'I built a kitchen studio in an outbuilding and started filming'

A move to the UK has taken Cork chef Clodagh McKenna in new directions where she found a silver lining in pandemic times

Chef Clodagh McKenna: 'It was the best move I could have made.'

When I’m not browsing interiors on Instagram during lockdown evenings, I’m rifling my newsfeed for recipes to stimulate a tired palate, keep my freezer on active duty, while hoping to restrain my waistline at the same time.

Recently, I’ve defaulted to Cork’s own Clodagh McKenna’s profile where her regular stream of cheery videos provided the necessaries for my Shrove Tuesday pancakes, and a yummy fish and fennel gratin which took all of five minutes to assemble but revived my taste buds and sated my appetite.

Clodagh’s productions are restorative for those of us weary of the TV cookery programme algorithm which sees a vast sweep of kitchen counter styled with designer cookware, about five kilometres away from what’s achievable in most of our own kitchens.

Chef, cookbook author and TV personality Clodagh McKenna and her dog Nolly in the restored walled garden of her Hampshire home.

Clodagh's long-burning beeswax dinner candles come in a variety of colours to suit any tablescaping look.

Instead, she invites us to a little square of work surface at home and an atmosphere of camaraderie, a bit like sitting in your friend’s kitchen with a cup of tea and watching her cook, with impromptu singing along and dancing to background music.

Almost a year ago, like the rest of us, working life changed overnight for Clodagh.

“Work just stopped,” she says, “so, I built a kitchen studio from scratch in an outbuilding and filmed my first recipe video for my Instagram. The response was amazing.”

Within six months she went from having 30,000 followers to now almost 120,000.

“My phone started pinging constantly with messages,” she adds. “I’d say 50% of questions were from people asking me where I got my utensils, so I ordered 150 of the microplane zesters I use and put them on a web shop. They sold out straight away. So, I then asked my followers what else they’d like and now I have over 80 products on my website.”

Again, this is where Clodagh departs from the typical celebrity chef as she hasn’t partnered with a manufacturer and put her name to a range. She simply sells the utensils and textiles she’s been using and loving for years, including, she says, “a knife Darina Allen told me to buy 24 years ago”.

It was actually the Ballymaloe cookery course that launched Clodagh into a career in food and which saw her working in Italy for a period, having her own television series with RTÉ, and working in restaurants until London lured her away six years ago.

Clodagh's latest cookery book, Clodagh's Weeknight Kitchen, is full of delicious, easy to make recipes (Published by Dubray Books €28).

“It was the best move I could have made,” she says. “A lot of my friends were living there and I was exhausted from the 24/7 of restaurants which left me no time to even cook at home.

“After I moved to London I wrote two cookbooks.”

It also turned out to be the place where she met her fiancé, Harry Herbert, four years ago and with whom she now lives in rural Hampshire.

Together they’re working towards making their home, Broadspear, a sustainable homestead.

“We started restoring the crumbling walled garden three years ago,” Clodagh explains. “Now we’re growing our own veg from seed.

“It’s been a real learning curve and it’s a fantastic hobby for me and Harry. We have our coffee on Saturday mornings, pull on our jeans and jumpers and get into the garden.”

The installation of beehives soon followed, from which they now produce their own honey, and a clutch of Burford hens moved in to provide eggs, some of which starred in Clodagh’s Pancake Tuesday video last week.

Clodagh McKenna with her dog Nolly.

Fruit trees have been planted, composting systems put in place and rain water harvested to drench the gardens in summer, with excitement now building for Clodagh at the prospect of a drift of pigs arriving.

In the midst of all this industry, she also finds time to work with ITV’s This Morning, and has just been contracted to appear every week, while in pandemic style, Skype ensures she continues to pop up on the New York-based Today Show and Canada’s The Marilyn Denis Show.

If you'd like to dispense with a bulky bread bin, try a bread bag instead. Clodagh's is made of linen and has a draw string to hang it up and save space.

Meanwhile, back at Broadspear, regular filming continues for Instagram, sometimes with Harry behind the camera, who proves a steady hand at panning and zooming on Clodagh’s Irish Tea Brack just out of the oven, while double-jobbing as food taster. He endorses it with an enthusiastic: “It’s so good.”

And of course it is. As any true Corkonian would, Clodagh made it with Barry’s Tea.

• See www.clodaghmckenna.com