Spice crusted potatoes

These little beauties are proving very popular at the moment. Either as a big buffet bowl, or with a tamarind dip as a little finger food-y canape wotsit.

Dead simple to do. If you 're making ahead then boil the new potatoes until they're cooked through, then leave aside to cool. Then follow Step1. but you 'll only need to put them in the oven for 10mins to crisp up.

If eating straightaway then:

1. Prepare spice mix....for 1kg of spuds use...
1 tbsp coriander seeds
1 tbsp cumin seeds
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp veg/groundnut oil
Bash the seedy ones up in your pestle and mortar, then combine with the rest of the ingredients.

2. Put your potatoes in the roasting tin then distribute your spice/oil mix evenly. Then into a hot oven they go for about 35-45 mins until golden brown.
Done!
Ooooh let's have a closer look at those tantalising tubers
We had them for dinner with carrot and coriander salad. Some lucky clients got them with 'Harissa coated legs of Loaghtan lamb'

Ellerslie Rapeseed Oil - 2 recipes

Aaah spring is here and with it rain, snow and sleet. Lovely!

For my column I went off-campus at Ellerslie farm in Crosby and was joined by Pentti Christian who has been selling his rapeseed oil since September 2009 after 3 years of research and development.

Pentti is a sheep farmer by trade but had seen the value in diversification. The original plan was to grow rapeseed to produce biodiesel, however they soon realised that they could produce a high quality food-grade product from their crop.
The 3 years of development included growing test batches of rapeseed and building his own bottling machine.

The rapeseed is a fantastic multi-purpose crop. The seed is pressed and the oil used for the Ellerslie Oil. The waste is used as sheep feed as it has a great high protein content to keep them happy. And the ‘hay’ is used as bedding for horses, better than the usual barley hay as the horses won’t eat it.

Pentti tells me that the health benefits of this oil are fantastic ‘It has half the saturated fat content of olive oil, and much higher levels of omega 3, 6 + 9’ These are the fats that are great for brain function, immunity...oh and they make your hair and nails look great too, Pentti is a walking advert for it!

But I mainly use it for it’s great taste. It has a strong nutty flavour which works really well with Asian dishes. Has anyone else noticed how ‘nutty’ is the trendy flavour to reference??? I think Heston started it all and where he leads I am happy to copy.

Honey and Mustard Dressing – Pentti’s classic dressing

1 tsp honey
1 tsp wholegrain mustard
1 tsp French mustard
100ml Ellerslie Oil

In a jam jar, put 1 tsp honey, 1 tsp wholegrain mustard, 1 tsp French mustard and top up with Ellerslie Rapeseed Oil (about double the volume of the other ingredients). Shake vigorously (you have put the lid on, haven’t you). Tada! It’s done.

Garlic stir-fry oil – super simple multi purpose oil

100ml Ellerslie Oil
3 cloves garlic

Into a cold frying pan pour about 100ml of Pentti’s oil. Add 3 cloves of finely sliced garlic. Put it on a very gentle heat, watch it carefully and as the garlic just begins to change colour take it off the heat. It will keep cooking in the oil.
Use this oil to get a stir-fry started or as a garlicky salad dressing

Check out our video on www.iomtoday.co.im for the full tutorial - it should be online by 16th April

Ellerslie Oil can be found at the following stockists:

Anagh Coar Butchers
Bry Rad Sexy Veg (Ramsey)
Butlers Choice
Deli @ 35
The Good Health Store (Port Erin)
Greens Restaurant
Isle of Man Farmers
Mostly Manx
Paddys Market
Peel City Butchers
Radcliffe Butchers (Castletown)
T & P Kermeen (Onchan, Port Erin and Andreas)
Tynwald Mills
W.E. Teare Butchers (Ramsey)
Willaston Butchers

Cookery School - Midweek Meals II

A new set of victims arrived at the school on Saturday - Helene with Sue and Jean, Naomi and Alex. Several of them had been given the day as a Christmas present (a VERY good present hahaha). As the name suggests this class is all about giving you ideas for when you're brain dead after a hard day at work/chasing kids and need some sustenance.
On the menu:

• Lamb tagine with herby couscous
• Prawn and avocado linguine
• Crispy pork belly with fennel, served with braised cabbage
• Lemon and garlic chicken
• Cardamon and banana raita for puds

It was went swimmingly, everyone's dishes turned out really well. The Lamb Tagine came out top in the opinion poll.

The dessert got a mixed review, memories of biting into whole cardamon pods and just a plain old dislike of raisins, put a couple off. But we agreed that a substitute for cinnamon and leaving out the evil raisins would be perfectly acceptable.

Alex and Helen put the finishing touches to the dessert. Lovely sprinkling action.

