A packet of Rashers and Irish Food Quality Certification

I was in Tesco last week and needed to pick up some bacon. I was planning on making some split pea and bacon soup - a Delia Smith recipe that my wife and I love. I have made this before with a chunk of smoked bacon chopped up small and it was delicious. I thought a packet of rashers would do in a pinch.

There was a huge selection of rashers in the chilled cabinet. They all however seemed to be essentially the same. There are a number of flavours, but who wants flavours in their rashers? Food companies perhaps. This avoids having to produce tasty bacon. There were no free range ones, no organic. Just streaky or back and the bunch of flavours. I bought a packet of Denny back rashers.

When I opened the packet I could see how thin they were. As I separated them they tore. I had to scrape them apart with my fingers. They were covered in some sort of sticky goo. Probably the added flavours. The first few I cooked under the grill smelled of fish oil (presumably what the pigs had been fed). As they cooked a white foam oozed out of them. They were flavourless except for the strong 'smoke' that had been added. I fried the last few and they were just as bad.

I have made the mistake of buying Denny products before. Probably because of the amount they spend on advertising. It strikes me as sad that in a country that is supposedly so reliant on agriculture food producers are intent on making bottom of the barrel muck like these rashers. This is of course an Irish Quality Assurance Scheme product. Here is a link to the producer rules for this scheme.

I live in a major suburb. We subsidise this industry to a vast extent and they don't seem to produce anything worth eating. How are Bord Bia supposed to sell this junk in foreign markets? I can imagine the Germans or the French laughing at us. Food in Ireland is frequently viewed as a producers right to sell and the consumer can take what they are given.

I think the Quality Assurance Scheme is a base level which all farms should achieve. This should not be an opt in and should be removed from packaging as a marketing tool.

Secondly a new scheme needs to be introduced aimed at the quality of the end product. Professional grading panels could be used to determine what products are of the highest quality. A set of grading levels - 1, 2, 3 etc. could be used to show which products were the best. What type of feed had been used could be indicated on the package along with the lack of additives and housing conditions for animals. These products could command a premium price. This move away from commodity production should improve margins for everyone in the supply chain. The consumer will also benefit from real choices in the quality of what they buy.

I would certainly pay a lot more for bacon that taste like bacon. I won't buy Denny products again though.

Thai style bean burgers

Made Thai style bean burgers last night. Bit of a disaster really. I used dried beans and soaked them for several days (we were away for the weekend, so left them in the fridge). The burgers turned out to be a sloppy mess. I definitely can't blame the recipe for this foul up. Not too bad tasting, but definitely not worth making again. I made sweet potato wedges to go with them and they were very nice. Olive oil on them and a lot of rosemary. Almost made up for the sloppy bean burgers :-)

Lamb jalfrezi

Got a jar of jalfrezi paste in the Asian market a while ago. Here is the lamb curry that I made with it:

Ingredients:
500g of shoulder of lamb pieces
1 tbsp of vegetable oil
2 tbsp Pataks jalfrezi paste
1 onion chopped up
Tin of tomatoes
1 green chilli
2 small dried chillies
Half the tomato tin of water

Method:
Heat the tablespoon of veg oil in a thick bottomed sauce pan. Add the onion and fry for a few minutes to brown it. Keep stirring it and make sure it does not burn. Add the curry paste and fry for another minute. This gets the flavours out. Add the meat and stir it around to brown it for a few minutes. The add the rest of the ingredients. Bring to the boil and then turn down low and put the lid on. It takes about an hour to cook. It's done when the meat is tender.
I served this with some cous cous and a big blob of lime pickle.

Another Laksa

Made laksa again the other night. This is getting to be a favourite. We used to get Asian soups a lot in Cafe and the flavour was great. I could never really figure out what it was until I tried the Laksa from Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Dinners.

In this one I did not use tamarind or lemon zest. Think this was a bad idea to leave them out. The tamarind is a bit of a hassle, but it is worth it. This was still very nice. I got the recipe from Ainsley Harriott's Feel Good Cookbook. Some very nice recipes in that one.

Sticky carrot side dish

This is a Jamie Oliver recipe. Decided to do this instead of just steam the carrots.

Peel and chop the carrots and stand them in a pot snugly. Put a big knob of butter on top of them. Season and stuff some bay leaves in between them.
Fill it half way up the side of the carrots with stock or water.

Bring to the boil and reduce to a simmer with the lid on. Wait until the carrots are cooked and then remove the lid and reduce the stock until you are just left with the butter sticky at the bottom of the pot. Now you have to wait until the bottom of the carrots caramelises.

A minute too long and they will burn. These look burnt, but they were very tasty.
If I was doing this again I would use less stock and try to keep a bit of bite in the carrots.
That is chicken breast coated with cream cheese and pesto and wrapped in bacon along with some asparagus and masked potatoes.

The aftermath of this looked a lot worse than it was. Soaked the pot over night and the burnt bits just came off.

White yeast bread

Had some friends coming over for lunch on Sunday, so made a beef stew with red wine.
Made this loaf of bread to go along with it. I just followed the instructions on the packet of flour and it came out perfect. So much for yest bread being complicated. I egg washed the top and put some sesame seeds on there too to make it look the part. Improved the flavour too.

Smoked coley chowder

Had some smoked coley in the freezer and fancied this for tea. It was really excellent and I got to use some more of the nice leeks from my garden. Nearing the end of that supply. As usual, when they are all gone I will keep stumbling over leek recipes and will not be able to bring myself to buy any following the spring time glut.

Ingredients:
20g of butter
300g of smoked coley (which is just another name for pollock apparently)- I got this in the fridge compartment at Aldi.
3 large potatoes, peel and dice them to about 1cm
1 pint of whole milk
1 pint of vegetable stock
2 leeks, chopped small - give them a rinse too. They tend to bring the garden with them
1 Onion, chopped small
3 rashers of smoked streaky bacon, chopped up small

Method:
Melt the butter slowly in a thick bottom large pot. Add the leeks, rashers and onion and give it all a good stir. Put the lid on and cook on a low heat for about 5 minutes. Then add the potatoes and stock and season with salt and pepper. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 15 minutes until the potatoes are done.
While that is cooking you need to cook the fish. Put the milk in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Be careful not to burn or over boil it as this will spoil the taste. Add the fish and let it simmer gently for about 5 minutes. Check that the fish is done - it should break into flakes easily. Then turn off the heat under the milk and remove the fish to a plate with a fish slice or slatted spoon. Break the fish into flakes and add these to the potato and vegetable mixture. Leave any skin and bones out. Pour the milk into the soup through a sieve (this catches any bones or bits of skin that might have fallen off and also stops the nasty curdled bit that you used to get on your breakfast cereal ending up in your soup). Also sieve in any of the bits from the fish plate so that you don't miss out on any of the flavour.
Simmer the whole lot for about 5 minutes.
Ladle it into large bowls. I put some coriander on top of ours because it was in the fridge, but parsley would be ideal.
I served it with buttermilk scones and butter.