IN AN IRISH STEW

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In the “old days” (say fifty years and before) farmers used to keep a proportion of the flocks of their sheep for several years. They would produce several lambs in this time. After which they would be killed and eaten as “Mutton” (any animal of more than one year qualifies for this definition). This was tasty, but tough and often with a good leavening of fat. Hence “slow cooking”, either by boiling (as in Ireland and the UK) or slow pot-roasting (as in Kleftiko) was customary, to tenderize and break down some of the fibres of the meat. Those with lesser incomes opted for the cheaper, tougher parts and slow-cooked.

In earlier times, Ireland was poverty-stricken and ridden with starvation – hence the emigration of a large number of its people to the United States and other countries. Ordinary people often had very little and sometimes no meat in their diets. What there was was often tough and fatty and, chopped up in small quantities, used to “extend” the quantity of stews or casseroles. One recipe became the generic “Irish Stew” and known around the world, wherever the Irish went.

The lines below are a parody from the British humorous magazine, Punch (circa 1860) which would have been sung to the tune of a very popular Victorian song, or “air”, called "Happy Land”. They are also the virtually complete recipe.

Irish stew, Irish stew!

Whatever else my dinner be,                                                                                                                                                                     Once again, once again,

I’d have a dish of thee.

Mutton chops, and onion slice,

Let the water cover,

With potatoes, fresh and nice;

Boil, but not quite over,

Irish stew, Irish stew!

Ne’er from thee, my taste will stray.

I could eat Such a treat Nearly every day.

 

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Classic Irish stew! Perfect for a winter’s day.

IRISH STEW RECIPE

Ingredients for 4 – 6 servings

800g stewing lamb (ask the butcher to cut off the bone and into pieces, or use cutlets with bones removed)

2tbsp vegetable oil

500g potatoes, more if you like, peeled and cut into chunks

2 medium onions

150g carrots, chopped

2 leeks, sliced Seasonal ingredient

100g pearl barley

750ml lamb stock

¼ of cabbage, sliced

Sea salt

Freshly ground pepper

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 160 C.

2. In a large frying pan heat a tablespoon of the oil over a moderate heat.

3. Add the lamb, and fry until brown, turning it over from time to time.

4. Remove the lamb and place in a lidded casserole pan, cover with the potatoes, onions, leeks, carrots, pearl barley and season.

5. Add the stock and cook in the oven with the lid on for one hour.

6. Add the cabbage and cook for a further hour adding more stock, if required. Serve hot.

7. Some cook books recommended drinking Guinness or other dark beer with it. Me, I’ll take a glass or two of a good young Cyprus red.

IRISH HOT POT

To transform this recipe into an Irish hot-pot, you add a couple of the lamb’s kidneys, and remove the lid for the last half hour of cooking. You bring the potatoes to the top of the stew, and put them back in the hot oven to brown the edges. I like to add a couple of dumplings per person to this stew (put into the pot 45 minutes before serving)

Fennel Braised with Tomatoes

clip_image004         Plainly braised or turned in a little butter our Cyprus fennel is delicious as a side dish to roast meat, or even fried fish. Add another flavour with tomatoes and, with some fresh bread and a glass of wine you have a lovely light lunch.

Ingredients for four servings

2 Fennel bulbs, leaves, tops and choggy bits removed.

2 Sprigs of flat-leaf parsley.

2 Small garlic cloves

Half can (400g size) of tomatoes, drained and chopped (Or two or three fresh, ripe tomatoes, skins removed. I don’t mind the pips, but remove these, too, if you like)

60 ml (half cup) of extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper

Method

1. Cut each fennel bulb in half, from top to bottom, then slice each half length-wise, 1 cm thick.

2. On your chopping board, combine parsley and garlic

3. Chop finely.

4. Place mixture in a medium-size heavy flame-proof casserole.

5. Add the fennel, tomatoes, and olive oil.

6. Season with salt and pepper to taste and pour in 125 ml of water.                                                                                                                        7. Cover and simmer over low heat for about 25 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the fennel is tender.

THOSE WERE THE DAYS – or were they?

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This month: time was when we fortified ourselves with delicious and ridiculously inexpensive local sherries — and some step-by-step delights for your May table.

The Heyday of Cyprus Sherry

Memory often romanticises events of the past. As an instance I remember the production of a vast range of spirits and liqueurs by Cyprus companies with great affection. Sparkling wine? Cherry and raspberry liqueur? Apricot brandy? Dessert wines? No problem! Companies large and small made them all and sold most of them here and in many overseas markets. All pre-EU, of course. And here we had two million tourists a year with all that foreign currency. Plenty of friendly young women for our local lads. A Mezze for a Pound. No traffic jams. Ah, they were the Good Old Days! This week I recall some of them… and add four deliciously easy recipes for your enjoyment.

For many years the KEO wines and spirits “factory”, hard-by Limassol harbour was a great attraction for visitors; to individual devotees of the products of the grape, which included me, and for bus-loads of tourists who came from the big hotels. There was good reason. Or several good reasons. KEO Cyprus brandy was made in a gleaming copper-bound distilling plant, made in France about 1870, whilst just a short distance away KEO Fino Cyprus sherry happily matured away in a real bodega. Brilliant!

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An artist’s impression of the KEO brandy distillery, c.1992.

But then both were done away with. Not because they didn’t make good stuff (on the contrary it was superb) The management said there was no demand for a “proper” brandy or sherry. What they didn’t say was that they had insufficient marketing skills.

I did my best to help. Knowing of the popularity of fortified wines in the Nordic countries, I suggested export promotion there. Not the least advantage was that the Cyprus wines and brandies were inexpensive. My suggestions fell on deaf ears. At that time I was writing for the Cyprus Mail and I re-print below what I said then (note the price: One Cyprus Pound and 60 cents per bottle or about €2.30).

