Here is something light and bright for you, that is punchy enough in flavour to bring lots of joy to your January. Although this is not a penitent January dish. It is fabulous all year round and deserves celebrating. Humble ingredients are the best and they are so easily elevated.

Have you met my friend Gojuchang?

Gojuchang, if you don’t know it yet, is Korean fermented chilli paste and it is an absolutely sublime ingredient. Hot, deep and rich, it tells lies about your cooking. It tells that you have cooked things for longer than what you have and that everything is far more complicated than you know it is. You have to have it in your cupboard. Continue reading

I returned to Ottawa this year to visit the Sparks Street PoutineFest. It was a joy of a trip (and you can read more about it here and here). As always, a little conversation goes a long way, and I am delighted to share this edited snippet from the episode of Fingers in Pies that I recorded there.

I was speaking to Hung Ha about their poutine and the festival when he mentioned that his family had been Vietnamese refugees with a dream of a new life and their own pho restaurant. I spoke to both Hung Ha at their food truck and his father Ha Van Trung at their Pho restaurant.

Fingers in Pies will be back weekly in the New Year and I have some exciting guests and plans. So watch this space, and for now, have a listen!

Fingers in Pies Podcast on Ottawa, Poutine and Pho – An Edited Excerpt

So, my parents are part of the Vietnamese boat people where they escaped the Vietnam War in 1982. The boat they were in landed in Hong Kong. They were there in a refugee camp there. We were very fortunate that Canada had a sponsorship program, and sponsored my parents over. They had a place to stay. Continue reading

Jump straight to the Charred Sprouts with Smoky Piquillo Pepper Sauce, Almonds and Chorizo Crumb recipe

Get your sprouts out! I adore sprouts and especially these sprouts with chorizo crumb and smoky piquillo pepper sauce. It will be just perfect for your festive table.

I love my greens and clearly you do too, and sprouts get such stick but they can be fabulous. I have lots of ideas and I am going to get as many of them to you as I can before Christmas. So, get your sprouts out and let’s get started!

Dressing up your sprouts

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Ottawa is the kind of city that I love to visit. With so much going on every day, it bustles and there is lots to do. Ottawa embraces the extreme seasons, with festivals and events all year round. I knew that it was Canada’s capital city and the seat of the Canadian government. What I didn’t know is just how fun and friendly it is, and how diverse the population is.

Ottawa is a perfect size for a short visit. Big enough to have lots going on and small enough to make it easy to hop from place to place. The diverse population means there are many interesting restaurants. I had one of the best bowls of Vietnamese pho that I have ever had (and I have had many!), wonderful Middle Eastern food, vibrant modern Canadian, afternoon tea in a beautiful ornate historic hotel, dinner at a famous Ottawa cookery school and restaurant and of course, I went back to their central food market downtown.

Dinner at Jackson (in the Ottawa Art Gallery)

My first bite in Ottawa on this trip was in Jackson. A gorgeous bright room fitting of its location with glorious high ceilings and enormous hanging ceiling lamps. It is named for the gallery’s extensive collection of works by Canadian Group of Seven member A.Y. Jackson (which you can view for free and which I did after my meal – you must!). Continue reading

All aboard for the Sparks Street PoutineFest in Ottawa! An annual event celebrating the unofficial and super popular national Canadian dish, poutine. Not just a celebration of that most wonderful trifecta of fries, gravy and squeaky cheese curds, Sparks Street PoutineFest reaches beyond the plate. It is a superb reflection of Ottawa’s rich immigrant history and diverse food culture and all things Ottawa and Canada in terms of craft drinks and music. 

Let me count the ways I love poutine

Originally from Quebec, poutine has been embraced coast to coast. We can even get it here in London! Indeed, I have served my Irish take on it here. I have had lobster poutine on the east coast, complete with a gorgeous lobster gravy and poutine with slow-cooked ox cheek ragu in place of gravy on the west coast. I have been to Quebec and Montreal and had many poutines there, including, of course, the original. Sparks Street PoutineFest was about to blow my mind. 

