BBQ recipes

Wow, what a great day - all of a sudden, summer has arrived, and the bbq beckons! Well, that is unless, like me, it needs a major cleanout as it hasnt been used all winter and it has been so wet this spring that only the truly deranged would have attempted to cook outdoors! Here are a few tips and tricks to make your BBQ successful - exerpts from my Tips and Tricks Guide that accompanies our BBQ Workshop...

How to create the perfect marinade for BBQing food

Different tastes that must be balanced to achieve a really good marinade:

sweet, - this can be achieved using honey or fruit juice – sugar is not a great option unless you don’t have an alternative – it is too non-subtle!

sour, - from acid – so lemon, lime, vinegar etc

bitter, closely associated with sour for many people, coffee, plain chocolate, beer etc

salty – obviously from salt or its derivatives…

umami has been added in recent decades – this is about a savoury flavour such as soya, ketchup etc – very important for this to be blended into BBQ flavours!...

For most dishes, you also need to add in some ‘piquancy’ in the form of pepper (either chilli pepper or black peppercorns), paprika (either smoked or unsmoked) and/or herbs and spices to add that unique set of flavours. You need to be careful not to over-complicate matters when it comes to this lot of tastes – a little can go a long way!

Think about your bbq as a total taste experience, but adding in some simple flavours to give your taste buds a break! The breaks can be provided by potatoes, breads, even simple salads such as couscous or green salads will give a contrast to the stronger more pungent flavours

Recipes and guidelines for BBQ food… just a few options to add zing to plain old chicken breasts - I would recommend that you try and get the best chicken you can afford - cheap efforts often have water added, so you end up with an unpleasant texture to the finished dish.

Mediterranean Citrus Marinade – this will work for chicken or fish…

For 4 breasts of chicken…

o 3 tablespoons of olive oil (one that doesn’t have too strong a taste – doesn’t have to be extra virgin)
o rind and juice of one large lemon or two small ones
o 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
o 1 teaspoon of runny honey
o 3 large sprigs of thyme – you could also use oregano or a smaller quantity of rosemary
o Sea salt and black pepper to season)

Combine thoroughly. Cut each chicken breast into three-four strips and then coat the whole lot with the marinade for about 15 minutes.

Thai-style chicken marinade

o Juice and rind of one lime
o 1 inch knob of ginger, finely chopped
o 1 stick of lemongrass, outer leaves removed and inner core finely chopped
o 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
o 2 tablespoons of sesame oil
o 1 teaspoon of runny honey
o fresh coriander – about a tablespoon finely chopped
o 1 teaspoon of sesame seeds (optional)

Mix all the marinade ingredients together and then mix with strips of chicken; leave to marinade for 15 minutes minimum.

Sticky tomato and fennel marinade

o Five tablespoons of good tomato sauce
o 1 teaspoon of Worcestershire or other tangy sauce
o some drops of Tabasco or fresh chillies (this depends on how hot you like your food!)
o Fennel seeds – about a teaspoon, crushed with a mortar/pestle
o Tablespoon of olive oil
o 2 garlic cloves
o salt and pepper
o Some fresh thyme leaves, finely chopped

Mix all the marinade ingredients together and then mix with strips of chicken; leave to marinade for 15 minutes minimum

Enjoy - get in touch if you would like more ideas for that BBQ, and which wines to match with the different tastes!

Ode to a Quail (or two!)

Never having cooked quail before, as they are rarely available round my area, I was delighted to spot them in Cavistons in Glasthule, where I visited this morning. In case you dont know them, Cavistons is a family run business, with some of the best fresh produce that you can get in all of Dublin - great fish and meat, wonderful cheeses and fresh vegetables, and a fine array of artisan foods. However, back to the quail! While not cheap food, you could do them as a starter, thus only serving one per person - that way it would work out at €3.50 each, which isnt an outrageous price by any means. Two for a main course is about a nice generous amount!

I love the way that Ho Sen (Vietnamese restaurant in Temple Bar) do them, so we set out to recreate them along the same lines. Our marinade was created from garlic, ginger, lemongrass, lime leaves, lime juice, chillies, schezuan peppers, sesame oil and peanut oil and a little honey. We left that to sit for a while mixed through the partly boned quails (we allowed two per person as a main course). With part-boned quail, it is much easier to cook them, as you have a fairly even surface to cook, rather than trying to roast the whole bird.

I checked with a few online recipes as to how long they need to be cooked properly (I dont know if they fall into the chicken category of 'must be fully cooked' or the duck category of ' anyway you want to cook from rare to well-done'). I still dont know, but concluded that when in doubt, make sure the food is safe to eat, so I erred on the side of caution and went with the option of 5 minutes on each side, rather than one of the options which was a total of 5 minutes!

After leaving the marinade on the quail for about 20 minutes, I cooked them by browning them on each side for about 2 minutes each side, then putting them into a preheated oven for about 5 minutes, then for the last minute, doing them on dual grill and oven setting. They turned out brilliantly! Succulent, yet crispy-skinned, and the flavours from the marinade came through beautifully without overpowering the quail taste. We served them with wok-fried veggies and some brown rice and had them with some really nice Australian Chardonnay - the Stonier Reserve 2004, which is a far cry from the still-lingering image of over-oaked Aussie Chard!

