Week Eight at Ballymaloe

Whoppie Pies

This weekend was wonderful. Friday night was a little stormy so we all spent the night watching movies and keeping warm. Saturday Nick and I ventured out to the Midleton Farmer's market. We just missed a downpour so we were lucky to have the run of the place when we got there.... saying that there was still quite a queue for the pizzas. The pizzas are baked fresh and are absolutely delicious. They were just the ticket on a chilly Saturday morning. We headed to the grocery store and decided to buy ingredients to make whoppie pies. Whoppies are the new cupcake, like a scooter pie but better. Two cakey cookies sandwiched with marsh mellow whip.... home made mash-mellow whip which is a dangerous thing. I spent Saturday night sick having eaten a countless number of whoppies. 

Monday morning I was in the kitchen making bread. I was on brown bread duty and quickly whipped up some brown bread before settling into my mornings schedule. Its kind of exciting to say I can whip up some brown bread but after 8 weeks of making it almost every day I should be able to say that...though I admit I still have my occasional disaster.. :)  I was scheduled to make Roast Pork with crackling, spiced aubergines and parsnip mash. The pork was pretty straight forward besides the fact is was full of HAIR! I guess that is a sign of authentic organic material... but at the same time I thought it was a little nasty.... I quickly scored the flesh, threw on some herbs and salt and shoved it into the oven. The hairs simmered underneath their blanket of herbs and in no time the pork was ready to eat. The crackling with slightly uneatable but the rest of the it was wonderful.

Tuesday's Presentation

Tuesday was a great day. We made ice cream! It was so simple and such a delicious treat. I boiled some sugar and water until it reached the 'thread point' which is as it sounds. The liquid falls off the spoon like a thread and at that moment its ready to be added to the egg yolks. The water and sugar is added to the yolks and whisked to a white stiff perfection. In another bowl I whipped up (way too much) heavy cream. In an excitable moment I measured two liters of cream before it was whipped instead of two liters of whipped cream. I added some vanilla beans and vanilla extract and folded it into the sugary egg mixture. A quick trip to the freezer and a couple hours later I had ice-cream...so easy and so delicious. I also made Brioche. It was a lot of work but well worth the trouble. Its a dough with a lot of butter so its a bit difficult to handle but I managed to get it into the oven and 20 minutes later I had light fluffy beautiful brioche. I will definitely have to make that again.

Wednesday was demo and lecture day and probably one of the best lunches I've eaten since being here. It was all vegetarian which was a pleasant surprise. Its amazing how good food can be without meat. It was absolutely some of the best things I've eaten. Lentils, beans, veges, rice it all was scrumptious. If I could eat like that every day i'll happily become vegetarian.... Then again I work up this morning and realized it was......

Hazy Kitchen

STEAK DAY. Its almost speaks for itself but I have to expand. We started out making a couple sauces, French fries, onion rings, coleslaw and ratatouille. Once that was all finished we cut our steaks from the half carcass laying at the front of the room (what do you expect!) and we heated our grill pans to volcanic temperature. I am a medium well lady so I slapped my beef on for four minutes each side. It was perfect and tasted like heaven. I was happy to practice and made a couple more rare and medium steaks. By the end of the grilling we were walking around in a greasy haze. I was happy to get out into the fresh air for lunch and enjoyed a beautiful crisp afternoon. We had a wine lecture this evening which was great. We had a woman come and speak on Chilean wine which was all delicious. 7 o'clock rolled along and it was finally time to go home and relax. We are expecting bad weather tonight so I expect to sleep really well tonight.

Tomorrow we are cooking crepes and soufflés amongst other things. Its Friday already and the end of week eight! Not