Show me the curds

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DO Cava and Cava Discovery Week sponsored this post.

I know you don’t need to have an excuse to have a Bubbly Brunch but when you have crisp fluffy smoked salmon waffles beside your gorgeous glass of aged cava, I don’t see how you can resist.

Cava: not just any sparkling wine 

Cava is an excellent wine choice. As with champagne, it is made in the traditional method and it is fermented and aged in bottle leading to some excellent wines.

Cava has a DO (denomination of origin) which means that it can only be made in specific areas, although 95% of cava is made in Penedès in Catalonia. Cava is made primarily with indigenous Spanish grapes, Macabeo, Parellada and Xarel·lo. Other grapes like chardonnay are also added at times.

Cava can be white or rosé and as part of the traditional method cava has two fermentations, the second being in bottle where it can also be aged. Reserva, Gran Reserva and Cava de Paraje wines are all aged high quality cava wines which you can enjoy in some terrific Spanish tapas bars and restaurants across the UK this week. 

Cava Discovery Week: 18-24 November

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A heads up for you that my residency at fabulous Irish cocktail bar in Islington, Homeboy, is coming to a close this weekend. Do come, there are only 3 more days and 4 services:

Thursday 5pm – 10pm
Friday 5pm – 10pm
Saturday 12pm – 4pm (brunch menu)
Saturday 5pm – 10pm

And then that is it! 

I naively thought when I started that I could spend the mornings writing and working on my book, but I learned quickly that service is all-consuming physically and rest is required in between services. Services are long and really tiring. I have never done so much wash up! I have been running the kitchen solo, cook and KP.

It has been 6 weeks since I started and it has been a lot of fun and it has been really wonderful to meet many of you and feed you! Now, I need to get back to my desk. I adore cooking but I miss writing, and I need to publish that book, Bacon, now.

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This is the second of two sponsored summer recipes that I developed with Parma Ham. Don’t miss the first one: Bream Ceviche with Parma Ham and Nectarines.

We have already spoken in depth about the meaty joy that is Parma Ham. Brief recap! Parma Ham is one of those products where you are gifted instant flavour, the work all being done by the producer before it hits your plate. It is preservative free, being just Pork + Air + Salt + Time and lessons learned from history and generations of prior producers. Parma Ham plays well with others and gifts instant depth of flavour to many things. It makes a lovely crisp jacket when you wrap other things in it, whether that is a bundle of green beans or asparagus, a lovely piece of fish or in this case pork belly.

Parma Ham is a perfect partner for pork belly

My pork belly obsession is well documented. It is a perfect roast, yes, especially when you roast it slow. It is brilliantly flexible beyond this though. I have taken to cooking smaller amounts of pork belly quicker with excellent results. This Parma Ham wrapped pork belly is a perfect example and it is so good. The ham keeps all the pork belly juices inside as it cooks, and gives it an extra deeply savoury layer.

On the side, as much as I love the humble spud and a slick plate of mash, I go for beans here. Beans also make great mash and they are especially nice for summer or Autumn. I like to use a plump butter bean (or better yet, Greek gigantes beans). Not only do they make a delicious mash, they make an instant one too. Protein rich with a hint of garlic and savouriness of rosemary. Those roasting juices from the pork belly wrapped with Parma Ham are sublime and elevate everything.

You can of course use a favourite chilli oil or one that you have at home. I provide a recipe for a simple one here flavoured with garlic and chilli. Play around, make a peppercorn oil, add herbs as it cools down (not at the beginning or they will burn). Homemade oils bring brilliant flavour. If you don’t want chilli make a simple herb oil by blending a flavourful herb (like oregano or basil) with some oil, allowing it to infuse and then pass it through a coffee filter or similar and you are good to go.

This is the first of two sponsored summer recipes that I developed with Parma Ham.