Note: You can get an approximation of the flavour by trying a true Spanish Fino. Tio Pepe is the most famous, and driest. Slightly less dry are La Ina, Lustau and Harvey’s Fino.

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The KEO fortified wine bodega in Limassol, c.1992

Sherry, like Port and Ma­deira is a wine made in the normal way, and then “fortified" with brandy or pure alcohol at a later stage in production, and many countries, espe­cially Cyprus, have made a lot of money making cheap fortified wines.

But real sherry is made by a unique method. The grape juice is allowed first and secondary fermenta­tions in wood and at the end of the second, a fermenting scum of yeasts forms on the top of the wine, virtually sealing it from the air. The barrel does not have to be made air-tight to avoid oxi­disation and instead of a bung, a piece of cotton waste is used. In this way a wine of totally individual character develops.

A sherry ‘Bodega" com­prises rows of 100-gallon oak barrels, four or more deep. Young wine enters the top barrels and event­ually, is racked slowly down­wards as the wine for “fortification” with alcohol, further barrelling and bot­tling, is taken off at the bot­tom. The cellar-master controls the whole process, checking daily on the condi­tion of the "Flor" in every single barrel.

This essentially Spanish process may be seen at KEO. And the result is a ge­nuine "FINO" – a nutty, dry, light-golden wine that you may buy in the shops here for around £1.60 (VAT in­cluded). KEO "FINO" is not an imitation, it is a genuine Cyprus wine, as Cyprus Brandy is a digestif in its own right.

At its price, for me it ranks as the greatest bargain in Cyprus. By any standards it is a good wine and can hold its head up in some distin­guished (and expensive) sherry company. If you are one of those who says, "Oh, I don’t like sherry", but who likes a glass of dry white wine as an aperitif, do as the Spanish do, have two-thirds of a wine glass of KEO Fino and I defy you to say you haven’t enjoyed it. (Two-thirds, because of the higher alcohol content)

Apart from pre-lunch or pre-dinner, you can drink a fine dry sherry like this on many other occasions. Mid-morning with a dry biscuit and some cheese for example. In company with the dry Madeira, "Sercial", it is one of the few wines that sits well with cold or hot soup, or have enough bite to drink with smoked salmon. It is good with liver, fish or meat pates and it is marvel­lous with. "Mezedes" — it ought to be: the great pre-prandial rounds of "Tapes" (those many and varied ‘little dishes’ served in bars) are part of Spain’s gastronomic heritage.

So you have several bottles of KEO "Fino" in your fridge and a small crowd suddenly descends on you — what do you fish out to make a meat?

Olives, green or Mack; gherkins and capers; hiromeri; lounza; salami; halloumi (dry fried ff you have the time): warmed bread or strips of Pitta lightly oiled and grilled; salted, smoked or canned fish; cucumbers, carrots and tomatoes; "Frionor" frozen calamarl or bat­tered prawns, quickly fried In oil; leaves of let­tuce, cabbage, radishes and spring onions with a bowl of mayonnaise.

And the FINO will comple­ment everything. There’s one other good reason for buying it, too. Being slightly fortified (it’s alcohol-by-vol-ume is 17.5%, as opposed to white table wine’s 11-12%), it does not go "off" when stored in a shop or home for a few weeks, like so much wine does in the summer. It will also keeps for quite a few days once opened.

The good people at KEO think I’m slightly nutty in my devotion to their FINO. Try it and tell me if I am! (2016 Note: THEY were the nutty ones!)

A drop of "FINO" can be used to advantage in the kitchen. It stimu­lates a tomato-onion-garlic sauce – especially if a dash of red pepper and a tea­spoon of sugar are added – and it lifts a chicken liver paté to great heights

SIMPLE AS 1-2-3-4

ONE – Feuilleté of Shrimp and Asparagus

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1. Heat oven to 220º

2. From a puff pastry block, roll out pastry to about half a centimetre thick.

3. Cut out “slices”, each about 8 x 5 cms

4. Put pieces on an oven tray or baking tin and brush with beaten egg.

5. Bake in centre of oven for about 20 minutes, until pastry is cooked through and top is golden-brown

6. Remove from tray on to cooling wire.

7. When just warm slice open and put bottom half onto plates

8. Place cooked asparagus (about 10 minutes in lightly boiling water) and king prawns (de-frosted and quickly turned in butter and chopped garlic for 2 – 3 minutes each side)

9. Drizzle some warmed (don’t boil!) cream around pastry and serve.

TWO – Greek Salad

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Ingredients: 1 Cyprus cucumber, 2 medium tomatoes, 1 small onion, several mint leaves, a handful of black pitted olives and chunks of Feta or other hardish cheese.

Chuck all the ingredients into a salad bowl, mix together and dress with an emulsion of three parts salad or olive oil to one part vinegar or lemon, salt and pepper.

THREE – English Salad

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Ingredients: 1 small-medium round lettuce or half a Cyprus “Cos” lettuce, coarse outside leaves removed; 3 – 4 medium tomatoes, peeled and sliced, large (English) cucumber or 2 – 3 small Cyprus ones, peeled and sliced.

Mix it all together and drizzle your dressing over just before serving.

FOUR – Saganaki

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“Saganaki” is the pan, but I always think of it used to fry cheese. And the cheese you want is Kefalotiri or another good medium hard cheese.

Put several tablespoonfuls of oil into a small frying or two-handled Saganaki if you have one and heat till it begins to smoke. Slap the sliced cheese in and fry quickly, turning over when brown and doing the second side.

 

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