Currabinny Cooks: This chicken, bacon and cider traybake is easy and so delicious

And a bacon and cabbage soup that is 'less scary' than coddle 

This bake is perfect paired with buttery mashed potato. Picture: Bríd O'Donovan

There is nothing quite as irresistible as the smell and sound of bacon crackling on a hot pan.

Bacon has six inherent ingredients with umami flavour. A Japanese word that loosely translates to “deliciousness” umami flavours are responsible for that meaty, savoury flavour we all love so much. Umami is also present in ingredients like miso, soy sauce, mushrooms and some aged cheeses but there is nothing quite like the hit your taste buds get from bacon. Chemistry plays a role here too. 

During the cooking process, bacon fat breaks down and creates taste compounds that are sweet, buttery, and salty. This results in the exclusively scrumptious flavour that notoriously accompanies bacon.

After going through a period of exclusively intensive factory farming, good quality bacon has returned slowly to this Island. There are now several organic, free-range, rare breed, great quality pig farmers in Ireland.

Bacon and cabbage soup

recipe by:Currabinny Cooks

This bacon and cabbage soup, I think, achieves the idea of coddle, without the scary sausages.

Servings

4

Preparation Time

 4 mins

Cooking Time

 20 mins

Total Time

 24 mins

Course

 Starter

Cuisine

 Irish

Ingredients

• olive oil

• 8 unsmoked rashers, cut into thick pieces

• 1 medium onion, peeled and finely chopped

• Few sprigs of thyme, leaves only

• 1 bay leaf

• 500g potatoes, peeled and cut into ½ inch cubes

• 1 carrot, medium dice

• 1 celery, finely diced

• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed

• 1.5 litres of chicken stock

• Sea salt & black pepper

• 120g green cabbage leaves, roughly chopped

• Big handful of fresh parsley, finely chopped

Method

1. Heat a drizzle of oil in a large saucepan or casserole over a medium high heat. Cook the bacon until crisp and then remove from the pan leaving the hot oil and bacon fat behind.

2. Turn the heat down slightly to medium and add the onion, season with sea salt and plenty of freshly cracked black pepper, cooking for a couple of minutes until soft. Add the thyme leaves and bay leaf along with potatoes, carrot and celery. Stir everything around the pan for a further 5 minutes and then add the garlic, continuing to cook for another minute.

3. Return the bacon to the pan and then add the stock. Turn the heat back up to medium high and bring to the boil and check the seasoning, adding more black pepper if needed. Turn the heat down to medium and let simmer for 10 minutes. Add the cabbage and simmer for a further 5 minutes. Add the chopped parsley last and serve hot in deep bowls with some buttered bread.

Pink peppercorn bacon

recipe by:Currabinny Cooks

A friend made this for me in the summer after a big night out. I had never had bacon served to me in this way before and it blew my mind.

Servings

4

Cooking Time

 30 mins

Total Time

 30 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• 8 slices of streaky bacon rashers

• 1 tbsp pink peppercorns

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 200°C. Line a rimmed baking sheet with tinfoil and place a wire rack on top. Crush the pink peppercorns lightly in a pestle mortar.

2. Place the rashers on the wire rack and sprinkle half the pink peppercorn all over the bacon. Bake for 15 minutes and then turn the rashers over and sprinkle the rest of the pink peppercorns over, bake for a final 15 minutes until nicely brown and crispy.

Chicken, cider and bacon traybake

recipe by:Currabinny Cooks

This is a wonderful example of how bacon can help elevate the taste of the other ingredients in a dish

Servings

4

Preparation Time

 5 mins

Cooking Time

 40 mins

Total Time

 45 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• 4 organic skin-on chicken thighs

• 4 thick-cut smoked rashers

• 1 banana shallot, peeled and thinly sliced

• 450ml dry Irish cider

• 1 heaped tsp Dijon mustard

• 1 tbsp plain flour

• Butter

• Olive oil

• Sea salt and black pepper

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C.

2. Heat a little olive oil in a large oven proof pan or casserole on medium high. Add the chicken legs to the pan and cook for 3-4 minutes each side so it is brown and crispy on the outside.

3. Remove the chicken to a side plate. Add the bacon to the pan along with the shallot and cook for 3-4 minutes until the bacon crisps up and the shallot softens. Stir the flour into the pan. Gradually pour in the cider, simmering for 4 minutes and then stirring in the mustard.

4. Place the chicken legs back in the pan and place in the oven, baking for 35-40 minutes. The chicken should be cooked through and the sauce, bubbling and turning golden. Serve.