A ham sangwich (correct spelling!) was the frequent snack of many an Irish childhood. Especially at my Grandmothers when we would visit on St Stephen’s Day (aka Boxing Day). I knew that I would have to eat that ham in order to access some biscuits. As with most things, it was beautiful in its simplicity. Thick sliced bread, butter, home cooked ham, done.

My rural Irish childhood involved only Irish ham (which is of course very good). It was often home-cooked, thickly sliced, and sometimes pulled directly from the ham by my tiny enthusiastic hands. When I moved from rural Ireland to Cork city, I discovered a wonderful Italian deli (Iago’s), where I would become a regular. It was there that I discovered the joys of Parma Ham. I went through a phase of wrapping everything in it, and I still do sometimes today. I especially love it as a satisfying meaty snack for moments requiring instant gratification. 

Parma Ham, from the Belly of Italy 

Parma, the home of Parma Ham (and Parmiggiano Reggiano), is a small city in Emilia Romagna in Northern Italy. Emilia Romagna has a sublime food culture. Described as the belly of Italy (which gives some clue as to just how well you will eat there), Emilia Romagna is one of my most visited places (along with Rome). It is the home of many things, including my favourite Tagliatelle with Ragu and that gorgeous and very underrated wine, Lambrusco. Parma itself is a joy of a place to walk around with its winding streets lined by tall brightly painted old buildings. Continue reading

Tofu! Now some of you are going to read that and think, WHAT?! TOFU?! Yes, tofu. Why? It is horribly underrated and completely delicious. Once you get the real thing. Tofu is thought of as a vegetarian or vegan ingredient, and yes it is, but in Asia it is as common to see it in a dish with meat, as not. See my recipe for Kimchi Jjigae (Korean Kimchi, Pork & Tofu Stew) for a very tasty example of this.

Tofu is also a fast food. The fastest, it is already good to go. It soaks up flavours and loves contrasting textures. I love it in a crispy fritter for brunch as much as I do in a stew. I love proper silken tofu, fresh from fridges of Asian food shops (especially Japanese). Silken is a joy, the very good stuff has the texture of custard. All of it is sublime when fried, and I have fried tofu every which way. A firm – nay, wobbly – favourite is Agedashi Tofu. 

Agedashi Tofu – Fried Tofu with Dashi!

A Japanese delight of a dish, age-dashi means fry-dashi and that is what this is, fried tofu with a seasoned dashi broth. Seasoned with soy and mirin (you can use sake too). It is naturally gluten free, usually using potato starch or corn starch. I love to use potato starch for this, it confers a stretchy crispness which is perfect with the wobbly tofu underneath. I sometimes mix the potato starch with rice flour, and of course you can just use rice flour too which will give a lovely crisp coating. Continue reading

Well I am excited and nervous in equal amounts. My second book BACON is going to print in September to be delivered in plenty of time for Christmas. For you early birds there is an early bird offer that runs only until Monday (Order HERE now!), 

If you want a copy, you need to act now. This will be a limited edition release and there is only going to be one small print run this year limited to 1000 books. I will be stuffing the envelopes myself – and of course, signing every copy! – and with 800 already sold that pretty much sorts my November! My priority is to deliver the book to my wonderful original backers, and also to print additional copies for readers who may have missed that opportunity or joined the fold since then.

With the exception of a handful of recipes that were in my Sunday Bacon Club and Bacon Masterclasses, these are all spanking NEW! None of the recipes exist elsewhere and if you love bacon you must have it. If you love to eat generally. Bacon is the focus but not always dominant. Sometimes it is!

