'A little place I know'
Richard Corrigan
Saturday October 13, 2007
The Guardian
The Village at Lyons
Celbridge, Kildare, Ireland
My first port of call whenever I’m home - it’s the perfect antidote to the stress of London. I’m involved with the restaurant here, but it’s the cafe, Le Serre, I head to, for Garratt Hennessy’s brilliant bread and pastries.
The Porterhouse
16-18 Parliament Street, Dublin
One thing about the gastropub revolution is there are now few places where you can just get a good drink - they’re all geared up to bloody food. The Porterhouse gets it right. The owner, Oliver Hughes, brews all his own lagers and beers - I love his oyster stout so much that I serve it in the restaurant.
The Ginger Pig
8-10 Moxon Street, London W1
If you need to put together lunch or dinner in a hurry, this is the place - they have great charcuterie, pies and an extraordinary white pudding, all made from rare-breed livestock they rear on their own farm. Added to which, La Fromagerie’s next door - throw in a bit of cheese from there, too, and you’re set.
Banger Bros
225a Portobello Road, London W11, 020-7229 9147
I bumped into a friend the other week who told me this place was brilliant. They were right. It’s a quality fast-food sausage joint. In fact, you’re talking more than quality: you’re talking superb artisan sausages in a bun with beautiful mustard. I had chorizo, which was great, and Polish smoky, which was even better.
The West House
28 High Street, Biddenden, Ashford, Kent
To start cooking professionally at 30, as Graham Garrett did, is one thing. To earn a Michelin star so soon after is quite another. His food is modern British and uncompromisingly seasonal, and he understands ingredients. I love the Sunday lunch.
Jack O’Shea’s
11 Montpelier Street, London SW7
This butcher’s opened last year, and took a risk opening halfway between Harrods and Harvey Nicks, but it paid off. Their meat is sourced from the best producers and it’s all fantastic. I love their flank steak and offal.
"Corrigan Knows Food"
Join us for the new series of "Corrigan Knows Food" on RTE Television. It is a chance to sample some of Richard most passionate moments in the kitchen and with local producers.
The Michelin starred chef has always had a reputation for choosing the best quality produce Ireland can offer. But now he wants to take it further and make sure whatever he uses is sustainable too.
He’s just spent the last few months travelling around the country for his new RTÉ One series in his pure plant oil jeep and he’s been making a big splash.
“You can put plant oil in your chipper, in your salad and in your car,” says Richard. “It’s a wonderfully environmental idea and the great buzzword is – no carbon footprint. Plus it’s three quarters less than the price of diesel and there’s no excise duty.”
On the new series of the RTE Cork produced Corrigan Knows Food, Richard discovers how those vivid yellow flowers produce oil for cars and animal feed so there’s absolutely no waste. And best of all, if you run out of cooking oil, you can siphon it out of your car!
Why not try a Signature Recipe at Home?
Irish stew
Serves 4 people
Preparation time 30 mins to 1 hour
Cooking time over 2 hours
Ingredients
about 1kg/2¼ lb scrag end or neck of lamb
2 carrots
1 large onion
2 celery sticks
1 leek
2-3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 large bay leaf
1 large sprig fresh thyme
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
To serve:
150g/5oz small carrots
150g/5oz baby or pickling onions
1 large floury potato, about 300g/10oz weight, peeled and diced finely
2 spring onions, thinly sliced
a little fresh chopped parsley
Method
1. Using a sharp thin boning knife, remove as much meat from the bones as possible. Chop finely and set aside.
2. Put the bones into a large pot. Roughly chop the carrots, large onion, celery and leek then place in the pot with the garlic and herbs. Cover with at least 4 litres/7 pints cold water. Bring to the boil, season lightly, then simmer gently, uncovered for up to 2 hours. Skim with a large tablespoon if necessary. Let the liquid simmer down until reduced by nearly two thirds. You need about 1.2 litres/2 pints of lovely sweet stock.
3. Strain and discard the bones etc. Ideally, cool and chill the stock then you can scrape off any fat that has settled on top.
4. Now make the soup. Put the meat into a large saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring slowly to the boil, skim off any scum, then immediately drain into a colander and rinse in cold running water. This scalding removes fat.
5. Return the meat to the pan and cover with the stock and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat and simmer partially covered, for about 30 minutes until tender.
6. Whilst it is cooking, peel the carrots and cut into small chunks or shape into neat ’barrels’. Peel the baby onions, it helps to blanch them in boiling water for a minute for easy peeling. Add the small carrots and baby onions to the pan and cook for another 5 minutes.
7. Then add the diced potato and cook for another 10-15 minutes until it starts to dissolve into the soup and thicken it. Finally check the seasoning, adding lots of aromatic black pepper and a little sea salt. Garnish with sliced spring onion and parsley.
Daube of Pork
Serves 6-8 people
Ingredients
Pork
1 kg Shoulder of pork, cut in to large chunky pieces. (Roughly the size of a lady’s fist)
Sunflower oil
3 carrots
2 large onions
4 sticks of celery
1 leek
Marinade
200ml red wine vinegar
375 ml red wine
Good quality brown meat stock
200ml olive oil
Black pepper corns
A few sprigs of thyme
Two cloves of garlic
Fennel seeds- pinch
Cumin seeds- pinch
Salt
One bay leaf
Apricots
100ml white wine
200ml orange juice
12 apricots
2 teaspoons of castor sugar
Finishing touches
3 eating apples
25 grams butter
2 teaspoons of castor sugar
Day before
Pork
Heat a thin layer of sunflower oil in the bottom of a frying pan along with any extra fat that’s been trimmed from the pork.
Season the pork with salt and pepper. Brown the pork on all sides.
Vegetables
Cut the vegetables into pieces the same size as pork and put the vegetables and browned pork in a large bowl along with all the marinade ingredients. Mix thoroughly with your hands. Cover and allow marinade in a fridge over night
Apricots
In small saucepan pan add orange juice, white wine, sugar and apricots.
Bring to the boil for 2 minutes, rest in the mixture over night.
On the day
Take pieces of pork out of marinade bowl place in a casserole dish; pass the rest of the mixture through a colander catching the liquid in a jug.
Put the uncooked, marinated vegetables into the casserole dish.
Reduce the marinade liquid by half in a sauce pan on the hob.
Return the reduced marinade liquid to the casserole dish.
Cover the casserole dish with tinfoil and put the lid on.
Place the casserole in a heated oven for 3 hours at 180°C.
1 hour before serving
Fruit
Peel, quarter and core 3 apples. Heat a thin layer of oil and 25g butter to the frying pan, when melted add the apples and 2 teaspoons of castor sugar.
Cook the apples until caramelised and golden, remove from the heat and add the apricot mixture to the pan, heat through.
Just before serving
Pork
When you remove the casserole from the oven there will be a layer of fat on the top, skim the fat off. Remove the pieces of stewed pork allow rest for 10 minutes on a plate while you finish off the sauce.
Pass the vegetables and stewing liquid through a sieve into jug. Discard what in the sieve ensure that you press all the juices out of the vegetables.
Put your casserole dish on the hob to reduce down the stewing liquid.
When the liquid has reduced by a quarter, add the apple and apricots to it and bring to the boil.
To serve
Return the meat to casserole pan with the reduced liquid and fruit. Serve with mashed potatoes.
