St Patrick's Day is upon us, and what better way to celebrate - apart from dressing up like a leprechaun and downing pints of Guinness - than cooking up an Irish storm?
We've teamed up with Great British Chefs to bring you everything you need to throw the ultimate St Patrick's Day dinner party
Here are three delicious recipes inspired by The Emerald Isle, featuring (unsurprisingly) potato, Guinness and stout.
Enjoy.
Potato soup (Serves 4)
Cooking time: 35 minutes
Ingredients:
3 large Agria potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
2 large onions, sliced
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1l of vegetable nage
1 black truffle, grated
200ml of cream, whipped
1 pinch of St Lorenzo sea salt
Method:
- Begin by sweating the sliced onion and garlic together in a heavy-based pan. Once they begin to colour, add the sliced potatoes to pan along with the vegetable nage.
- Allow to cook until the onions and potatoes soften. Then, blend the contents of the pan before passing through a fine sieve.
- In a separate bowl, mix together the sea salt and whipped cream before grating in a generous amount of black truffle.
- To serve, spoon the contents into four bowls. Top each with a good dollop of truffle cream.
By Andrew MacKenzie
Roast capon with hay, chestnut pulp, Guinness and oyster sauce (Serves 4)
Cooking time: 8 hours 30 minutes
Ingredients:
Capon
130g of hay
1 1500g capon
2l of water
10g of St Lorenzo sea salt
salt
pepper
olive oil
Chestnut pulp
500g of cooked chestnuts, peeled
50g of butter
1 sprig of fresh thyme, leaves picked
Guinness and oyster sauce
1 can of Guinness
12 oysters
75g of butter
Method:
- To make the capon, place 100g hay into a large saucepan. In a well-ventilated room, using a blow torch, flame the hay. Make sure you have a lid close by just in case something goes wrong.
- Allow the hay to burn for 10 seconds, before adding 2 litres of water to bring out the flavour of the hay.
- Bring the liquid to the boil, before removing from the heat and leaving to cool and infuse. Once completely cooled, strain and divide in half.
- Keep 1 litre aside to make the puree and sauce. In a large container, add 1 litre of hay stock along with 10g of salt and the capon.
- Leave to marinate for at least 1 hour, or up to 6 hours. This will season the capon, help tenderise it as well as infuse a subtle hay flavour throughout the meat.
- Remove from the stock and place in the fridge uncovered for an hour or overnight. This will dry out the skin causing it to tighten, so when cooked it will be super crispy.
- Take the capon out of the fridge at least an hour before cooking so the meat comes back to room temperature. Otherwise the capon will not cook equally. This way, you will also get a moist, juicy bird when cooked.
- Preheat the oven to 240°C/Gas mark 8.
- Rub the capon with olive oil and season plentifully. Put the bird on a tray and roast for 1 hour 20 minutes, basting every 25 minutes.
- Once cooked, remove from the oven and leave to rest for 20 minutes before carving. Drain the juices from the roasting tray into a jug.
- To make the chestnut pulp, add the chestnuts to a pan with 100 ml of the hay stock and the thyme. Bring to the boil. Add seasoning.
- In a blender, blitz the mix, adding the butter, more hay and stock to make a pulp. Sieve the pulp and then season.
- To make the Guinness and oyster sauce, add the Guinness and hay stock to a pan. Boil and reduce by 2/3.
- Steam the oysters for 1 minute, before removing from the shells. Blend the flesh of the oysters with all the juice in a blender.
- Sieve the oyster puree through a sieve and add to the reduced Guinness sauce, along with the sieved cooking juices from the capon. Whisk in the butter and season.
- To serve, remove the legs and breasts from the capon, and cut each into 2. Serve half a breast and half a leg for each person.
- On each plate, serve a spoonful of the chestnut puree, followed by the capon, before spooning the sauce around them. If you have a hand blender, blend your sauce to give it a lighter, frothy texture. Serve with 1 fresh oyster each.
By Pascal Aussignac
Honey and Stout Tart (serves 8)
Cooking time: 1 hour 45 minutes
Ingredients:
Honey and stout filling
330ml of stout
4 Bramley apples, peeled and grated
200g of rolled porridge oats
250g of golden syrup
250g of honey
250g of breadcrumbs, stale
6 eggs, beaten
2 2/3 tbsp of lemon juice
1 lemon, zested
1 orange, zested
Pastry
250g of plain flour
1 pinch of salt
125g of butter, cut into cubes, plus extra for greasing
50g of caster sugar
3 eggs
Method:
- Begin by making the pastry. Add the flour, salt and cubes of butter to a mixing bowl. Using your fingers, rub the mix together until you reach a breadcrumb consistency.
- Add the sugar and mix well. Gradually work in 2 eggs with your fingers until a dough forms.
- If you have a blender, pulse together the flour, salt, butter and sugar until the mix resembles breadcrumbs, before transferring to a bowl to make a large ball of dough. Whether you do it with a blender or by hand, make sure to not overwork the dough. Just mix it enough to bring the dough together.
- Wrap your dough in clingfilm and leave to chill in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 150°C/gas mark 2. Grease a 25cm loose-bottomed tart tin and set aside.
- Once your pastry has chilled, prepare a work surface lightly dusted with flour before rolling out the pastry into a large circle. You want it to be 5cm bigger than your tin. Roll the pastry around the rolling pin loosely, before carefully draping it over the tin. Lightly press the pastry into the edges to fit.
- Trim the edges of the pastry with a sharp knife, before lining the pastry with some greaseproof paper. Pour in the baking beans. Blind bake the pastry case in the oven for 45 minutes or until it turns a pale golden colour. Remove from the oven before raising the temperate to 180°C/gas mark 4.
- Remove the greaseproof paper and baking beans from the tin, and brush the entire pastry case in egg wash. This will prevent the pastry from cracking.
- To make the filling, in a pan mix the stout and grated apple together and bring to the boil. Reduce to a simmer and allow the liquid to reduce by half, before removing from the heat and set it aside to cool slightly until warm.
- Add the remaining ingredients to the pan and mix well, before pouring into the pastry case. Bake the tart for 20-25 minutes until the filling is set.
By Richard Corrigan