Monday, March 15, 2010

St. Patrick's Day Recipes

St. Patrick's Day - 17 March.
There is a little bit of Irish in many of us, and a great way to celebrate the feast day of Ireland's Patron Saint is to create an Irish Feast.

The Fresh Ingredient at Kotara stocks Irish bacon, pork sausages and black and white pudding, as well as Kerrygold butter, cheeses, mustards, brown bread mix, soda bread mix, Taytos, Club Orange & Cadbury Snack.

To get you started on your Irish Feast I suggest a dinner menu of:
Brown Bread & Butter
Pork Sausages served with Colcannon
Apple Pie & Cream.

Here is my recipe for Colcannon (Potato & Cabbage), there are variations of this recipe, but this is my favourite.

Colcannon

Ingredients
900g sebago (brushed) potatoes, peeled, coarsely chopped
80g butter
300g cabbage, shredded
1 small onion finely diced
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup pure cream
Salt & pepper

Method
1. Add potatoes to saucepan of cold water, boil until tender, approx. 20mins.
2. While potatoes are cooking, lightly fry the onions in 20g butter, (do not burn), when translucent add cabbage with another 20g butter, mix together over low heat & then cover and steam cabbage for 2-3 minutes.
3. Drain potatoes and mash till smooth using remaining butter, milk & cream. When well mashed add in the cabbage & onion, mix together until smooth.
4. Season to taste with salt & pepper.
5. Serve with grilled Pork Sausages.

If available, Kale is traditionally used in this dish instead of cabbage & it definitely adds a lovely flavour to the potatoes.

Do you have a favourite traditional Irish meal?

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Welcome

Welcome to The Fresh Ingredient Blog - here we will feature recipes, market updates, food news and more.

The Fresh Ingredient is a fruit & vegetable and gourmet food store owned by Peter & Mary. We love good food, good wine and are concerned about the corporatisation of food. We enjoy sharing food, talking about food and being around food - we hope that you will join us in our online food world.