• Brunch
• Peckish
• Hungry / Feeding Friends
• Sweets (Trust me!)
• Bacon Pantry and Cures Continue reading

Hake is a beauty of a fish that is so underappreciated. We love it in Ireland, the Spanish love it too. In a way, I am glad that it isn’t hugely popular here as it makes it quite affordable. That big piece of hake in the photo came in at under £5 in an excellent but expensive London fishmonger. It flakes gently and has a beautiful light flavour. It works very well with big things like chorizo but it also plays well with gentler things like these summery beans.
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Part 2 following on from A New Brunswick Culinary Road Trip: Starting at Saint John [Part 1]

That brisk sea breeze off the Bay of Fundy is enough to clear all cobwebs and signs of jet lag. I was up early the next day and on my way. Headed to Saint Andrews by the Sea with a pit stop by the beach, and for some fried clams. It can be hard to get me out of my bed in the morning especially with jet lag, but not when there is an early lunch of fried clams on the immediate horizon.

Saint John to New River Beach 

About a half hour drive out of Saint John lies New River Beach. A gorgeous stretch of coastline, all sandy beach and bright blue ocean and sky. A paddle in the ocean before a feed of fried clams (and other gorgeous fried things) is a joyful thing. The clams were at Ossie’s Lunch. A small diner at the side of the road with lots of picnic tables where you can tuck in outside.

Fried Clams at Ossie’s Lunch

Entering its 61st season, Ossie’s Lunch was opened in 1957 by Osborne and Roseanna Waite and is still going strong under new owner Shawn Saulnier. Roseanna still works there on occasion, as does her daughter Angela. You probably don’t know – I didn’t – that New Brunswickers LOVE fried clams and places like Ossie’s Lunch are packed on public holidays and in season. 

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This is the second post in a two-part piece about my travels to Vorarlberg in Austria. Read the first part: Mountain Hiking, Herbal Walks and Local Food in Lech, Austria

For the second part of my Vorarlberg stay, we moved to Bregenzerwald. The drive to Bregenzerwald from Lech is a magical weave through valleys and mountains. Sweeping winding roads, and lots of promise. So stunning we had to stop to take some photos and stop and pause to take it all in. 

We were on our way to Löwen mountain distillery with lunch first there in the Gasthaus Löwen’s Inn & Café. A beautiful restaurant in an old house with one of those beautiful large tiled heaters (a Kachelofen). Windows draped by small curtains looked at the mountains outside. We took a table in the corner and perused the traditional menu. I love the menus in places like this. Plump käsespätzle (handmade noodle shreds in a voluptuous and generous cheese sauce) and schnitzel were what drew most of us in. The cool mountain air creates an enthusiastic appetite and with a distillery trip straight after, there is a need for it.  Continue reading

I am fond of winter but I love to see it go. By the time it leaves it has become an unwelcome guest. It is a relief to see the buds open at Springtime and the trees begin to flourish, as they are this week. Walks home from the supermarket are peppered with mini assaults of blossom fragrance. The footpaths are dusted with their petals. The days are longer, the sky brighter, there is the promise of summer to come. Food becomes more interesting as we are almost out of the Hungry Gap (that period when little grows). 

Mountains come into their own in Spring and Summer. No more so than those favoured for their winter culture like the Alps. Last summer I visited Vorarlberg in the Austrian Alps. Our drive from Zürich ascended in the dark, in the morning I was greeted with crisp air, the sights of lush meadows and tall peaks, and bubbling brooks. 

The town of Lech is a pretty one. Famed for royal visitors (Princess Diana would ski here), it is also one of the worlds premier ski destinations. But Lech is also a joy in summer. The crowds are gone, and in the place of the snow all is lush. The days are hot and long, but there is crisp clear air accompanying.  Continue reading

I know everything should start with an onion, or so the saying goes. Most of my cooking does. But not always. Sometimes just garlic will do and occasionally not at all. When I made this dish I started with minced beef not sure of what I would add next. The final result was a tasty speedy supper that required little work or preparation. I call that a winner!  Continue reading

I am a regular visitor to Canada. I love the vast expanse of it. The people, the calm, the lakes and forests, the cities with the quickly expanding and inspiring culinary scene. Excellent cocktails, terrific Canadian wines, a booming craft booze scene and lovely restaurants and bars to sample them. Canada is an excellent place for a road trip, especially a culinary one.