Sorry everyone but I failed to get a photo of Alex in his cute kitten apron, d*mn! Maybe next time. Note to other men attending, if you wear your girlfriend's apron to class you will get stick for it.

Easy dhal with stir-fried corn and courgette

This dish represents a perfect January meal: Delicious, Nutritious and Cheap!

The dhal was super-simple. Just boil 300g of any lentil with 1 litre of water salt, 1 tsp and 1tsp of garam masala. In a separate pan fry onion, garlic, ginger, 1tsp chilli powder and 2 chopped tomatoes. Once the dhal is cooked just stir the fried mixture through it then top the whole lot with coriander. Lovely.

The side dishes were:
1. Stir-fried corn with chilli - errrmm....for this you should stir fry tinned corn with chilli!
2. Courgette with sesame seed and ginger - pretty easy again, stir fry all of the ingredients together.

If you get your timing right you can use only 2 pans. Perfect :o)

Creamy coconut curry with aubergine and courgette

I actually learnt this one at Ballymaloe back in..........hmm when was I there??.....2008-ish......anyway.....I hadn;t made it since then. So as I was working late left instructions for Stokesy and came home to lovely dinner, my preferred recipe testing method.

The boy did good! And here's how you can recreate the magic at home...serves 2 greedy b*stards

• 1 aubergine, cut into chunks
• 1 courgette, cut into chunks
• 1 tsp black mustard seed, whole
• 2 tsp fennel seed, ground
• 1 tsp cumin seed, ground
• 2 tsp turmeric powder
• 2 tbsp oil, sunflower/groundnut/rapeseed
• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 300ml coconut milk
• 1 tsp tamarind paste
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 chilli, finely chopped
• lime wedges
• fresh coriander, roughly chopped - we didn't have any in but would have been better with it

In a large frying pan dry fry the vegetables until browned. Remove and set aside.

Now heat your oil in the same pan, then add the spices, stirring while then toast gently for 15secs. Add the flour and keep stirring for 2 mins (you're making a kind-of roux to thicken the curry), it should be fairly dry and change colour slightly.

Add the coconut milk, tamarind and chilli. Heat through then add the aubergine and courgette back into the pan. Taste it and add more salt, lime juice or water so it's just right. Stokesy added about 1 tsp salt, juice of 1 lime and 150ml water.

Serve with rice and coriander over the top.......yum!

Tip: This would be really nice with big prawns added for 1 minute of cooking time at the end. The leftover coconut milk freezes really well

Philly mush rump rice

Yes, as you can tell from the title this is a dish of my own creation, a taste explosion borne from an exploration of the nether regions of my fridge.

Left over rice was transformed into........Philly Mushroom Rice. We had some lovely short grain brown rice in the fridge from yesterday's curry. Finely slice mushrooms, and fry in garlicky butter until browned, chuck your rice in the pan and heat through very thoroughly (no food poisoining for me thank you), the rice can even brown a little bit too. Then take it off the heat, dot with blobs of cream cheese (must be full fat!) and add a handful of chopped parsley.

We had this with rump steak and stir-fried brussels, but I reckon it would make a nice light meal just on it's own.

BBQ Ribs - Take 2

Having loved the Jamie Oliver ribs soooo much we had another go at them. This time I cooked them under foil and added a big splash of water to the roasting tin, in an attempt to keep them extra juicy. Then I went out and left Stokesy and his ma to do the rest! Hahaha the best type of cooking......when someone else does it for you. When I got home they had added the marinade (honey, beef stock cube, sugar, butter, salt) and the ribs were out to rest. The meat looked even better than last time. I spotted there was loads of sticky beef fat (mmmm sticky beef fat) left in the pan so used it to do these mini roasties.
In a very small nod to the health of our arteries we served up with stir-fried brussels. Dee-licious!

Friday night @ No. 10

Errm not quite No. 10 Downing Street but a really good Schezuan restaurant called No. 10, down an alley opposite Earls Court tube station. Stokesy and I came straight from the airport to meet Kerry, Brett and my brother, Andrew.

The food was soooo good. We had a load of stuff to share including.....Dim sum - Prawn Ha Kow and Pork Siu Mai.....Steamed sea bass with chrysanthemum.....Green beans with crispy pork (above)......Aubergine something nice (top pic)....Chives with egg.......Crispy duck with veg. It should be noted that all of this came with copious amounts of chilli.....oh and it was a really good value meal. All that food, plus a couple of other dishes and a few beers came to £100 for 5 including service. Bargain!

Great start to the weekend. Oh and it was nice to see Kerry/Brett/Andrew........hahaha

Big Porkin' baby

Last night in France meant it was time for us to get creative, think up (squabble over!) our own 2 course menu then cook it over the day for service in the evening.

