk on it compared with the same amount of lager. Perhaps its a mental thing or that Guinness is seen as a richer drink so its like you are eating at the same time but the other great benefit is draught Guinness has very little CO2 and is mostly nitrogen. The bubbly CO2 that makes you burp won't stop you from downing pints when you have to at the numerous toasts and times you need to catch up in the round with everybody else before the next is bought.

Guinness is not the only stout available, Murphys' for example is nicer in my opinion, but the exceptional businessmen the Guinness family were (Arthur Guinness managed to make a deal for a 9000 year lease at only £45 a year for the brewery in Dublin) and the outstanding marketing strategies employed by the company have made the brand synonymous with Ireland.

As a student I started working in pubs and when Paddys day came around I was always amazed with the free merchandise sent out for punters to collect, the most iconic probably being the tall foam Guinness hat that was a must get by the end of the night. I was especially impressed one year by miniature violins which played Irish tunes when you pluck the strings. I took a massive inflatable pint of Guinness to New York for Paddys and was mobbed by everybody like it was a celebrity.
In fact owning St. Patricks' day wasn't enough as the company started promoting Arthur Guinness day which is basically a second Paddys' day 6 months after (or before) and it is gaining more and more momentum year after year.

Grab as much Guinness memorabilia as you can. 

See also:

How to pour the perfect pint of Guinness

Baby Guinness shot

Steak and Guinness pie recipe

Black and tan drink

Nettle soup recipe

As with most things in nature that which is desirable has some fearsome protective mechanism keeping hoarders at bay. I am sure most people have felt the annoying pain that is assosiated with nettles, usually as a child in summer unwittingly running around the wilds with bare legs.
I remember a story my father told me while he was working in a field as a a boy. After being caught short and having to relieve himself in the field he reached for a large leaf to wipe his backside but unknowingly picked up a nettle also. Wiping your backside with a nettle and my fathers description of the pain seeded a deep fear of this unremarkably looking plant into my heart which still plays on my mind.
So when it was apparent that I would have to confront this phobia in order to make nettle soup I done what a man needed to do......and got his daughter and nephews to pick the nettles for him!



Unfortunately the protective bags for picking were not as protective as I thought!

Nettle soup recipe:

What you need:

• Nettle tops (enough to fill a pint glass or two)
• Butter (1 oz)
• Oatmeal (1 oz.)
• water or stock (vegetable 1 pint)
• salt and pepper

What you do:

1. Wash nettles in several changes of cold water
2. Chop finely of mince (as i did in masticating juicer....be careful with pronouncing that particular word!)
3. Melt butter in pot and fry oatmeal until golden brown
4. Stir in water or stock and bring to boil while stirring
5. Add nettles, salt and pepper and bring to boil again
6. Lower heat and simmer for 30-45 minutes

I was not overly impressed by this considering the ordeal required to get the ingredients. Perhaps milk would have been a better substitute for stock/water. I added a little cream to top of nettle soup which made it more pleasant (incidentally making an image of a 6 legged goat, something with horns to represent the danger)

I can understand that in times gone by in Ireland, food was scarce and nettles abundant so nettle soup was a bound to be popular but it is not my cup of tea (I like nettle tea though....). It is also extremely nutritious and would give you a real health boost if you made a regular thing of it. I was told that there is a similar dish in Portugal but am unaware if it is from nettles or another weed.

Many doc leaves were harmed in the making of this recipe

Irish Cadburys chocolate - Easter special

With Easter upon us I thought something topical was in order. The other day I was minding my own business pouring out a pint of lager, when I saw an Irish lady out of the corner of my eye throw something purple at me. Well she did not throw it but I used a bit of drama to capture your attention. The lady passed me a bar of Cadburys chocolate exclaiming "try that". You see she had previously told me that Cadburys chocolate from Ireland is nicer than the Cadburys chocolate in England. Although I doubt she went all the way to Ireland to pick up a bar of chocolate for me, I was extremely grateful for this kind action.

Often you hear people talk about how their own country produces somethings which are better than others. In fact I think this defence of ones own country/culture is intrinsically built in and so naturally I did not feel a need to argue back that this lady is obviously biased to Ireland and that Cadburys make their chocolate the same the world over.

However seeing as though I am a trained scientist (oh yes:), I thought I would finally qualify my student loan and put some of that training to use. I decided to.......compare and contrast this Irish bar against a local version.