A Culinary Road Trip of New Brunswick Starting in Saint John

New Brunswick was the scene of my most recent Culinary Road Trip, packed with snow crab and lobster, lush produce from the farmlands and foraged seaweeds and sea greens from the seashore. It is one of four of Canada’s Atlantic provinces on the east coast. 83% of New Brunswick is under forest, and the cities are small by international standards. It is a perfect relaxed spot for a break and to unwind. I flew into Saint John via Halifax, Nova Scotia. A short flight in a small plane with excellent views of the landscape below brought me to Canada’s oldest incorporated city. I started my culinary road trip here. 

New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province in Canada with English and French being commonly spoken. The indigenous population has been established there since 7000BC (at the time of European contact these included the Mi’kmaq, the Maliseet, and the Passamaquoddy). Populations arrived from Europe from the 1600s included French, British and Irish. The city of Miramichi claims to be the Irish capital of Canada and was one of the points of arrival for many of Ireland’s coffin ships during the famine. It is home to a large Irish Festival now every year. New Brunswick was almost called New Ireland at one point until it was vetoed by King George III. Which, of course it was. 

Where to Eat and Drink in Saint John and What to Do

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I cooked this at a supper club for 30 people recently. The fourth course of five – all containing black pudding – and as much as I love this dish, I fully did not expect every plate to come back clean. But they did! And so I think we can all agree that it is a winner. They told me so too. 

You see the thing is when so many of your days revolve around cooking and you are generally the only person eating it, it becomes easy to question every bite and wonder if it is enough. Should it be more, bigger, brighter? Everyone who works alone has this problem in one way or another. It would be perfect to have someone to bounce things off, a recipe tester, a friend. A room full of 30 people eating your food with enthusiasm? Perfection.

Many were surprised that I would add black pudding to ragu. It works so well. Already I have a recipe for black pudding ragu that is pure black pudding, no other meat. It is a popular recipe on here, called (tongue in cheek) Corkese. I use Irish black pudding and would suggest that you seek it out for this too. It has a different texture to British black pudding, made with oats and spices, it crumbles and almost bursts when you roast it. 

Using Traditional Tagliatelle with Ragu from Emilia Romagna as a Base 

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The more that I cook, the more I desire simplicity. Fresh bright flavours delivered without fuss and with speed. Food that is healthy and bright. 

There was a time when I would devote much of my evening to delivering the meal that I would eat, often too late. Increasingly my cooking becomes simpler, fitted into tighter timeframes. I desire food that is fast and that delivers on flavour and that will sustain me too. Food that is healthy and balanced and that changes day to day. This way I always enjoy it, and my nutritional intake is varied too.

I generally cook for one but I usually cook enough for two meals each time. Borrowing time from the night before for the next day. Leftovers are terrific and the second iteration will usually have a twist so that it is different. This didn’t. I loved it so much the first time I kept it the same. 

Coconut and Coriander Prawns with Pumpkin – a speedy delicious and nutritious meal

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Today is Pancake Tuesday / Shrove Tuesday / Mardi Gras. What a happy eating day! Mardi Gras means Fat Tuesday, the day to clear your cupboards before 40 days of Lenten fast. Every day can be pancake day but Pancake Tuesday is the one. I have gathered my favourite pancake recipes for you. Get stuck in.

A Brunch Classic: American Style Pancakes with Bacon & Maple Syrup

Let’s start with the classic fluffy pancake stack done American style. Always with bacon and maple syrup for me.

A Brunch Classic: American Style Pancakes with Bacon & Maple Syrup

Dal Pancakes with Curry Leaves, Coconut Milk and Chilli Oil

These dal pancakes were originally made with leftover dal but you should absolutely cook up a batch to make them. They are a cracker and enlivened with the gorgeous aromas from the crisped curry leaves and the punch of bright chilli oil.

Dal Pancakes with Curry Leaves, Coconut Milk and Chilli Oil

Socca (Chickpea Pancake) with Tomato & Aubergine

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