Irish Cream Parfait

Take from Menu pages.. Pics to follow

http://www.menupages.ie/recipes/jacobs_ladder/recipedetail.aspx?recipeId=17

• For the stock syrup:
• 300ml water
• 400g granulated sugar

• For the parfait:
• 500ml stock syrup
• 2 egg yolks
• 27ml water
• 60g granulated sugar
• 90ml Baileys (or any cream liqueur)
• 150ml double cream, whipped

1. For the stock syrup: Bring all the ingredients to the boil and simmer until the sugar has dissolved. Allow to cool and store in the fridge until needed.
2. For the parfait: Put the egg yolks and 20ml of the stock syrup into a mixing bowl and use an electric whisk at high speed to combine them. Meanwhile, boil the water and sugar together to make a light brown caramel. Immediately add the caramel to the egg mixture and whisk at high speed until it has doubled in size stop whisking and allow the mixture to cool. Add the Baileys and fold in the whipped cream. Pour the mixture into four 75mm steel ring moulds, or a bread tin lined with cling film, and freeze overnight

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Chocolate brownies and Baileys parfait

Heres a little recipe for dessert that I tried for a friends (Vini and Sue) dinner party recently .

The rich chocolate and nut brownie needs something light to counter it, and the Baileys parfait works well (though maybe itself a bit rich too)

Anyway the details.

Chocolate and nut Sundae

Inspired by Jame Oliver's recipe

I halved the measurements since I have a morbid fear of making too much rich desserts.... Make a dish that seres 14.. then eating it all myself.. Not good... so I try to reduce the measurements instead.

100g butter (I used normal salted.. I think a bit of salt enchances the flavour desserts)
• 125g dark chocolate (70% ), broken up
• 80g chopped nuts (cashew and hazelnut)
• 30g cocoa powder, sifted
• 70g plain flour, sifted
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 180g caster sugar
• 2 large eggs
100 ml cream (for extra moistness)

Preheat your oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4. Grease a 9 inch by 6 inch baking dish with butterg. In a large bowl over some simmering water, melt the butter and the chocolate and mix until smooth. Add the nuts, and stir together. In a separate bowl, mix together the cocoa powder, flour, baking powder and sugar, then add this to the chocolate, and nut mixture. Stir together well. Beat the eggs and cream and mix in until you have a silky consistency.

Pour your brownie mix into the baking tray, and place in the oven for around 25 minutes. You don’t want to overcook them so, unlike cakes, you don’t want a skewer to come out all clean. The brownies should be slightly springy on the outside but still gooey in the middle. Allow to cool in the tray, then carefully transfer to a large chopping board and cut into chunky squares.

Christian Etienne, Avignon Restaurant Review

All the guidebooks recommend Christian Etienne as the "Top Table" in Avignon. We hadn't planned on going here, as been Michelin starred it is more expensive than your average reataurant. As it happened La Fourchette was fully booked. In hindsight it was a good thing.

Certainly all other reviews of Christian Etienne were universally excellent. Also fortunately for us, it wasn't fully booked, and we were able to secure a booking (on the night in question).

The website contains all the menus. We went for the Pork tasting menu.

Unfortunately a combination of over-excitment at the food, and slight embaressment at taking photos of the food, I missed a couple of courses.

We started with an Amuse bouche of Veloute.. Creamy tasty

Pig's trotter croquette, porcini mousse .

Provençal pork sausage with Savoy cabbage, salad of Chinese cabbage,

roasted almonds.

Truely excellent

Fricassee of calamari with saffron Swiss chard, quinoa and sweet chorizo sticks,

sauce of chopped wild onions

Exquisite. calamari was ultra fresh and cooked to perfection, and matched fantgastically with the chorizo, and onions. No photo

Butternut squash velouté, mousse with local pork, waffle with Provençal snails

Filet mignon of Iberico pork, braised leeks, olive croutons

I'd had Iberico Pork, roasted before, and found it dissapointing. Then it was a roast loin, here it was diced, and fried off. Absolutely delicious.

Beaufort sliced with quince jelly, blood sausage, mesclun salad with walnut oil

Jellied beets, green pepper coulis, lemon-galanga sorbet, a touch of garlic

Malva Pudding

South African Apricot pudding is a simple enough desert thats sweet moist and delish. I had it while on holidays there and had to make it again once I got back.

