Relish Cooks.....with Tanroagan

Read an article in The Times today including one of my least favourite words......Foodie....that word really gets up my nose. People who say ‘Oh I’m a real foodie’ T*****s. Why do we have to have such a silly name to categorise someone who enjoys good food? In Italy we’d be called humans.

Things are busy busy in the Relish camp this month with cookery classes, demonstrations (cookery ones, rather than the ‘Maggie Out’ type) plus various catering bits and pieces. I harvested my first wild garlic of the season and used it in homemade mayonnaise for the lovely St.Johns WI ladies who came to the cookery school for a night out.

And I’ve had a cookery book binge, exciting times. I can particularly recommend the following:
‘Gourmet food for a fiver’ by Jason Atherton, chef at Maze. I went there last year you know.
‘Eat Me’ cupcake book by Xanthe Clay, slightly annoying tone and some poor piccies but good recipes. Love the look of the Bollywood cupcakes
‘Dough’ by Richard Bertinet. Using his French style kneading technique even I can make edible bread. Result.

Errm anyway where was I? Oh yeah, we’re at Tanroagan this month. Hanging out with, chef and owner, Joan Mowatt. I am addicted to their scallop/foccacia starter and chocolate rolo brownie dessert, yum. I have even managed to persuade Joan to teach a class at the cookery school, wahoo!

Joan has plenty of experience in the catering trade, having owned a hotel in Lincolnshire before moving to Island to retire. So, the retirement hasn’t exactly gone to plan as her restaurant is always packed.

Joan loves her desserts just as much as me so she has treated us to ‘Gorseflower Pannacotta’ which uses an abundance of local produce. The gorse flowers, cream and milk.

Gorseflower Pannacotta – serves 6

You’ll need to collect a few branches of gorse and pick the flowers. The prickles are super-sharp so definitely arm yourself with gloves and scissors. Or if you’re like me forget both and feel the pain!

700ml double cream
100ml milk
100g gorse flowers
110g caster sugar
3 gelatine leaves

Put the cream, milk, gorse flowers and sugar in a heavy-based saucepan and bring gently to the boil. Take off the heat and leave to infuse for 40 minutes.

Soak the gelatine in cold water for about 5 minutes, until soft and pliable, then remove and squeeze out all of the water. Bring the gorse flower mixture back to the boil, remove from the heat again and whisk in the gelatine, making sure it has dissolved. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve, pressing the gorse flowers to extract as much flavour as possible. Leave to cool, then pour into lightly oiled dariole moulds (about 130ml capacity) cover and leave in the fridge overnight to set.

Great served with coconut sorbet to complement the coconut-y flavour of the gorse flowers.

Full article with photos and video in the Manx Independent around 7th May

Next month we’re with the lads down at Paddy’s Market as they prepare for the Queenie Festival

Royal Show 2009

The biggest show of the summer is the Royal Agricultural Show in Sulby so we hit the show with loads of demos, again trying to raise awareness of the quality and variety of local produce on offer.

Particular thanks go to:
Butlers Choice for providing the equipment for the kitchen. Go down to their shop on Castle Street in Douglas if you're after some kitchen kit
Isle of Man Meats for providing the delicious beef, lamb and pork
Staarvery Farn for proving the herbs for the competition ingredients test
All the demo-ers.......some who looked very scared!

Dishes included:

Mexi-Manx beef tacos (Ray Craine - beef farmer)
Queenie stir-fry (Bry Radcliffe - the veg man),
Kipper and crab pates (Paul Desmond - fishmonger and kipper smokehouse)
Choc chunk cookies (Steve Martin - cereal grower)
Mayonnaise (Pentti Christian - rapeseed oil producer)
Berry smoothie and quesadillas (Dougie Coole - dairy farmer)
Queenie Pie with Samphire (Joan from Tanroagan Seafood Restaurant)
The perfect steak (Phil Teare from Isle of Man Meats)
Mushroom and Ale soup (Kathy from Greeba Mushrooms)
Secret ingredients queenies (Richard from The Shore Hotel, Gansey)

I'll put all of the recipes in a separate post here and here

It was great to get the farmers involved, talking about how they rear the animals and grow the produce for our tables. Bry Radcliffe made an entertaining appearance, although I'm not sure where his line of questioning on my fitness regime was going!

We also had the northern heats of the I Love ManxChef contest.......Claire (below with her stir-fried lambs liver, Jessica (above with her blackcurrent sorbet), Lizia and Chris (queenie stir fry) battled it out. Lizia was crowned the winner making Brazilian croquetas, a little taste of home for her, using Manx ingredients. She sells them at the Ramsey Farmers Market on Saturday mornings so you can go down and sample them. Full write-up at ilovemanx

Weather was perfect, attendance was high, all in all a good day out :o)

Southern Show 2009

Well it's been a very busy few weeks. Starting with the Southern Show at the end of July. I got to host the demo kitchen for DAFF and the I Love Manx people. This involved getting loads of different food-related people, some more willing than others, up to bring local food to the attention of the masses. We also ran the first year of the I Love ManxChef contest.

Dishes included: Ground lamb with hoummous (with Graham Crowe), Sticky beef and cashew stir-fry (Ray Craine), Thai pork noodle salad (Sean Dean in the piccie above) plus loads more. All the recipes can be found here and here

The lovely Samantha Honey-Pollock won the southern heats of the competition so she goes through to the final at the Food & Drink Festival in September at the Villa Marina. For all of the recipes and a full write-up of the competition go to the ilovemanx website

From the veg box......Roasted Baby Leeks

The baby leeks from Dot's veg box were just gorgeous. Produce like this needs such little tweaking meaning less work for me....yippee. So trim then blanch for 2-3 mins in boiling salted water. Put them in a roasting dish, splash of olive oil, a few slices of garlic, salt and pepper. I would have added a little red wine vinegar but I couldn't get the lid off the bottle :o(

Then into the oven (200degrees) for 10 minutes.

I let them cool and just ate them warm on their own, but I think they would be really good with some baked trout.

On a side note, the baking dish was a very kind present from Sheila, who is highly likely to read this. Thank you Sheila!

From the vegie box......beetroot/carrot/apple juice

This delicious juice was kindly put together by the boyfriend. Simply throw carrots, beetroot and an apple through your juicer...........then enjoy a super healthy drink.

Veggie box is here....yippee!

Dot and Robin Price run a small-holding in Lezayre (Isle of Man) which is in organic coversion. Dot informed me last week that they are now doing organic veggie boxes. This is so exciting for the Isle of Man!!!! To those of you reading from 'the mainland' yes I know you have been able to get these things for years, I used to get one when I lived in the UK. However I think that Dot + Robin's box is way better. Why? Because it is a truly local veggie box, all coming from their farm and travelling about 2 miles to the market.


Once I have the box in my clutches I'll then post my recipes each week that have included their produce. So this week I have: potatoes, carrots, beetroot, turnip, green cabbage, cauliflower, 2 boxes of eggs, coleslaw and some gorgeous baby leeks (see Exhibit A above). Now what kind of idiot would think they were spring onions??? hahaha yes that would be me, in my defence I only glanced at them and I had...errm...the sun in my eyes.

The entire contents of the box was just £10............I think this is an absolute bargain. So to order yours ring Dot on 470507. No, I'm not on commission.