The Menu: Hot Chip Cookie Dough Balls are the real deal

Plus: 20 years of Urru in Bandon, Listowel Food Fair, and a drop of wine with dinner

Sat, 28 Oct, 2023 - 02:00

Joe McNamee

Urru’s 20th year in business

In a woejus sin of omission, The Menu finds it has been some time since he last made mention of Urru, Ruth Healy’s wonderful food emporium in Bandon which not only stocks a fine range of Irish speciality food products and a splendid range of fresh produce to boot, while also serving up tasty snacks and coffees, but, in a reflection of Ruth’s singular commitment to good food, in general, carries an always considered selection of culinary kit, including handmade knives, tableware, chopping boards, fine glassware, etc, as well a range of great cookbooks, with The Menu seemingly incapable of departing the store without at least one such tome in his shopping basket.

Well, there is no better way to rectify said sin of omission than to bring tidings of Urru’s 20th ‘birthday’ to be celebrated with an in-store Micro Christmas Market (free entry) along with a special edition of ‘The Art of Living’ Panel Conversation and Producer Showcase Supper Plate (ticketed), on Thursday, November 2, from 3pm, as part of the Taste of Bandon Food Festival on October 27-28 and November 4.

The market showcases the release of Urru’s latest range of innovative Christmas hampers (in 20th anniversary gold boxes, including ‘Best of 2023’ and the sustainable, top of the range, An Barróg’, which is Irish for ‘hug’) as well as producers turning up on the day, including a Menu favourite from last year, Niamh Cosgrove, of Alternative Chocolate Christmas Puddings, Anthony Cresswell, of Ummera Smokehouse, and magnificent Madeline McKeever demonstrating how to create Christmas crackers with her Brown Envelope Seed packets as the secret surprise.

The Art of Living Through the Generations panel this year features: Peter Ward (Country Choice) and Eliza Ward (Nutshed), Co Tipperary; Fallon Moore and Artie Clifford (Blás na hÉireann), Co Kerry; and Eilis Mahon and Andy Mahon (Bandon Vale Cheese), Co Cork.

Tickets are available to book in-store or online, urru.ie

Listowel Food Fair

Though it may be one of the lesser hymned Irish food festivals, the Listowel Food Fair (November 9-13) is now in its 28th year and the North Kerry town is seeking to hoover up any last-minute entries from producers for their 2023 Best Emerging Specialty Food Producer Competition, in association with the Kerry Local Enterprise Office.

The competition features five categories: Baking and Baked Goods; Beverages (alcoholic and non-alcoholic); Dairy (cultured milk, cream products, ice cream, and cheese); Condiments (jams, chutneys, sauces, and food ingredients); and Free-from and Health and Wellbeing products.

Products cannot be mass-produced and must only have been in production for two years or less.

Registration is entirely free and can be done online (deadline November 3) and the overall winner will receive a grand prize of €1,000, while category winners will be awarded €200 each.

listowelfoodfair.ie

Castlemartyr sommelier Sandra Biret. Pic: Richie Stokes

Special hotel dinners

The Menu reckons it's time for a fine tipple and the newly re-christened Anantara The Marker Dublin Hotel, where chef Gareth Mullins is pulling up all manner of culinary trees in his Forbes Street restaurant has announced details of their next wine dinner (November 2), ‘Famous Wine Families’, which will feature dinner and wine pairings with some of the world’s most well-known wine families including Champagne Bollinger, Hugel, Familia Torres, MASI and Grahams.

Closer to home, Castlemartyr Resort’s resident Sommelier, Sandra Biret, welcomes Antonio Morenés Bertán founder of Diatomists Winery, to Canopy Restaurant (November 3) for a wonderful evening of fine dining and exploration of their delicious terroir-led sherry selection, and The Menu will never knowingly turn his back on splendid sherries.

The evening begins with a drinks reception in Knight’s Bar before moving to Canopy for a four-courser from executive head chef Kevin Burke, a local feast to pair with a selection of Spanish Terroir sherries from the Diatomists winery in Jerez, Spain, with Antonio giving a sherry masterclass, an ideal introduction to one of the world’s great alcoholic beverages. Overnight packages are also available.

castlemartyrresort.ie

Today’s special

The Menu can bake a cookie and a reasonably decent one at that but he has never put in the hard yards to master what is not actually an extraordinarily difficult culinary feat.

That is not to say this lack of endeavour is in any way linked to an aversion to the cookie; on the contrary, The Menu’s relationship with the cookie runs in close parallel to the oscillations and fluctuations of the global pants market which rises and falls as The Menu gives in to temptation and then attempts to reel himself back once more to a place of extreme cookie denial.

For the most part, he restricts his cookie addiction to picking up the occasional pre-baked consignment from a good independent food retailer but all the while acknowledging there are few pleasures to rival a freshly baked cookie still warm from the oven, so his stumbling across the Hot Chip range of cookie dough already rolled into ready to bake dough balls appears to The Menu to be very much his idea of the ideal compromise.

With no more to do other than heat up the oven then place said cookie dough balls onto a baking tray, to be baked for the requisite 12-15 minutes, the results are quite excellent.

Coming in three flavours — Original Chocolate Chip, White Chocolate Chip, and Salted Caramel — and storable in the freezer for up to 10 weeks, The Menu was mightily impressed, most especially with the saline-sweet, chewy chaw of the award-winning Salted Caramel and all three are handmade using premium ingredients, including real Irish butter and Belgian chocolate, and are completely free from any artificial colours, flavours or preservatives.

As well as being available in certain retail stores, they are also available to order online, including a free personalised handwritten note.