Beetroot Marshmallows

The team here at Fenn's decided house-made marshmallows should be tried, so we did. The pink is from beetroot! All natural.  We served the final marshmallows with our special dessert of Beetroot chocolate red vein sorrel & custard.

A post shared by Kate Lawlor (@fennsquayrestaurant) on Mar 30, 2017 at 9:32am PDT

Risotto comfort food

Risotto can be comforting in different forms. Here are two ways we serve it up occasionally on our daily specials menu.

Delicious Ballyhoura mushroom risotto, finished with wild garlic & seaweed butter and Hegarty's cheddar.

Risotto balls with Hegarty's cheddar, wild garlic dulse, and Ballyhoura mushrooms that are just about to be bread crumbed. 

What is your favorite risotto ingredient?

the natural pink that is beetroot juice

Can you do me a favour ....? Of course

A quick phone call from fish monger Pat O' Connnell which began with can you do me a favour and cook a whole salmon me going of course and then going will I dress it for you too .... Last time I may have dressed a salmon was probably around 1999 in collage it involved aspic and and mayonnaise and possibly an olive or two and tomato roses and the of course the cucumber but sure what's a day without a challenge

This beauty was delivered up to me 

After a bit of googling on temperatures times and lengthy discussions with Donal and Aishling I set about cooking it We decided to half bake half steam so I stuffed the belly with lemon lime garlic and dill then in a deep tray placed onion leek fennel and carrots and covered with water then placed a wire rack on top 

Next time I will place parchment under the salmon as it was a tough job to get it out covered sol the Salmon with a layer of parchment and then tin foil and placed in the oven at 180c for 45 minutes until 64c was met by the thermometer and let rest for 20 minutes 

We carefully took it out from the tray and placed on the serving platter removing the stuffing from the belly then the skin was removed and a little tidying up 

Instead of traditional methods of decorating the salmon I choose to use pickled strips of cucumber a caper for the eye and a mixture of herbs and watercress to dress the tray and some lemon to brighten it up all seemed to be happy with the result a fresh summer modern approach to the dressed salmon.

Risotto balls

Risotto balls with Hegarty's cheddar wild garlic dulse & Ballyhoura mushrooms just about to be bread crumbed.

Cork Beer Batter

Mountain Man Hairy Goat as well as great for drinking (responsibly) also great for beer batter for fish. Mountain Man is located in West Cork.

Longueville Brandy Truffles

Heat the cream then pour while whisking on to the chocolate and butter then add the brandy leave to set for 1 hour then ball and coat in cocoa powder

Our truffles made with longueville house brandy packed up nicely in there boxes

Food & Bev Live with Euro-toque Ireland

Cooking up a storm at food & bev Live with Eurotoque Ireland. A grand day out.

Marmalade drizzle

with a sharp knife peel off some skin of 1/2 an orange with as little pith as possible and slice thinly and set aside,

juice 2 oranges add 1 tablespoon of caster sugar, 100ml water, 1/2 tsp cardamon seeds, 1 star anise

place in a pot and simmer until it begins to thicken then place in a jar until needed 

 goes great with chocolate mousse & beetroot meringues

Would you like sweet potato with your bread ?

At Fenn's we serve our house made breads, the white soda made with Feirme Úr buttermilk and our brown yeast bread. It is complimentary as a way to introduce you to our food served with Irish creamery butter

Over a chat during lunch with Evin O'Keeffe (evinok.com) she mentioned how in one of her favourite restaurants in the States instead of using butter they had a sweet potato style of butter. It occurred to me not everyone likes butter and possible those who are lactose intolerant may need a tasty substitute.

so off i went i googled a recipe and got as far as they put the sweet potatoes in a microwave in their skins to cook them .... that was enough i wasn't doing it that way when making our basil dressing we roast our garlic with a drizzle of olive oil and seasoning wrap in tin foil and bake in the oven until soft. I took the same approach with the  chopped up sweet potato and a few garlic cloves wrapped and placed in the oven and baked until soft

 

When the flesh had cooled down enough to handle i scraped the flesh from the skin into a bowl and took the garlic from the skins, added some of the green saffron spices and some salt and pepper 

the garlic just melted into the sweet potato mash with the addition of the spices and salt and pepper it was delicious.
when cooking with sweet potato you may notice it has a tendency to go black with the addition of lemon or lime juice this should prevent this from happening. In this dish i used lemon.

  So would you like sweet potato on your bread ?

 

Yoghurt Pots,Jelly & a custard foam.....

I am a lover of Glenilen yoghurt's as much as i am their pots they put the yogurts in so much so i wanted to use them at Fenn's but what would do the jars justice ?
 

How would you use these pretty jars?

Iv now built up a little collection of them and cant bare to put them in the glass bin so here are some photographs of what iv done with my jars with a little help of my kitchen team.