If anyone would like the recipe in full, get in touch with us and I'll send on the details to you! You can send the mail to info@thetastingroom.ie

January mid-week supper inspiration...

Yesterday was a very busy day - the first day back syndrome (yes we do take a long break in Ireland around Christmas/New Year!). I knew I would be at a meeting that could stretch right into the evening, so dinner had to be flexible and quick. So, stir fry beckoned as the right way to go. This recipe can be made with almost any meat, but I did it with turkey breast, as I hadnt had turkey at any time over the festive season! It took a total of 20 minutes from start to finish - and the longest time was for the brown rice to cook.

For each large portion of turkey breast (or chicken, pork, lamb or beef) you need approximately
1/4 teaspoon of chilli flakes (less or more according to how hot you want the dish!)
1/2 teaspoon of black beans (dont overdo the black beans as it can overpower the other flavours)
1 clove of garlic and
equal quantities of root ginger, both finely chopped
sesame oil
soya sauce (I use Tamari, rather than traditional makes as it is gluten free)
juice of half lemon
teaspoon of cornflour or other thickening agent (Kuzu is great) dissolved in water

Slice the turkey or other meat into bite-sized portions while the wok is heating
Add some oil (approx a tablespoon) - preferably groundnut or sunflower oil - to the wok
When smoking, add the turkey to the oil and stir fry for approximately 1 minute until the turkey pieces are almost cooked through.
Add the black bean and chilli flakes, then almost immediately add the garlic and ginger.
Cook for about 10 seconds, then add a dash of sesame and soya.
Add the lemon juice and then the cornflour mix. Cook for a minute and its done!

Serve with lots of stir-fried vegetables - keep them crunchy! and brown basmati rice.

Enjoy and remember that pretty much all of the ingredients are health-giving. Ginger, garlic, chillies, black beans, brown rice, - lots of goodness - and even some tryptophan in the turkey to help you sleep after a long day!

I also had a glass of wine with this - for once I went away from white-wines-with-Asian theme and plumped for a Southern Rhone Gigondas, packing a fairly powerful punch, but somehow it all worked together.

On cooking rice...and other grain topics

While finalising my Tips & Tricks Guidelines for my Asian Inspiration cookery workshops, I decided to do a bit of online research on other people's experiences with cooking brown rice, which is the only type of rice that we now cook with (in fact I actually dont like white rice anymore when compared with brown). There seems to be a bit of mystique out there about how to cook brown rice, when I have found it to be much more forgiving than its white counterpart, which is apt to turn into a gelatinous mess if you turn your back on it for a minute! Brown rice on the other hand is difficult to overcook, and each rice particle remains separate even when the rice has gone cold. All this and its so much better for you - holding onto its vitamins and minerals and all the fibre that makes it a low-medium GI food to eat - and it tastes better - what more could you want?! So, go on, get out there and buy some brown Basmati rice, cook it for 30 minutes with double the quantity of water to rice and hey presto - great rice!

On a related carbohydrate topic - have you ever traipsed around a city mid-afternoon with someone who is wheat intolerant, in search of something quick to eat to tide you both over from an insubstantial and early lunch through to a late dinner? Well, it is an experience that you wont want to repeat if you can help it, but it is one that I went through recently in Dublin. Outside of lunchtime, the food options for people who are wheat intolerant - and up to 20% of people apparently have serious difficulties in digesting wheat - reduces to almost 0! Unless you count fast-food joints, which ironically are probably the only option available, where you can have chips and a burger, but you would prefer something slightly more healthy than that. We went from one end of the city centre to the other, and the vast majority of places which were serving food had wheat-based bread and no other options. So there was traditional Irish soda bread, Italian panini, French baguette, brown sandwiches, white bread sandwiches, pasta, pizza, but no other form of carbohydrate in sight! Why hasnt anyone tried to provide even spelt-bread based sandwiches as an option around the city? Perhaps we could have gone as far as the Maison des Gourmets in Castle Market - where they do sell spelt bread in their bakery - they might have managed to put something together for us. However, by the time we had got to that part of the city, our will to continue the search had waned considerably, so we ended up in a Mexican restaurant, which in fairness to them, they managed some corn-based tortillas and nachos for us - which at least gave us enough of a boost to contemplate the bus ride home!

Plans for the Autumn...

The plans for The Tasting Room for the next few months are coming together nicely. We will continue to run wine-tasting evenings for the corporate sector, and our 1-day wine courses. We are also planning to continue our cookery workshops, following on the success of our BBQ workshops which we ran over the summer (despite the awful rain!). One theme for the Autumn will be Asian cuisine, and the other will be quick-fix delicious mid-week suppers. As we limit our numbers to a maximum of ten, it means that everyone gets the chance to really get close to the action, and they get to taste everything that they see demonstrated. As they also get to hear about and taste wines that complement the food, it is a total experience. At our workshops, people get to ask any question they like, and if we dont have the answer there and then, we research it and tell people afterwards.

Some new services which we will be adding include wine-tasting evenings which will be ticket-based (we're finding it difficult to source suitable venues for this, which dont cost a fortune!) and a six-week wine course.