FOOD:In her first column as Irish Times food writer, the natural-born foodie sets out her guilt-free stall
I'M FED UP. Fed up feeling guilty every time I eat, shop and feed my family. Fed up being bombarded with a million nagging doubts about the wisdom of my choices and fed up seeing people confused by conflicting messages about what we should be eating and why.
It is pretty depressing to, on the one hand, try to "buy and cook right" and then, on the other, to be told you've just ratcheted up a million air miles and a huge carbon footprint, and desecrated a community of growers through your shopping-basket choices. Why has it all got so complicated? How can we get back to enjoying and not dreading?
I have a ginormous supply of cookbooks, most of which stay firmly on the shelf, never to find themselves splattered and torn with use. Photographs of food make me hungry - food porn, as it were - but all too often, while flicking through these illicit, never-to-be-replicated food photos, I find my heart sinking as I read a list of ingredients I will never be able to purchase at 6.30pm on a dark and rainy winter's night, and, inevitably, the age-old question "What's for dinner?" resounds around the house.
It's often a question of "Well, what's in the fridge?" as this usually dictates whether dinner will be greeted with cheers of delight or threats of moving out. Considering I am partly of Scottish Presbyterian roots, my predilection towards regularly overpurchasing fruit and veg (only to find it rotting by the end of the week in the "compost drawer" of my fridge) leaves me with an awful added sense of guilt.
To counter this I have some great soup and smoothie treatments, which make me feel rejuvenated and thrifty but certainly wouldn't entice anyone over for dinner. My sister regularly asks me if I'm making "compost dinner" before accepting an invite to be fed.
I am also incredibly lazy about cooking anything fancy at home (due to lack of wash-up slaves), which is why I suppose my ultimate aim is to give you some good, foolproof home-style recipes that will not only endure and form some sort of basic repertoire for weekday and weekend meals but also sprinkle you with bits of information about all the confusing messages we are being given by food companies, scientists, doctors and journalists.
We're told to eat more fish one week, only to be told to be careful about mercury poisoning the next. Finally, you read a piece about the fact that you'd have to eat kilos and kilos of swordfish a week before the mercury would have any kind of impact. So where does one draw the line? Right through the middle, and with some balance, I hope.
Anyway, the recipe here is something I like cooking at home. My barbecue has packed it in - too many winters alfresco - and fell on top of me (in a bad way) when I tried to start it recently. You could cook this dish using a chargrill pan, but I throw it into the oven, so there's less mess. (My chargrill pan splatters everywhere).
Please don't agonise over descriptions. If you can get an organic Irish chicken, brilliant. If you can only get two pre-packed breasts with no skin on, from Timbuktu, then that will have to do. It's up to you what you want to put in your body. Feeding oneself shouldn't become this unbearable social pressure that exists among the dining classes.
Stop agonising. Just get on with it and start cooking.
Balsamic roast chicken with rocket, roast tomatoes and Parmesan
4 chicken breasts or supremes, skin on or off
few tablespoons olive oil
few tablespoons balsamic vinegar
salt and freshly ground black pepper
few cloves of peeled garlic and some thyme or rosemary if you have it.
1 pack cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
4 handfuls rocket
few chunky shavings of Parmesan or Pecorino
Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees. Plop the chicken into a roasting tray (wash your hands!) and pour over the olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Add some garlic and herbs. Season well. Add the cherry tomatoes (or leave them out if you hate them). Cover the roasting tray with a baking tray to form a lid (this just stops it drying out too much, but foil will do) and cook for about 10 minutes.
Remove the lid or foil, turn the chicken over and baste with cooking juices. Give it another blast, for 5-10 minutes more, until fully cooked through. If you aren't sure, or if your chicken breasts are ginormous, then just slice one in half, lengthways, and give it a few more minutes if it looks a little pink.
Arrange the rocket on four plates, top with the chicken and some tomatoes and loads of the cooking juices, which are like a warm and simple vinaigrette. Top with some Parmesan shavings and serve.
Who is Domini Kemp?
Domini Kemp was born in the Bahamas but moved to Ireland in 1983, because the weather is so much better over here. After a bumpy and unsuccessful career in showjumping she trained as a chef at Leith's in London before co-writing New Irish Cooking and working in the Michelin-starred Peacock Alley. In 1999 she opened her first itsa bagel restaurant with her sister, Peaches. They now run five branches of itsa bagel; the outdoor catering company Feast; and the gastro-neighbourhood restaurant itsa4, in Sandymount, Dublin, as well as Table Restaurant in Brown Thomas, Cork. Her 10-year-old daughter, Lauren, is working hard to convince her that cheese straws should be sold in the farmers' markets and that chocolate is the breakfast of champions.
