It'sSt Patrick’s Day on 17 March, so why not get in the party spirit and celebratewith your friends and family over a delicious meal?
To mark the day, The Irish Food Board,Bord Bia, teamed up with some of the UK’s top chefs to celebrate the quality and diversity of Irish produce. Click through for more tasty recipes...
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Jacob's Ladder and Guinness cottage pie
(Rob Kirby – Lexington Catering, London - extracted from Rob's book The Family Kitchen).
For this recipe, it’s worth getting the short ribs if you can get hold of them; however, good-quality stewing steak will also work. This is a big recipe so allow yourself plenty of time – the result will be worth the effort. Hold back a couple of short rib bones or ask your butcher for a couple of fore rib bones for a fun garnish.
Serves 4-6
Ingredients
- 5 tbsp vegetable oil
- 2kg Irish beef short ribs or 1kg best Irish stewing steak
- 4 large carrots; 2 roughly chopped and 2 cut into 1cm cubes
- 4 onions; 2 chopped and 2 thinly sliced
- 1 leek, sliced
- ½ bunch of thyme
- 1 tsp peppercorns
- 1 head of garlic, halved
- 2 bay leaves
- 440ml Guinness
- 2 litres beef stock
- 50ml Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tbsp brown sugar
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
For the mash:
- 4 large Maris Piper potatoes, peeled and chopped
- 50g butter
- 100ml milk
- 50ml double cream
- 100g mature Irish Cheddar cheese, grated
- Sea salt
Method
Preheat the oven to 150°C/Gas mark 2.
Pour 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil onto a large roasting tray and place over a high heat until the oil is smoking. Generously season the ribs with salt and pepper and sear and colour until golden brown, remove from the roasting tray and drain in a colander (cook these in batches to avoid crowding the pan).
Heat a further 2 tablespoons of oil in the same roasting tray, then add the roughly chopped carrots and onions, leeks, thyme, peppercorns, garlic and bay leaves. Cook for 10–12 minutes until the veg is nicely soft and browned.
Pour the Guinness into the pan and leave to reduce by half (around 5 minutes), then return the ribs to the tray and barely cover with beef stock and Worcestershire sauce. Cover with foil and place in the oven for around 4½ hours, turning every hour until the meat is tender and is falling off the bone.
Carefully remove all the meat and bones from the pan and set to one side. Pass the cooking liquid through a fine sieve and pour into a clean pan. Place on a medium heat and bring to the boil. Skim and reduce by half (around 20 minutes; this should give you around 750ml).
Allow the ribs to cool, then pick off all the meat, shred and chop finely into a large bowl.
Place a saucepan over a medium heat, add a tablespoon of vegetable oil and then the sliced onions, sprinkle over a tablespoon of brown sugar and caramelise for 10–15 minutes. Add in the cubed carrots and cook for a further 8 minutes until slightly softened, stirring occasionally.
Add the caramelised onions and carrots to the bowl of meat, then combine with the reduced cooking liquor. Season, then place the mixture into either individual dishes or one large dish. Leave to one side and allow to cool.
Increase the oven temperature to 190°C/Gas mark 5.
Place the chopped potatoes in a large saucepan, cover with cold water, season with salt and bring to the boil. Cook until tender, then drain thoroughly in a colander. Place back in the saucepan over a low heat, add the butter, milk and double cream and season with salt, then mash together. Place in a piping bag and pipe on top of the cottage pies (alternatively, just spoon on carefully and fluff up with a fork). Sprinkle the grated cheese over the top. Place in the oven and cook for 15–20 minutes until golden brown.
Garnish with spare rib bones (optional).
Irish Steak Tartare
(from Simon Lamont atThe Walrus Room, London, thewalrusroom.com.)
Serves 1
Simon uses a prime cut mixed with a lesser cut. This gives the dish an incredible beefy flavour with a great texture. The secret with this method is chopping your meat in three styles. Fine, super fine and smooth!