On the menu tonight madame et monsieurs....

Main: Braised pork belly with crunchy crackling with mushroom and walnut duxelle, on potato rosti....and ON THE SIDE roasted carrots and green beans with garlic butter

Dessert: Chocolate souffle, salted caramel icecream with walnut shortbread

I think we did pretty well, worked in perfect synchrony as a team..hahaha not too much squabbling anyway. The pork was absolutely gorgeous, melt-in-the-mouth, we did it in the sous-vide at 80degrees for 18hrs.

I've since done it for a cookery school using the following method. I overheard 1 woman say it was the best pork she has ever tasted..wahooo!

Method: Pork belly in roasting tin on top of 3 stalks of celery, water up to just below fat/skin line. Cover with greaseproof, then tin foil. Into oven at 170 for 1 hour, then 140 for 1 hr, then 120 for 3 hours, then I had to go to bed so I jut switched the oven off and left it in.In the morning I just took it out, removed the skin and did the crackling thing with it, then removed the bones from the belly before reheating it. It was super-tender and v delicious....oh and I did loads of SALT and fennel seeds on the skin.yum!

Sorry the France posting is 1. late 2. all out of sync......I'll get more pics up over the next couple of weeks........i promise miss!

Day One - Lurverly Lamb

So, first day proper at school. Quite a few in our class: The American contingent, the Kiwi family, the lovebirds, Simon on his work experience, the Irish/posh Scousers, globe-trotting Jeff plus the dictators......Mitler and Kitler

Our first challenge was getting the main for the evening meal on the go. Med veg ragout and pommes dauphinoise for sides. yes I know, I'm virtually fluent. Top quality local produce on offer here...yaay!

Here's our finished dish. The lamb was cooked in a scorching hot oven for 23 minutes then left to rest under a mountain of towels for a couple of hours. Yes it does get fully cooked through and turns out as delicious pinky, tender, properly rested meat

Excuse me Waiter, I think there's a.....

......mole in my soup! Check out the amazing sweet potato/mole!!!!!!!!!!!!

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)

Man Flu Medication

Yes we had a spate of man-flu in our household last week. Stokesy had to have to day off from work and so I got to be Florence for the day (woohoo). Florence dispensed some hot and sour soup to blast through those blocked sinuses. It makes a great breakfast. To make Florence's man-flu-fighting soup:


Put 500ml water, 1 chicken stock cube, 1 tsp tom yam paste, 4 slices of ginger into a saucepan and heat for 5 minutes to get the flavours going. Now add 3 tbso coconut milk, shredded cabbage and sweetcorn. Heat for another 3 minutes and taste (sometimes it needs more tom yam paste ot coconut milk or stock). Eat with a wedge of lime for extra vitamin C boost.


On Day 2 of his near-death experience he needed more cheering up.....bring out the smiley faces in porridge!

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

Sweetcorn Fritters

Hmmmm second sweetcorn blog recipe in not very long. I ate loads of these fritters 2 summers ago when me and the Stokes spent the summer MX-ing in Canada. The corn there is sooooo good.

Now I am going to treat you with a proper recipe for this....hold on....I have used all gluten-free ingredients because I used this recipe on a gluten-free coking class I did last year. You can substitute plain flour if you want.

 325g can of corn kernels, drained
 4 spring onions, finely chopped
 2 tbsp fresh coriander
 2 tbsp rice flour
 1 tsp gluten-free baking powder
 1 egg
 oil for frying

Combine all of the ingredients except the oil. Stir well.
Heat 1 tbsp of oil in a frying pan. Drop 4 tbsp of the corn mixture into the pan – avoid overcrowding. Cook over medium heat for 2-3 minutes, on each side, or until golden brown – turn carefully to prevent the pancakes breaking. Remove from the pan and drain on paper towels. Repeat with the remaining mixture. Delicious with sweet chilli sauce

Lunch at Meena's - Sweetcorn and peanut curry yummmmmm

I went to help Meena with some pictures for her body art project. We negotiated a good exchange, I take the pictures....Meena makes lunch. Suits me! Meena teaches a class at the cookery school so I knew that I was in for a tasty meal.

On the menu was sweetcorn and peanut curry, freshly made chapatis and lightly spiced lassi. I even got to practise my chapati rolling skills. Thank you Meena!

Thai Pork Noodle Salad

After a celebratory evening out for Stokesy's b-day we needed a day of rest and hangover food. Some more than others, mentioning no names, but I managed to watch Basil at his track day whilst Stokesy 'rested' on the sofa.

