week 2

This time I’m writing in English for my Norwegian relatives and English-speaking friends. Time seems to fly in Ballymaloe we are already in week 2 and we were very busy.

I got used to the buzz in the kitchen and I find my way around the premises.

Today was lecture day. We were shown how to make homemade butter, yoghurt, buttermilk, Cottage Cheese, Labne (soft yoghurt cheese), Ricotta and cheese! All depends on good milk preferably from Jersey cows and not pasteurised.

butter

Yoghurt with applesauce

Labneh with Anchovies and red Chilli and Parsley

In the afternoon we had our second wine lecture. The first one was on Monday from 6pm to 7.30 pm with Eric Talavet from the Etablissment Thunevin, Saint Emilion, Bordeaux! Very interesting. Today we had wine lecture with Colm McCan, Sommelier at Ballymaloe House.

I learned a lot, just one little example:

With one 150-year-old oak tree you can make not more then 2 oak barrels, 1 barrel costs only a 1000 Euro including the labour to produce it. Chardonnay is produced in oak barrels and most of the oak barrels come from French oak or American oak. Considering how much Chardonnay is produced all over the world it made me feel sad about those beautiful old oak trees which are cut every day.

Now to more pleasant topics I promised you a recipe. I decided to post the crab tart, I had to extract the meat of 3 crabs, pretty laborious job but worth it. Seems my Norwegian roots are coming through!

Darina Allen telling us all about crabs

Crab and Coriander Tart  (Recipe from Rachel Allen)

Pastry

ca 500gr pastry

250gr  plain flour

125gr butter

1/2 – 1 egg beaten

grated zest of lemon

27 cm x 3cm tin or 30x 2cm best with removable base

Rub butter into flower, add lemon rind, add egg, form to ball and flatten, wrap it and  put it in fridge for 30 min.

Roll out, ca 2.5 mm and put in tin, make sure the pastry is nicely cut on edges. Put in fridge for 10 min.

Bake blind for 15 to 20 min in preheated oven 180° (conventional)  or until pastry feels dry to touch. Remove paper and beans, brush pastry with a little beaten egg bake for another 2-3 min. Take pastry out of oven, let it cool.

In the meantime you prepare the filling:

300gr crab meat equal to ca 2 medium sized crabs

3 eggs 1 egg yolk, beaten

300 ml cream

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 tablespoon chopped coriander

1 teaspoon grated ginger

1/4 – 1/2 deseeded chilli chopped

mix well

season with salt and pepper

Pour into baked pastry sprinkle 50 gr Parmesan over filling and bake for 40 min in preheated oven 180°

Serve with Salad

Ballymaloe Salad

ps internet connection is very slow tonight will have to post more pictures another time.