The Silk Road Café at the Chester Beatty Library at Dublin Castle is serving an array of traditional Persian dishes today, to coincide with the Shahnama exhibition at the museum, which celebrates the millennium of the Book of Kings
BOOK OF THE WEEK:
Baking Made Easy Lorraine Pascale (Harper, £18.99/€22)
Just as a skinny chef is thought not to inspire confidence, would you buy a baking book written by a former model (who has retained her skinny physique)? Yes, if it's stuffed with clever, modern recipes for eye-catching and indulgent treats. Lorraine Pascale is a new face on BBC's food programming, and the book that accompanies her recent TV series, Baking Made Easy, is a full-fat exploration of the science of creating bread, cakes, tarts, biscuits and pies. Elegant cakes are Pascale's speciality, and this unusual Mojito Genoise, a light and fluffy Italian sponge flavoured with white rum, mint and lime (left) would make a really unusual adult birthday cake. Baking Made Easyis now chasing the record-breaking Jamie's 30-Minute Mealson the bestseller lists.
KIELY IN THE KITCHEN:
The Orla Kiely kitchenware collection is now on sale at Kilkenny Shops in Cork, Dublin, Galway and Cashel and Killarney. So if you want your casserole to match your handbag, this one costs €69.95
MATCHA AND MORE:
Rather than reach for green food colouring to bring a festive glow to your St Patrick's Day creations, you could follow in the footsteps of chef Ferran Adria and Parisian pâtissier Pierre Hermé and use matcha powdered green tea to colour and flavour all sorts of confectionery. The Japanese product can be mixed, like powdered coffee, into a variety of cake batters, cookie recipes and ice-cream bases. You can get it from health stores or at matcha.ie(€19.95), and the flavour is not too strong.
ORANGE ILLUSION:
One of the signature dishes at Heston Blumenthal’s new restaurant, Dinner, at the Mandarin Oriental in London, is a trompe l’oeil orange jelly sphere filled with chicken liver parfait. The visually stunning dish, called Meat Fruit, is based on a medieval recipe. This impressive interpretation (pictured right) isn’t straight from the maestro’s kitchens, but is the work of amateur cook and forager Alan Spedding, who writes about the (six-day!) process in his blog, cumbriafoodie.wordpress.com. Spedding, who works in nuclear construction at Sellafield, was spurred into action by the three-month waiting list for a table at Dinner, and decided to have a go at making the dish himself.
FOODIE FUN AND FESTIVALS:
There are lots of really vibrant and diverse food festivals coming up in the next few weeks. Here are a few dates for your diaries:
March 17th-20thSó Sligo Food Culture Festival (World Irish Stew Championship, new National Irish Dish competition, artisan markets, food trail and cookery demos).
March 18th (11am-3pm)EuroSpar, Newpark Shopping centre, Kilkenny launches a local food initiative (Ryeland Cookery School demos, tasting sessions with local food producers)
April 1st-3rdDublin Bay Prawn Festival, Howth, Co Dublin (cookery demos, wine tasting, prawn shelling competition, Safari Dine-Around, Prawn Parade).
April 15th-17thWaterford Festival of Food, Dungarvan, Co Waterford (UK chef Mark Hix, along with Richard Corrigan, Paul Flynn, Ross Lewis and Martin Shanahan. Food Camp, farmers' market, restaurant trails and Bus Bia transport to local food producers).
April 27th-May 2ndRoscommon Lamb Festival (barbecue Brasilia and Irlanda, sheep farm walks).
May 21st-23rdBurren Slow Food Festival (farmers' markets, demos, children's cooking events).
More details of these festivals is available from discoverireland.ie/food