To make this deee-licious salad you will need:

2 portions of egg noodles - cooked according to packet instructions

350g minced pork - fried until crispy

20 pods of peas, podded by your hungover boyfriend

1 handful of green beans, boiled for 4 minutes (blanched being the fancy-pants chef term)

1 red onion - finely sliced

a big handful of peanuts

2 tbsp fresh coriander, roughly chopped

Dressing -

1" ginger grated

1 clove garlic grated

1/2 red chilli
juice of 1 lime

2 tbsp peanut or sunflower oil

Combine main salad ingredients in a big bowl. Combine dressing ingredients in a jam jar and shake well. Add the dressing to the main salad, give it a good stir and leave for 5-10 minutes so that the flavours from the dressing can be absorbed by the rest of the salad. I also pour over the pan juices from cooking the pork.....mmmm yummy pig fat. *Note* if you are one of my nutrition clients then I'd prefer that you ignore that last line

Here you can see Stokesy mentally portioning out the salad.....hmmmm 2 spoonfuls for Kathryn, the rest for me.

Chargrilled summer veggies with chilli dressing

Forgive me father, for it is a long time since my last blog. I know, I've been a bad girl, leaving you all alone. But I've got a good excuse.....errrmm.....the dog ate my blog? No, I've been working my tail off, getting ready for some food events over here. I'll post a bit about them shortly. But more important is the piccie of my dinner above :o)

Chargrilled veg.....mushrooms from Greeba Farm and courgettes from Kim's allotment (cheers Kim!). These were cooked on a hot griddle whilst I mixed up the dressing. For this you will need:

2tbsp Ellerslie rapeseed oil, 1 tbsp red wine vinegar, 1 clove garlic, big pinch sea salt, 1 red chilli

Throw that lot into your pestle and mortar, and bash it until emulsified. Then drizzle it over your hot veggies. Yum

Summer events on IOM

Summer is approaching and with it a whirlwind of food events. Yippee!

I Love ManxChef - Get involved with this fantastic cookery competition and show us what you can do with local produce. I know that lots of you have been to the cookery school and would be perfect for this. So just go to http://www.ilovemanx.org/ download an application form and I'll see you at the heats.

New timetable - Yes it's that time of year, the new cookery school timetable is here. With loads of dates, brand new classes and a new teacher for our bread-making class (hi Liz). Check it out at www.relish.co.im/cook_school.html

Queenie Festival - We're doing the final date of the Queenie Roadshow @ Tin Bath Championships this Saturday. Then it's all down to Port St Mary for a whole week of queenie activity including Seafood Theatre on Saturday 4th July 11-5pm, I'll be hosting and celebrity chefs Mitch Tonks and Mark Hix, specialists in all things marine will be hands-on and giving us queenie-inspiration. For details of the week-long event go to http://www.queeniefestival.com/

Manx Food Fair @ Tynwald Day - 6th July 2-5pm - Get yourself down to the DAFF Forestry Headquarters in St. Johns for food stalls, demonstrations and tastings from local suppliers. I advise coming with an empty stomach.

My dedication to work knows no bounds, so I have been tirelessly testing and consuming kilos of local produce to prepare for the food shows over the summer. Last night's success was Mushroom and Pak Choi Stir-fry. Mushrooms from Greeba Farm via Shoprite, Pak Choi from Dot (Purely Plants Produce) via the Ramsey Farmers Market.

Ingredients - Serves 2
2 large handfuls of mushrooms - thinly sliced
1 head of pak choi - roughly chopped
Splash of sunflower oil, soy sauce, worcester sauce, sweet chilli sauce
Sesame seeds

Method
Heat your oil in a big frying pan. Add the veggies and all of your splashes, keep stirring. Add a splash of water a put a lid on your pan for 3 minutes. Remove lid, sprinkle with sesame seeds and devour.

Apologies for the misty looking photo, steam was causing me issues!

I Love ManxChef - The launch

Last Friday saw the launch of a new cookery competition on the Isle of Man - I Love ManxChef

We're looking for people who can cook local food with flair. A modern look at Manx ingredients is bound to score well with the judges, or knock us out with your grandma's winning cake.

For the launch, with the help of Phil Gawne MHK (that's a Manx politician) and Ray Craine (he's a farmer yessir), we created an array of dishes:

• Miniature steak sandwiches with homeade mayo and mustard cress
• Pan-fried plaice with Gujurathi-style beans and a curry foam
• Quesadillas with black peppercorn cheddar, shredded lamb and crispy lettuce
• Rhubarb Fool with rose petal garnish

Sounds pretty good hey! It was Manx produce top to bottom, the only exceptions being the sugar/salt/spices.

For more information and to download an application form go to: www.ilovemanx.org