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
- 6 anchovy filets, finely chopped
- 2 tsp ketchup
- 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- Hot pepper sauce (Encora/Caribbean style sauce), to taste
- Freshly ground black pepper & salt
- 60ml mayonnaise
- 2 small shallots, finely chopped
- 90g capers, rinsed
- 4 sprigs of flat parsley, finely chopped
- 100g Irish sirloin
- 200g Irish topside
- To serve:
- 1 egg yolk
- Lots of hot toast
- A handful of rocket leaves
Method
For the meat:
Divide your topside into two pieces.
Chop 100g of it quite fine, with chunky morsels going through it.
Chop the other 100g super fine, more like a mince.
Chop the sirloin extremely fine, almost to a paté. Gently mix the three cuts together and refrigerate.
For the dressing:
Chop the shallots into a fine dice; roughly chop the anchovies and capers. Mix together with the mustard, ketchup, dash of hot sauce, mayonnaise, and Worcestershire sauce.
When ready to serve, gently fold the dressing into the meat. Season with salt and pepper. Top off with an egg yolk.
Serve with hot toast and a rocket salad.
Irish Confit Salmon with tomato, onion and cucumber salad, dressed with lemon and coriander oil
(from Aktar Islam – Lasan, Birmingham, lasan.co.uk)
In this dish, the salmon is cured then confit, creating a melt-in-the-mouth consistency that also captures the vibrant flavour of Irish salmon.
Serves 4
Ingredients
- 4 x 100g fillets of Irish salmon
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp chopped dill
- 1 tsp whole black peppercorns
- 1 tsp cracked coriander seed
- Zest ½ a lemon
- 500ml olive oil
- 2 cloves of garlic
For the salad:
- Handful of mixed leaves – rocket, watercress, baby leaf spinach and red chard
- Selection of tomatoes, quartered
- ½ red onion, finely sliced
- ½ cucumber, in strips
- 1 tbsp coriander oil
- Pinch cracked black pepper
- Pinch chat massala
- Salt to taste
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
Method
To cure the salmon:
Mix the salt, sugar, lemon zest and dill together and rub over the salmon fillet. Wrap the fillets with cling film and leave in fridge for 30 minutes. Wash the salmon under cold water and pat dry with kitchen towel and wrap in fresh clingfilm and place in the fridge.
For the salad:
Using a peeler make thin cucumber strips, sprinkle with salt and set aside for 20 minutes. Wash the cucumber under cold water and leave to drain on a colander and pat dry. Make the coriander oil by taking a handful of coriander and blitz with 50 ml of olive oil.
To confit the salmon:
Warm olive oil in a pan, use a thermometer; keep the temperature to 60°C. Place the salmon fillets in oil along with peppercorn, coriander seed and garlic. At this point the temperature will drop, regulate the temperature and maintain it at 45°C and leave the fillets in the oil for 15 minutes. Remove the pan from heat and allow to cool for 5 minutes.
To serve:
For each portion; take a handful of mixed leaves, tomatoes, onion and cucumber; drizzle with coriander oil and lemon juice. Sprinkle over with chat massala, salt and cracked pepper. Finally flake the salmon over the salad and serve.
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Tartar of citrus Irish cured salmon, heritage beetroot, horseradish sorbet
(Adam Bennett – The Cross, Kenilworth - thecrosskenilworth.co.uk)
This delicate dish makes an impressive starter that will blow your guests away at your St Patrick’s Day themed dinner party. The quality Irish cured salmon, seasoned heritage beetroot and horseradish combine to make a delicious dish that is very much worth the extra effort.
Serves 4
Ingredients
For the cured salmon:
- 300g piece of skinless, boneless Irish salmon fillet
- 80g coarse sea salt
- 120g granulated sugar
- 6g chopped juniper berries
- 6g cracked white peppercorns
- 1 pink grapefruit
- 1 large orange
- 1 lime
- 1 lemon
- ½ bunch dill, coarsely chopped
For the heritage beetroot:
- 200g mixed heritage beetroot, washed
- Salt and pepper
- 3 sprigs of thyme
- Pinch of sugar
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tbsp vinaigrette (oil, white wine vinegar, salt, pepper)
For the horseradish sorbet:
- 125g sugar
- 160g water
- 5g salt
- 70g glucose
- 300g crème fraiche
- 150g Greek yoghurt
- 100g horseradish sauce
- Juice of half a lemon
To finish and serve:
- ½ bunch of watercress washed and drained
- 2 tsp finely chopped shallot
- 1 tbsp baked sourdough crumbs
Method
For the cured Irish salmon:
Finely grate the zest from each citrus fruit and combine with the salt, sugar, spices and dill.