Donal's poached rhubarb in an anise infused rhubarb jelly   

Gooseberry Jelly with upside down cheese cake

As you can see a pattern has developed with in our kitchen and these fabulous jars jelly looks great in them
and as we played with the types of jelly we put in  the jars we started experimenting with the custard that went with our jelly traditionally we went with the vanilla for the rhubarb but taking it a step further by adding a sheet of gelatin to it to stabilise it and putting it into a siphon and charging it with the gas our result was good but not as frothy as we had hoped , with further research we found a recipe for an infused custard with cinnamon, anise, lemon zest and oranges zest it also used less egg yolks it tasted devine so we placed the cooled custard into the siphon and the perfect foam was produced that was full of flavour that married so well with he elderflower and strawberry jelly . this custard is a traditional Catalan custard but we added the anise to intensify the flavour.

How would you infuse your custard ?

  Layered jelly & Catalan style custard

  

Rhubarb jelly & vanilla custard 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday Brunch at Fenn's Quay

We debuted our new Saturday Brunch menu. Here are two classics on their way out of the kitchen to the table, where they were eaten by Evin & family.

Boiled eggs and soldiers made with our chunky toast, served with Marmite.

Feirm Úr buttermilk pancakes served with fresh yogurt or crème fraîche, strawberry balsamic & black peppercorn syrup (shown below with maple syrup, fresh mint, strawberry slices, and apple) or rashers, if you prefer.

Fenn's Quay Shortlisted for for Best Scone

Fenn's Quay was nominated and earned a place on the shortlist for Goodall's of Ireland Best Scone Competition. Now is your chance to help us win the well-deserved title by voting for our house made scones.

Press and blog coverage for the event has been a pleasant reminder of just how well-loved our scones really are. Here are a few related articles (To read more of the press coverage we've received, check out my blog's Press Links page).

Battling It Out for Best Scone – Cork Independent (19 July 2012)

I'll Eat My Way to Finding the Best Scone in Ireland – Evin's Cooking Peas & Qs (14 July 2012)

attempting hestons jasmine tea smoked salmon

iv never cured and smoked my own salmon so if Heston can i can so i set too it with my two sides of salmon so of my ingredients i had to pop next door to gurmans tea & coffee shop to get some jasmine tea leaves

 

so i soaked the leaves and got my herbs together i used tarragon and dill and got a mix of smoked sea salt , sea salt and sugar together 

            
the salmon was coated in the tea leaves and then set on a bed of the salt & herb mix and then coated with the salt and herb mixed and wrapped and left for 16 hours in the fridge to cure .

the next day the fun begins !! the salmon is washed down and let to dry off in the fridge .








the next part of the process is assembling your smoking unit i used a deep tray with baking racks inserted in it , under neath the racks i inserted trays of ice  and either end of the tray little trays of tea leaves and placed the salmon on the racks and began to light up the tea leaves

smoked the salmon for 35 minutes by sealing the container then turned the salmon and repeated the process again !!! the results are amazing i will be buying myself a proper smoker !! its a process well worth trying and i think i will experiment with other teas and flavours and herbs and different fish give it a go you will be surprised i promise

Making Pate the Heston way !! Note to all: Buy a digital thermometer and away you go

I recently purchased Heston at home and what a book it certainly lives up to expectations with wonderful photography and exciting recipes new methods and an education on the siencie bits , where to start was my issue so i began with the flick through the read through and flick through again !! did this help on a decision no not one bit !

A hint if there is one recipe in the book that is a recipe similar to one you have done before for instance i picked the chicken liver parfait , something i have made many times before but Hestons method is different so familiar with the base ingredients but not the method.
 The methods seem long and difficult a tip here is to read the method twice and make your own bullet points .

the other reason i decided to do this is the method is designed for a waterbath which i don't have but Heston gives you the alternative method using the freezer bag and it works 

 in the recipe i replaced the white port and and brandy with Pedro Ximenez sherry so it is possible to change bits and pieces and experiment with flavours in this recipe ,

so i set to work reducing the liquor and following and rechecking the recipe constantly your almost nervous that you may mess up that the constant rechecking is done . As a chef when using another chefs recipes you almost want to find a flaw in the recipe or try and find a way to change it and make it your own

what is obvious about this parfait is that it is smooth and velvety and so tasty as i decanted it into its ramekins and placed in the oven to Cook i wished it luck and hoped fro the best that i had followed the recipe and it would all come together and had the temperature probe ready to hand

 true to the recipe once it hit 62c the parfait were set . now what to pair it with we make our own wonderful apple chutney and for toast i made a wonderful seaweed brioche

this is a book that is must for the person who wants to learn more about food or improve there skills and knowledge of methods and food this dish why not too sciencey but a good introduction to the way Heston works with food its a book that hooks you in and gets the mind working in an exciting way !!

Experimenting with Marmite

Marmite broth with brunoise of vegetables & beef strips.