Hey Megs

That chicken looks awesome. The next time I’m doing a roast I’ll defo give it a whirl.

As you know I thought that it might be a good idea to try and come up with some nice ideas for Paddies the world over on our national holiday of booze, shamrocks, tractors in parades and green ice cream.

As children, traditionally on St Patrick’s Day, we were given a day off from Lent. Lent in Ireland means that you have to give up sweets for 40 days just like Jesus did when he fasted for 40 days and 40 nights in the desert. According to inscriptions on the Ardagh Chalice Jesus came out of the desert on March 17th and binged on confectionary and booze and hence Irish children get a day off of lent on Paddy’s Day where they can eat all the green coloured sweeties they want.

I wanted to pick some food that I thought is traditional and Irish but with a modern slant. For a starter I went with:

Black Pudding With Caramelised Apples and Balsamic Vinegar

The recipe is from Biddy White Lennon’s “Best of Irish Traditional Cooking” available to buy on Abebooks . It’s not a bad little cookery book if you are interested in food cooked using Irish ingredients. I can’t claim all the recipes are “traditional” but they do use reasonably authentic ingredients such as this starter which includes black pudding.

My parents used to make black pudding many moons ago and it was a messy process but the pudding was amazing. I’ve decided I’m going to ask them to teach me to make it and will definitely blog about it.

Ingredients, serves 4:

• 1 black pudding, clonakilty is best
• 3 granny smith apples
• 3 1/2 oz Irish honey
• 3/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• olive oil
• mixed salad leaves

ingredients (notice organic honey Megs)

• Peel and core the apples. Slice each apple into 6 wedges.
• Cook the wedges with the honey on a mid heat until the apples are caramelised.

Caramelise the apples

• Add the balsamic vinegar. The apples should look like this;

CARAMELISED APPLES WITH BALSAMIC

• Mix it up and put in preheated oven (190 degrees celcius) for 5 minutes.
• Slice pudding into 8 slices and bake in the oven for 10 minutes

Black Pudding

• Remove apples from oven and arrange on mixed salad leaves.
• Mix juices from the apple oven dish with a some olive oil and dress the salad leaves.
• Take pudding out of oven and put 2 pieces on each plate et voila.

Black Pudding with Caramelised Apples and Balsamic Vinegar

I have a main course too.

Baked Trout with Creamy Mashed Potato and Garlic Green Beans. It’s now 11.15pm and I have to be up early tomorrow so I’ll have to leave it. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to post it before Paddy’s Day.

Take care lovely,

xxx

Rita