From wikipedia.

Malva Pudding is a sweet pudding of Dutch origin, usually served hot with custard and/or ice-cream. It is made with apricot jam and has a spongy caramelized texture. It is often found on the dessert menu of South African restaurants. It is supposdly named after a woman called Mlva who invented it.

My recipe was an amalgamation of a few I found online I found this recipe online.

What was interesting to me was the addition of vinegar. I assume it is simply to provide an acid to re-act with the soda and cause the pudding to rise. Certainly there was no discernible vinegar taste from it that I could identify.

Other recipes refer to a sauce. This confused me, so I've renamed it "cooking liquor", as it is a licquid that poured in and the pudding cooks in it. You will still need some custard/ cream/ ice-cream etc. to counter the rich sweetness of the pudding.

No photos unfortunately. The pudding didn't last long enough. Maybe next time

Recipe

30g butter
1/2 cup Sugar ( I used brown)
2 medium eggs
30 ml (2 tablespoon) apricot jam
5ml (1 teaspoon) bicarbonate of soda
1cup cake flour
Pinch of salt
125ml (½ cup) milk
20ml (4 teaspoons) vinegar

Sauce:
375 ml (1½ cups) cream
125 g. butter
Pinch salt
200ml Sugar ( I used brown)
15ml (1 tablespoon) apricot jam

Method

1. Pre heat oven to 200C
2. Cream the butter and sugar together, beat in the egg until light and fluffy.
3. Add jam and beat.
4. Dissolve the bicarb in the milk.
5. Sift the flour and salt together and add to the mixture alternately with the milk.
6. Make the Cooking liquor(See below)
7. Lastly add the vinegar.
8. Pour the mixture into a buttered deep ovenproof dish ( approx 2 litres)
9. Pour over half the Cooking liquor, cover and bake for 30 minutes.
10. Pour over the balance of the Cooking liquorand bake uncovered for 20 minutes until the centre of the pudding is done, but the sauce must still bubble around the sides.

Cooking liquor:

1. Mix all the ingredients together, bring to the boil and simmer, stirring all the time for 2 minutes.

Thorthons

Another early bird specia

49 for 3 course meal

Highly recomended. Some of the best, most exquisitly executed food I've tasted.

Shanahans

€55 early bird.

At last thanks to the recession I could try this much lauded establishment. For many years its been far too expensive to consider.

While €55 isn't cheap, compared to the staggering a la carte prices (€48 for a steak main course) makes it an absolute bargain.

So for €55 you get 4 courses from a slightly reduced menu.

Starters include: mussels, ham and pea soup, smoked salmon, caesar salad.
Mains include: new york striploin steak, filet steak, pork shank, and roast cod.
Sides of onion rings, mashed potato, and vegtables are provided.
Deserts: chocolate fondant, omelate souffle, bread and butter pudding.

First opinions. The room and service is all very good as you would expect. For me Menu isn't very exciting. Most dishes are old favourites, nothing really exciting. As you would expect for an American style steakhouse portions are generous.

So generous in fact that I asked for a doggie bag for my pork. First time ever in Ireland. They even threw in one of their mini Bread loaves.. a nice touch... That doggie bag served as dinner for 2 the following night.

Filet steak was good. Sirloin steak not as good. bit dry. In fairness I've cooked as good myself.

Overall it was crowd pleasing stuff. Even with the discounted rate it was expensive though. I'd go again but not in a hurry

Pasteis de Belem

The Belem egg custard tarts are world famous. Coach loads of visors pile into the cafe in Belem to sample the tarts, and they have spread world wide. The first time I tried these tarts was actually in Hong Kong. Lisbon is one of my favourite cities, and is much closer these days, so I always make some time to try the original Pasteis de Belem (Portugese custard tarts).

Here's a recipe I tried a couple of times for a low fat version, from NotQuiteNigella, (itself based on an original recipe by celebrity Aussie chef Bill Granger). While not as creamy as the the original they are still very good. Also the pastry is never quite as flaky as the original. I used real vanilla pod instead of the vanilla extract mentioned. This was halved and the seeds scaped out and added to the milk. The milk was boiled before adding it to the eggs, flour and sugar mixture, before it was heated on a bainmarie to thicken.

This article suggests that the flakiness of the originals is due to furnace like ovens they use. I must try higher temperatures to see if that helps.