Food Month

Food Month Digest: Gourmet butter; restaurant reviews; and Stanley Tucci’s perfect martini

Róisín Ingle’s search for a decent Sunday roast; recipes; How to Drink Better with John Wilson and a peek at what’s to come this week

A burger from Mad Egg. The chicken, dressed with lettuce and pickles, is shatteringly crunchy on the outside and deliciously juicy inside, says Corinna Hardgrave.

Sun Nov 12 2023 - 11:00

Food Month is under way and continues all November at The Irish Times. Here’s a look at some articles and recipes you might have missed and a glimpse at what’s coming up this week.

Better Butter

Irish Gourmet Butter has quickly become a favourite among bakers and chefs. When Billy Sharpe was casting about for business ideas after retiring as a master craftsman at Waterford Crystal, he and his wife Mary soon settled on butter making. Their Irish Gourmet Butter company, which started in 2017, won a silver Blas na hÉireann award only months after they opened, and has since gone on to win gold or silver every year, including being named best artisan product in Ireland in 2020.

Restaurant Reviews

Corinna Hardgrave visited Mi Casa in Smithfield, Dublin, where nearly all the dishes have Spanish names, but in style it’s Spanish cooking with an emphasis on the “ish”. The food is tasty, the room is buzzy, the service is charming and it all feels very Stoneybatter/Smithfield in vibe.

Corinna also tried out a takeaway from Mad Egg on Charlotte Way in Dublin. She was impressed: “Not only does Mad Egg get top marks for provenance and sustainable packaging, its food is also delicious.”

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Love and Yorkshire Puddings

For Róisín Ingle, what better time than Food Month to dissect her mother’s love life over Sunday lunch? “The research was important,” Ingle says. “My mother and I have been badly stung before. The last time we went out for a Sunday roast a few years ago the Yorkshire puddings were a terrible disappointment.” She also wonders is it actually possible, in this day and age, to have a phone-free lunch?

Working from Home

We heard this week from a young woman who started a food business from her own kitchen. Aoibhín O’Dea, from Gweedore, Co Donegal, started baking for local cafes when she was 13. “I finished out my years in secondary school, and decided I was going to keep at this bakery business,” she told Rosita Boland. “I had made enough to build my own bakery: we converted a shipping container into a commercial kitchen at the back of our house.” Now the 20-year-old runs the business Cácaí Aoibhín and presents a children’s bakery show on TG4.

Recipes

We’ve had loads: Swedish meatballs and mash; luscious mac and cheese; mighty maple pork; Aishling Moore’s storecupboard pasta puttanesca; Cúán Greene’s Japanese rice bowl; and more

How to Drink Better

John Wilson tackles the old question, can I drink white wine with my steak? “Of course you can,” he says. But! “It does make a certain amount of sense to drink a rich red with steak; both have plenty of power and flavour, and those drying tannins on the wine melt away when eaten with rare red meat, while increasing the flavour of the steak at the same time.” Nonetheless, he still recommends a few whites to pair with steak.

John also put Stanley Tucci’s perfect martini through its paces against some Irish versions of the classic cocktail.

Coming Up

This week, we take a look at the best new restaurants to try in Ireland; great restaurants for an old-fashioned Sunday roast; we bring you more quick and easy dinner dash recipes; we have patisserie people, the new generation of Irish pastry chefs and their recipes; as well as our usual restaurant reviews, takeaway review and John Wilson on wine.

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