Touch of the Irish
I brought some of Bill Casey’s Shanagarry smoked salmon which, fortunately, the terrifying sniffer dogs at Newark Airport didn’t seem at all interested in. I made a few loaves of Ballymaloe brown bread, spread them proudly with Kerrygold butter and topped the slices with juicy salmon - everyone loved it. We were off to a good start. Arlene invites chefs from all over the world to teach at her school.
I chose a simple menu, perfect for an early spring dinner to showcase fresh, seasonal ingredients and a few simple techniques. I really wanted people to be able to cook all the dishes after the class. The potato, chorizo and flat parsley soup demonstrated the basic soup technique. US potatoes in general aren’t a patch on good Irish potatoes, but a variety called Yukon Gold works well. When I’m teaching I try to encourage people to really think about the provenance of their food when they shop and to try to source really top quality, fresh local food in season - organic, if possible.
Local is not always easy in New York, but superb produce can be bought at the green market in Union Square, Greenwich Village - one can get free range eggs, delicious organic chickens, gorgeous organic salad leaves and micro greens for a salad. I used some verjuice (made from grapes or apples) in the dressing.
The lamb came from Jamison farm in Pennsylvania - John and Sukey Jamison allow their sheep to range freely on organic pasture. The resulting lamb is much sweeter and more succulent than most US lamb, but scarcely as good as the lamb you’d get from Irish family butchers.
This time of the year is referred to as ‘the hungry gap’ for fresh vegetables, most of the winter greens are finished or the crop is running to seed - the new season’s vegetables really don’t come on stream until Whit, hence the spiced aubergine recipe.
However, we do have lots of rhubarb. How gorgeous does that taste after a long winter? I made a Roscommon rhubarb pie from my Irish Traditional Food book with the first of the new season’s rhubarb in New York. This was originally baked in a bastible over the open fire but it also works very well and tastes delicious when its baked in an ordinary oven.
This, and champ with a lump of butter melting in the centre, is real comfort food which brought nostalgic whimpers from the Irish in the audience.
I rounded off the meal with some superb Irish farmhouse cheeses from Murray’s Cheese Shop. Rob Kaufelt selected Cashel Blue, Crozier Blue and a gorgeous pungent Ardrahan. Rob recently moved into much larger premises across the road from his original shop in Bleecker Street and his cheese shop in Grand Central Station is also bursting at the seams.
By the time the class was over, I’d managed to dispel the myth of Ireland as the land of corned beef and cabbage, and had whipped everyone into a frenzy of excitement about Ireland and Irish food.
