ground to gob

The days and weeks are flying by.  Week 9 already of the 12-Week Certificate course at Ballymaloe and I feel like I still have so much to learn.  Week 6 saw stress levels creeping up and up around the student cottages at the cookery school, as we looked forward to our technique exam at the end of the week.

The exam had several parts to it including identifying 10 lettuce and salad leaves (iceberg was not one of the them!) and 10 herbs.  This was followed by laying a table correctly, presenting a bottle of wine and pouring a glass (as you should rather than filling it to the brim in our generosity!) and finally assembling a food processor and Kenwood mixer.  All sounds pretty simple right? Until you hear the stories of wine being poured across the table instead of into the glass and my own difficulties with the food processor!  Not my proudest moment.  It’s the simple things that can trip you up.  Who knew?

The second part of the test took us into the kitchen where we had to showcase our ability to chop and sweat an onion to perfection, make a parchment paper piping bag and two other techniques randomly assigned from a list of about twenty.  They ranged from the relatively simple frying an egg to the more difficult filleting a fish.

Thankfully I managed to avoid both of those and got to cook glazed carrots and make mayonnaise instead.  The relief when it was all over was palpable.  Not sure how I am going to cope with creating a three course meal for our final exam in a few weeks time, when glazed carrots caused such stress!

While the technique exam did add an additional level of stress to the preceding week, it also focused the mind.  One of the things I am quite happy about is that I can now definitely recognise a range of herbs outside of just coriander and basil.  And I also know what I can do with them.

One of massive perks of cooking here is the access to the most amazing produce that is literally being picked fresh from the gardens and greenhouses in the morning and brought straight to the kitchen for us to use. A huge inspiration to finally start growing my own herbs when I get home.

Not only does using your own freshly picked herbs add an extra depth of flavour and freshness to your food, it also means you are not buying a huge bunch of herbs from the supermarket, which is inevitably wrapped in a plastic sleeve.  Added to that is, usually, you only need a couple of sprigs of herbs for your dish – the rest is left to wilt and die before you get to use it.  Growing your own means you can pick the amount that you need, when you need it, sans plastic, sans waste.

There are so many of the dishes cooked here at the school using fresh herbs, it’s difficult to pick just one recipe to share.  Herbs are used in both sweet and savory dishes, in sauces, stuffing’s and soups.  They can be sprinkled over a dish, used as an edible garnish, form a little side salad to compliment the main ingredients and even in breads (Sodabread with rosemary and raisins – sounds weird but the combination is delicious!).

The recipe below is one that I cooked during the week and therefore easier to remember!  I am not joking when I say I can barely remember what I cooked yesterday let alone last week.  This is a really quick and easy Thai-style salad from David Tanis and is great served with all types of fish.  I served it with baked salmon, which was done in the oven rubbed with a little olive oil and salt and pepper.  David Tanis suggests plating a portion of the salmon and letting diners spoon the cucumbers over the fish to their own taste.  You can adjust the amount of chili, fish sauce etc. according to your own taste.  Be generous with the herbs – they give a beautiful summery, freshness to the salad.  If you can’t get basil when it is out of season, you can substitute with some extra mint and flat leaf parsley. Enjoy!

Vietnamese Cucumbers

Serves 8-10 (recipe can be halved or quartered for a smaller number)

Ingredients:

4 large cucumbers

Salt & pepper

Fish Sauce

2½cm piece of ginger, peeled and

cut into fine julienne

Palm Sugar (soft brown sugar can be substituted if you don’t have palm sugar)

Spoonful of chopped chilies

2 or 3 Limes

Fresh mint leaves

Fresh basil leaves

Scallions or onion, thinly sliced

Method:

• Peel the cucumbers.  Cut in half, length ways.  Remove seeds with a spoon if they are large.  Slice the cucumbers into thickish half-moons and put them in a large bowl.
• Season the cucumbers with salt and pepper to taste, sprinkle lightly with fish sauce, then add julienned ginger.  Toss well and allow the cucumbers to sit for 5 minutes.
• Squeeze the limes and dissolve the sugar in the lime juice.
• Pour over the lime juice and sugar.  Add the chopped chilies (seeds removed if you want less heat).  Toss again, cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.
• Just before serving roughly chop your mint and basil leaves.  Add to the cucumber salad.  Taste and adjust seasoning with lime juice as well as salt and pepper.
• Garnish with thinly sliced scallions or paper-thin slices of onion.

(Taken from a ‘Platter of Figs and Other Recipes’ by David Tanis)