Aoife McElwain's 'Messy': A big book of comfort food for beginners

In her new cookbook, Aoife McElwain gently and patiently brings the joy back to the kitchen with recipes like messy eggs and an easy, slow-cooked beef and harissa stew

Food writer Aoife McElwain pictured near Roundstone, County Galway with her companion dog Walter . Photo: Ray Ryan

WE KNOW we should be cooking at home: It saves money, cuts down on food waste, and helps us rely less on ultra-processed food. Making yourself and others something good to eat is a way of being well and staying well.

But in an age of performative cooking and beautifully styled plates on social media, what happens when the cake batter splits, the pâté looks like cat food, and the stew sticks to the pot? Instead of telling the tale of a cosy family dinner through food, it might feel as if the Instagram story that you have to tell is one of burnt bread, over-cooked potatoes, and pure despair at trying to get something edible on the table. And why is it that so many of the recipes we cook at home never look like the results in the video or photos?

In a world of fabulous food content, it’s all too easy to give up before we even start, to spend time devouring bytes instead of making bites. Is it even worth trying to feed ourselves?

Yes, it is, says food writer, DJ, creativity coach, and event planner Aoife McElwain, whose debut cookbook Messy is all about embracing the messy in the kitchen and understanding how cooking, eating, and sharing food can be a source of comfort.

McElwain, known to music festival goers for being the chief craic mechanic at her joyful Sing Along Social cheesy pop singing and dance parties, is based in Connemara, where she describes herself as a “hustling freelancer”. Along with food writing, one of her jobs is as a DJ for service users at residential care centres around Connemara, a project funded by Creative Ireland Galway.

The route into the kitchen wasn’t straightforward for McElwain. “I only learned how to cook in my 20s,” she explains over the phone from her home in the West of Ireland. “I really remember putting a question out on Twitter [asking] what does it mean to brown a sausage? I did not know what that meant. That’s only 15 years ago. For someone who has cooked all their life or started early, they’ve had their 10,000 hours before turning 21. For someone who’s done that, cooking is intuitive.”

The 10,000-hour rule, made popular by Canadian author Malcolm Gladwell, is theoretically key to achieving expertise in a particular skill set. For McElwain, starting to cook as an adult meant feeling under pressure while trying to master skills others had spent years honing.

“I can clearly see the different stages of learning that I went through,” she says. “I realised while I was learning that my expectations for myself were so high at the beginning of the journey.” Many of us have been there, overreaching in the kitchen, particularly when cooking for others.

“I had high expectations of what a beginner cook could create for a dinner party,” she says. “I remember being a complete nightmare to my partner at the time, being just like the classic kind of panicking cook, crying into the spoiled sauce.”

Food writer Aoife McElwain pictured near Roundstone, County Galway. Photo: Ray Ryan

Rather than get disillusioned with cooking, McElwain, who describes herself as a “very curious person … with an appetite for trying new things”, leaned into it. Her work as a creativity coach enabled her to see how learning how to cook — “or anything, really” — can be broken down into the four stages of competence. From unconscious incompetence, what McElwain calls “the blissful beginning when you don’t actually know that you don’t know anything”, through the “hardest and longest” stage of conscious incompetence (“Oh no! I don’t know what I’m doing”) and on to conscious competence (“Oh my gosh, I can do this, I’m doing it, it’s happening, I’m cooking!”). The fourth stage is unconscious confidence: “Where you don’t even really think about it, but you can suddenly do something.”

In Messy, McElwain wants to bring fellow learners along that creative route. Gently and clearly, she takes readers through simple dishes, moving from toast with notions and macaroni cheese to sustaining soups, unstressful party food — a slow-cooked beef and harissa stew is a lovely blend of aspirational and achievable — outdoor food (tips for campfire cooking, malty muesli bars) and a little, just a little, baking.

The final recipe is Pauline’s Pavlova, a recipe from McElwain’s mother, delicately seasoned with family nostalgia. But before that marshmallowy pinnacle, it’s important to be able to embrace imperfection.

“When we’re learning and put too high expectations on ourselves,” says McElwain, “ it adds pressure that’s really unhelpful and not conducive to learning. So that’s why messiness is such an important stage.”

“For me, food — like music — is such a connector,” she says, “a tool to connect with people, to tell them I really love them, a way for me to share a beautiful experience.”

In that way, food can also be a way of helping people to connect with themselves: “If we’re a bit disconnected from ourselves, maybe through anxiety, stress, sadness or hyperactivity, food really has the power to bring us back into the present moment, into our bodies, into what we’re experiencing right now.”

Her recipe for messy eggs — requiring 100% of your attention for a minimum of 90 seconds — gives the cook an opportunity to focus on being present, observe the feeling of the egg texture changing in the pan, and appreciate the satisfaction of making a nourishing meal.

Cooking is not about perfection, nor is it about producing a plate of food to be photographed. It’s about being aware of what you — and those around you — need to eat. With Messy, McElwain’s accessible and comforting recipes will help you to eat well while helping you to embrace the chaotic imperfection of kitchen life.

Aoife McElwain's Messy Eggs

These messy eggs are scrambled in the pan instead of in a bowl, inspired by the way they make them at my favourite café, The Fumbally. It’s not about being perfect, it’s about being present.

Servings

1

Preparation Time

 2 mins

Total Time

 2 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• bread for toast

• lots of butter

• coffee or tea for drinking

• eggs

• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

• your favourite chilli oil or hot sauce

Method

1. Make your hot buttered toast.

2. Make your coffee or tea.

3. Melt about a tablespoon of butter in a frying pan on a medium-high heat. It’s showtime for the eggs now. Give them 100% of your attention for the next few steps, which is approximately 90 seconds in real time. Ready?

4. When the butter is melted and sizzling, crack the eggs directly into the pan. Use a wooden spoon to immediately start mixing the eggs around, breaking up the whites and yolks. Mix continuously for 15–20 seconds. Let the eggs rest in the pan for 10–15 seconds, then mix again for 15 seconds.

5. At the 45-second to 1-minute mark, the eggs will start to come together. Just watch them for 15 seconds. Don’t be tempted to look at your phone or take out the bins or tidy up. Just watch the eggs. That’s your one job. Stir them from time to time. My messy eggs are done after 90 seconds. You might want them a little less cooked or a little more cooked.

6. Serve on top of your buttered toast with a sprinkling of salt and pepper and a generous drizzle of your favourite chilli oil or hot sauce. Best eaten straight away.

Messy, Blasta Books.

• ‘Messy’ by Aoife McElwain (Blasta, €17) is on sale now