Louet-Feisser premium oyster

Raised in the north east coast of Ireland at Carlingford lake, this is my favourite oyster. Tasty, meaty and just the right size, beautiful.

House Martin

 

毛腳燕 house Martin 去春在屋簷下建巢，新一代長大後鳥去巢空，棄置多月，入口處有點破爛。

兩星期前夫妻倆再次出現，飛來飛去復修舊居，可以看到修補處有不同顏色的泥土和弧度。

今年醒目，見到他們回歸，即刻把大木盆搬到巢下，種花兒作裝飾。目的，自然是懶得清潔地面。

Roast mix vegetables

My favourite easy to make carbohydrate dish, here added some scallion for colour and flavor.


Simply cut root vegetables like sweet potato, Yacon, carrot, potato, etc into strips, (fennel bulb cut into segment works well too) shake with some olive oil. Do the same with scallion, place scallion at the bottom of baking tray, spread vegetables on top, bake at 180˚C until edges turns brown, around 30 minutes. Season with salt, for me they tasted nice on their own.

Honey harvest

This is my top bar hive (long hive) activity, first inspection of the year.

Both hives are already full of honey, except one last empty bar. I took some full combs out to give them space. Most are Ivy honey, crystalised, from last autumn, the rest runny honey from this Spring.

Cut a few nice blocks of honey comb to enjoy as such.

The rest is warmed at 40 degrees in oven, using basic kitchen equipments, knife, sieve, spatula, to obtain a few jars of honey.

 

The squashed wax combs are washed in mildly warm water, to get some of the remaining honey out. Then put in a muslin bag in warm water (60-70˚C) until wax melt and float to the top, bee residue remains in the bag. The liquid is sweet with pollen and propolis in it, full of nutrients.

Both batch of honey liquid are combiined, added wine yeast and will make my first mead.  

 

Wax collected for future use in the hive, nothing from the hve is wasted.

Wild seaside vegetables

Very happy to find these wild foraged seaside vegetables in organic shop, tried sea Campion, sea Beet, sea Plantain and rock Sampire. First time to have them, all keeps the bright green colour well after cooking, have a nice texture, not totally soft and a mild characteristic taste.

sea Plantain

sea Plantain

sea Plantain

sea Beet

I will keep buying them to support the forager’s work, add wild food element in my diet, with interesting mixed nutrients.

Asparagus

My bed of asparagus is slowly popping up with some heads, not ready to serve, but the market is full of it, can’t wait to have some.

Peel the skin on the tough end, bake as such in 180˚C until just turn soft, around 12 minutes, add a dressing on top, this one is soy sauce, mustard, honey and olive oil.

Mojito

After a long holiday in Cuba, I got used to the taste of Mojito, rum, mint, lemon and sugar, refreshing summer drink.

Even though not very relevant to the weather in Ireland, when I see the Moroccan mint is growing well, spreading in the ground and needs using, an idea comes to mind.

I boil a large bunch of mint in water, like what they do in Morocco to make mint tea, when cool, add lemon zest and juice and a little honey to mildly sweeten. The flavour of mint tea without any sweetness does not work.

Pour into small cup and freeze as ice cubes, ready to use with a bit of rum in summer days.

Peach and Daikon

 Peach melred is showing off all the baby fruits, a good crop, finger crossed. Daikon root is forming.

turbot

 

Second turbot, around 1kg, of the year, my favourite fish. This one from the cold Irish Sea is tastier than the previous one, in Rovinj, Croatia, from the warmer Mediterranean Sea.

 Season with salt for half a day, bake at 200˚C for 12 minutes, rest with oven door ajar for another 10 minutes.

 

Male spider crab

 

What a treat! It is a bit of work, a lot of fingers licking, but a sweet meaty big spider crab (1.5 kg) is worth all the effort! 

Simply steam in oven for 20 minutes

 

Yacon

Ready to harvest in February, but last well in the soil until mid April, as long as the soil is not too wet.
Nice as a pickle or grilled, have that nice mildly sweet crunch both raw and cooked.

Tomato seedlings

Just planted tomato seedlings in the green house, 5 varieties this year, 2 plants each : Basque beef tomato Mendigloria, cherry tomato Julia’s red, beef tomato Orange Wellington, oval tomato Pink Tiger and round tomato Zlavata, hope they will be all tasty.

Still enjoying semi-dried cherry and beef tomatoes from last year, should have enough untill this years harvest.

 

Slow cooked pork belly with preserved vegetable

Bought preserved vegetable  梅菜 during the trip to Taichung, and finally made a dish using it. Not really the traditional way梅菜扣肉 because I am lazy to deep fry the skin, so just slow cook in a nice sauce, tasty enough for me and the vegetable is fragrant and tasty.

1.Boil whole piece of belly pork for 30 minutes until cooked through. When cool cut into 1/2 cm slices.
2.Soak preserved vegetable until soft.
3.Bring to boil the water from soaked vegetable, add soy sauce, brown sugar, ginger, rice wine and five spices powder. Add pork slice to warm up.
4.In a baking dish, arrange pork slices in spiral/rows.
5.Warm up soaked preserves vegetable and carrot slices in the sauce, add on top of pork and pour sauce to cover all.
6.Wrap with baking paper and aluminium foil, bake at 130˚C until soft, around 2 hours.

Cuckoo bird and flower

This pretty flower is named after cuckoo, not because of how it looks, but they are said to appear at the same time, in Spring when warm weather starts. 

Indeed I noticed the flower while walking the field on the first hot Spring day, and heard cuckoo in the forest!

A sunny hot day

21 April, the first sunny day, from early morning onward, for a long while. Went for a walk in nearby Castlelough forest to see bright light green newly appeared beech leaves and blue bells. 

Turned out there has been coppicing last autumn thinning out selected trees, so a lot of blue bell grounds are temporarily messed up.

 

Found a corner with 3 cornered leeks growing beautifully.

The sun gained power and turn hot in the afternoon, have to change to short sleeves, in April, in Ireland, there is always a first time.

Alfresco bbq dinner followed, to enjoy such a pleasant warm evening.