Squeeze all the juice from the fruits but keep them separate. Add the lemon, lime and half the orange juice to the salt mixture. Add a little of the grapefruit juice to give the mixture a paste like texture
Line a tray large enough to hold the salmon with clingfilm. Spread half of the salt mixture on top then lay the salmon onto it. Cover with the remaining mixture then fold the clingfilm over the top to form a package.
Cure for 15 to 20 hours in the fridge or until the salmon feels firmer but has not toughened up. This will depend on the thickness of the fillet.
Once cured, rinse the salmon under cold water briefly then dry well and refrigerate. The salmon can be cut into 3mm dice with a sharp knife and reserved in the fridge before assembling the dish, allow about 70g per person as a starter.
For the heritage beetroot:
Place each type of beetroot in a foil package of its own, add to each a sprig of thyme, a spoon of olive oil and a little salt, pepper and sugar. Seal the packages and bake in the oven at 175ºC until tender to the point of a knife.
Remove from the oven and open the packages. When cool enough to handle rub the skins off the beetroot with your fingers, allow to cool down completely.
Cut the beetroot in to bite sized pieces, dress them with the vinaigrette, salt and pepper, leave to marinate for 20 minutes before serving.
For the horseradish sorbet:
Bring the water, sugar, glucose and salt to the boil, stirring to dissolve. Remove from the heat and cool down.
When cool add the crème fraiche, yoghurt, horseradish and lemon juice.
Churn in an ice cream maker and reserve in the freezer
To finish and serve:
Add the chopped shallot to the salmon and fold together gently, arrange the tartar on four plates either in a ring or in a loose pile.
Arrange the marinated beetroot on top then a scoop of horseradish sorbet
Garnish with the watercress and a few sourdough crumbs
Irish Herefordshire beef fillet on the bone, chicory, blue cheese salad and pickled walnut ketchup
(from Luke Tipping – Simpsons, Birmingham, simpsonsrestaurant.co.uk)
Serves 2
This simple dish brings out the fantastic flavour of Irish Herefordshire beef fillet, one of Luke’s favourite ingredients, beautifully enhanced by the rich creaminess of the Irish blue cheese salad.
Ingredients
For the fillet steak:
- 1 Irish Herefordshire beef fillet on the bone
- 2 pinches of salt
- 2 tsp vegetable oil
- Freshly ground black pepper
- For the pickled walnut ketchup:
- 390g jar of Opies pickled walnuts
- For the salad:
- 1 red chicory
- 1 white chicory
- 1 frisée lettuce
- 75g of Irish blue cheese, such as Cashel Blue
- 1 tbsp chives, cut into 1 inch batons
- Walnut oil
- Walnuts (1 per person, chopped)
- Salt
- Pepper
Method
To make the walnut ketchup:
Drain the walnuts (set aside the pickling liquid) and place in a small food processor. Blend on high, slowly adding some of the pickling liquid back to form a thick, smooth purée. Pass through a fine sieve and transfer to a clean bowl.
To prepare the salad leaves, cut the base from the chicory and remove any damaged leaves. Separate the leaves and trim the ends. Trim the outside of the frisée lettuce and pick some nice pieces from the heart.
To cook the steaks, season with salt and pepper, pressing firmly into each side.
Place a pan over a high heat, add the oil. Carefully place the steaks into the hot oil. Cook for approximately 2 minutes on each side. Remove from the pan and leave to rest in a warm place.
To serve, add the red and white chicory, frisée lettuce, blue cheese and chives to a bowl. Season with salt and black pepper and dress with a little walnut oil.
Slice the steak into two pieces, place on warmed plate. Place the dressed salad onto one half of the steak. Spoon the pickled walnut ketchup onto the side of the plate and sprinkle the chopped walnuts into the salad.
