Usually* with zero effort after Xmas lunch I just pop all of the carcass and left over meats, the scrapings of EVERY corner of EVERY roasting tray and leftover root veg into a po and add water when doing the washing up and let it simmer away as I potter around the kitchen What it creates is *the* most wonderful stock, great for soups, stews or try being canny and freezing it for next years gravy, you’ll be glad you did

I’ve long held the belief that Turkey stock is one of the best stocks there is, it’s lip smacking

Ok, I shouldn’t engage on this,
but here we are …
I can’t buy good Fillet of prime Beef for €5
We buy the best we can lay our hands on and it cost me roughly €11 plus our homemade chips (Maris Piper potatoes, hand - cut and very laborious) we roast bones for the pepper sauce

https://twitter.com/naz119109522/status/1596439460149104640

and onion rings are home made as well as Bearnaise sauce. Nothing is cheap
I’d say it’s pushing €18 for me to make that dish

This is served in a warm welcoming environment with well trained staff, linen tablecloths and heating on full all day

The issues facing the industry as I see it, a thread 🧵

Every single cog of the operation is getting squeezed at the moment
We all stumbled out of 3 lockdowns into a war and a very likely global recession of some kind.
Ireland might be more insulated this time but we’ll see People are seeing prices rise dramatically they’re getting cautious and want to see where that money is going, rightly so
People want staff paid well and trained well and great food bought from small producers
This currently demands a very high yet very justified price tag

So, thread time ;
THE REVERSE SEAR
Probably, definitely the best way to cook a steak
Sounds complicated and risky but it’s actually not
It’s like a cave man style, dry sous-vide, but better, way better
So we bake it low, THEN Sear / Fry / BBQ it up Firstly this only really works on larger steaks, so get one massive steak for 2-4 people rather than 4 skinny steaks which are usually too thin to fully sear /char

I think T-Bone is best for this, swiftly followed by Rib Eye or a Wing End Strip

You want your steak around 2kg

The Reverse Sear technique; probably the best way to cook a larger steak. Especially a heavily marbled cut like Rib-Eye or the Wing End of the Striploin. yup sounds like it is, you cook it BACKWARDS.... Rather than searing first, we cook the steak nice n low in a dry oven at a low temperature, THEN sear it. Exhibit A is a marbled @higginsbutchers Dry Aged 24oz Rib Eye on the bone, or cote de boeuf. It’s a common misconception that searing first “locks in” the juices

Killing a piglet; a thread
After a bit of discussion / bun fight on the cruelty of the killing of a piglet over a grown pig last night I was up for a few hours thinking of the fundamentals of it.
Now’s the time to grab a coffee or mutter “feck off smith” and hit backspace Whilst the fight was mainly that the photos of the whole piglet were in poor taste I still think I would face the wrath and post them again, why ?

Roast Chicken ; A Thread. I’ve been messing with chickens all week at home & in work (stop giggling down the back) to see what makes the best, in terms of Flavour, Texture, Crispy Skin, Juiciness (& the retention of it for sambos) and how origin, size & method change the outcome First up Size - tried a 1.4kg a 1.6kg and a 2.2kg. For me the 1.4 had the greatest flavour, which is surprising as I’d have thought an older (well reared) chook would be tastier. 2.2kg gave me the most juices for gravy & retained the juices better for Sangers. 1.6kg was mid road

*Fruit and Veg Market – a Thread * Take a Seat !
Following on from a meeting yesterday, in which I was privileged to be the first person to see an extremely well thought out presentation that will hopefully end up in us having possibly the best municipal market in Europe I had goose-bumps watching the presentation unfold and it led me to believe that rather than us having to complain and ask the question of
“why don’t we / can’t we have a market”,
I can now share the positivity of posing the question “how can we help get this over the line”