Darina Allen: This Carrageen Moss Pudding is easy to make and full of nutrients

You don’t have to go far to find Irish superfoods

Carrageen moss is one of my enduring superfoods — it’s easy to source, dried in health food shops, and inexpensive considering the nutritional value.

Superfood always sounds like a gimmicky marketing term for an often exotic food or indeed a drink that purports to have exceptional nutritional benefits. Think goji berries, moringa, chaga mushrooms, maqui berries, tiger nuts. It seems to change every year but we don’t need to search across the globe, we’ve got lots of superfoods right here in Ireland that will add pep to our step on a daily basis.

Kale is loaded with vitamins, minerals, and trace elements but so is a humble Savoy cabbage and all of the broccoli, Romanesco, and greater brassica family. That is, provided it’s super fresh and chemical-free. Freshness really matters — vegetable and fruit nutrient content, not to mention the flavour, start to tick away from the moment it’s harvested.

Home gardeners will be well aware of this — another reason to redouble efforts to grow at least some of your own superfood during 2023.

Now is the time to make a plan around the fire on these dark evenings. Maybe start a gardening club with your friends, agree to share, and enjoy the delicious results of your labour.

Go out of your way to get to a farmers market and buy directly from a grower like Caroline Robinson in the Coal Quay Market in Cork on Saturday morning. Caroline will have a seasonal selection of veg — full of flavour and vitality that will have you bouncing with energy. Check out your local area for similar treasures.

Don’t waste the leaves or stalks, use every delicious morsel. This is superfood, real health-giving food that will nourish your body, mind, and soul. Make no mistake, a bag of organically grown potatoes, a few homegrown onions (the difference in flavour and texture is considerable), or a few handsome leeks are all superfoods. Make sure to use all the green leaves — they are packed with flavour but don’t even make it to supermarket shelves.

Concentrate on trying to source as much real food as you can, the sort that doesn’t have a label with a sell-by date and a long list of ingredients. Then eat and/or cook it ASAP.

Broccoli is a case in point. Pick it, cook it simply, in boiling, well-salted water for a couple of minutes, toss in a nice dollop of good Irish butter, and the whole family will be blown away.

Seaweeds are definitely superfoods. Here in Ireland, we have more than 600 around our coasts, all are edible though some are not worth eating. Several companies are drying and processing seaweed that can be used as sprinkles over salads or added to a white soda bread or mashed potato.

Knowledgeable foragers can collect their own on a seashore walk. Harvest sustainably, snipping only what you need off the rocks for your own use, and be careful to leave the holdfast attached so it will continue to grow.

Carrageen moss is one of my enduring superfoods — it’s easy to source, dried in health food shops, and inexpensive considering the nutritional value. Try the recipe here — if you don’t have sweet geranium, it will still be delicious without it.

Finally, foraged foods. Let this be the year you learn how to identify edible foods in the wild and when you start to incorporate them into your diet. They have their full complement of vitamins, minerals, and trace elements and will hugely boost your immune system. Again, harvest wild food from chemical-free pastures, ditches, and hedgerows.

Bittercress is at its best at present as is watercress; add them to your winter salads or soup. Be sure the water is clean and constantly flowing. Alexanders are just coming into season and rock samphire is also in prime condition….

Have fun and once again, Happy New Year to all our readers.

Carrageen Moss Pudding with Sweet Geranium

recipe by:Darina Allen

This recipe given to me by Myrtle Allen is by far the most delicious I know.

Servings

6

Preparation Time

 15 mins

Cooking Time

 20 mins

Total Time

 35 mins

Course

 Dessert

Ingredients

• 6 - 8 7g cleaned, well dried carrageen moss (1 semi-closed fistful)

• 900ml (1 1/2 pints) whole (full fat) milk (we use our own Jersey milk)

• 8 medium leaves of sweet geranium (Pelargonium graveolens)

• 1 large egg, preferably free-range

• 1 tablespoon caster sugar

• To Serve:

• Softly whipped cream and soft brown sugar

• 6 - 8 frosted sweet geranium leaves

Method

1. Soak the carrageen in tepid water for 10 minutes.

2. Strain off the water and put the carrageen and sweet geranium into a saucepan with the milk. Bring to the boil and simmer very gently with the lid on for 20 minutes.

3. At that point, and not before, separate the egg and put the yolk into a bowl. Add the sugar and whisk together for a few seconds.

4. Pour the milk, carrageen and sweet geranium through a strainer onto the egg yolk mixture, whisking all the time. The carrageen will now be swollen and exuding jelly.

5. Rub most of this jelly through the strainer and beat it into the liquid. Test for a set on a cold saucer: put it in the fridge and it should set in a couple of minutes.

6. Rub a little more jelly through the strainer if necessary. Whisk the egg white until stiff peaks form and fold it in gently; it will rise to make a fluffy top. Leave to cool. Refrigerate.

7. Serve chilled with softly whipped cream, soft brown sugar and frosted sweet geranium leaves.

Hot Tips 

Into the Kitchen – Bread and Soup at Ballymaloe Cookery School ( Wednesday, January 25)

In this fun afternoon, you will head straight into the kitchen with one of our tutors and some fellow students. We will show you how to make your own loaf of delicious soda bread, savoury scones and a wonderfully simple soup — a technique that can have many delicious variations. At the end of the afternoon, you can take the fruits of your labour home to enjoy… 

• For more information, see www.cookingisfun.ie

At The Pass 

At The Pass is a coming together of leading industry and academic expertise, to devise and launch a pair of low-cost online events (webinar and workshops), targeted towards the current needs of hospitality, food and drink-related business owners. Led by Dr Orla Byrne, Assistant Professor in Entrepreneurship at UCD, Dr Noel Murray (Head of Dept for Tourism and Hospitality at Munster Technological University) and Food Business Coach and former Hospitality business owner and Ballymaloe Cookery School alumni, Tracie Daly. 

The three came together in response to media coverage of the extent of business closures in the food and hospitality sectors, the three have pooled their resources together and contacts to create a suite of information sessions which for a €5 registration fee per event, will provide impartial advice and support to business owners — ‘Manage Change and Make Big Decisions’ (January 23) and ‘Wrapping Up A Business and Moving On’  (January 30).

• For more information, see www.atthepass.ie

Congratulations Ballymaloe House 

Ballymaloe House has become one of a select number of hotels in Ireland to be recognised among the Small Luxury Hotels of the World, curated by a community of independently minded travellers who have personally visited, verified and vetted all of the hotels in more than 90 countries, all of whom are listed on www.slh.com