Without any further ado let's get into it.

Physical size

Firstly I noticed the weight difference. The English bar is substantially bigger. The English bar proudly states 49g on the packaging whereas there is no trace of a weight on the Irish packet. I think the manufacterers are ashamed! After some ratio mathematical magic I worked out the Irish bar to be a measly 17.86g! (I could have weighed it obviously but I had already eaten it). I do not know the price in cent of this bar but the English version is about 40-50p and I can not imagine the Irish shops selling them for much less than 50 cent. On one hand, it shows awful value for money but on the other rather chubby hand it shows an excess of need. Will I be satisfied with a bar of chocolate whatever the weight? Do I need those extra grams circulating around my body looking for a bed?

I would say that in the current economic climate value for money is more important than love handles since you can always walk that bit further to remedy the situation.

Irish Cadburys 0

English Cadburys 1

Aesthetics - Packaging

The English version wins chubby hands down despite a nice effort by the Irish to include a second gold leaf foil in a Willy Wonka homage. The English version has substance, an amazing sheen and feel to it that makes me not want to throw it away but wear it on my feet. There is an amazing colour change to a darker purple as some direct reflection changes to diffuse reflection. This is a wrapper worthy to be in Captain Picards fridge on the Enterprise with it's stylized technological beauty. The Irish version would feel at home in a ration pack during the Second world war I'm afraid.

Irish Cadburys 0
English Cadburys 2

Ergonomics or ease of use

English version: The separate chunks of chocolate notched into perfect portions allowing the user complete control with minimal effort.

Irish version: Initial attempt to break off some resulted in shards of chocolate all over my mothers clean carpet. More ended up on that than in me but the vigorous cleaning required afterwards did burn off quite a few calories. In fact I would compare it to celery in that eating it resulted in me using rather than accumulating calories.

But with people suing each other over the littlest thing, Cadburys England can be rest assured that no lawsuits will be coming their way as no accident at all can happen when using their user friendly bars.

Irish Cadburys 0

English Cadburys 3

Taste

The most important consideration and initially I thought it would be obvious they would be the same, coming from the same manufacturer but I was wrong. I tried both in the fashion of wine tasting (I had to clean the carpet again though after spitting on it, damn), I was perplexed by what I was sensing. Was it because the English chunkiness meant a textural change and had influenced taste? Was the wafer thin Irish bar too small for any change in taste at all?

I distinctly recognised the English bar as having a characteristic Cadburys taste and was far stronger than the Irish version, overpowering in fact. The Irish bar was smoother, creamier but not in your chubby face like the English bar. I was astounded and immediately shared my taste experiments with others. Principally, without putting a heap of statistical graphs and analysis down, the English bar was sweeter. Frantically I scanned the nutritional information on the packaging (the English one was like an essay), and there incredibly I found it. Nearly a gram more sugar (per 100g). Not really a lot when the Irish bar is lighter than an email but obviously enough.

The only other differences were that The Irish bar had nearly a gram more protein (per hundred) most likely to make up for the loss in sugar and keep the calorie levels identical.

Irish Cadburys 25
English Cadburys 3

Obviously taste has more weight in the comparison so in the home straight the Irish have won it (as they only too often do!)

Carrageen milk and cinnamon dessert recipe

For more information about Carrageen moss click here

A very nutritious and easy to digest dish and extremely easy to prepare.

What you need:

Carrageen moss (14g)

Milk (1 pint)

Cinnamon (very generous sprinkling or to taste)

Pepper (pinch)

Honey (1 tbsp or to taste)

What you do:

• Prepare the carrageen moss by soaking in cold water for half an hour and then cleaning thoroughly under running water.



• Place in pot with milk, honey, cinnamon and pepper



• Bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes

I prefer to leave the Carrageen in the mixture and eat it to obtain the full nutritional benefit but alternatively you can strain the liquid. If you intend to strain then more milk should be used as the seaweed is a potent thickener. Try 2 pints of milk. Vary the amount of milk according to desired viscosity.

Furthermore you can replace cinnamon with e.g. nutmeg, ginger , lemon rind (when straining) or use a combination.

I, along with one of my aunties who popped round at right time, found this delicious and filling, not too rich or sweet and with the added piece of mind that it is hugely beneficial to my health.