The Wine Buff

This is the second post from Tom and Linda at the Wine Buff in Sligo; it’s another foodie recipe and one of Linda’s favourites not sure about Tom’s fondness for beetroot! 

A couple of customers from the shop (Tom and Fiona), dropped in some fresh home-grown beetroot and Linda decided to throw together a winter salad with beetroot, orange sections, vinaigrette and blue cheese. The dish involves roasting the beetroot with orange juice, zest, honey and thyme, these bring out the natural sweetness of the beetroot which could be served on their own or made into a salad. Tom even was impressed with the taste; the vinaigrette will be enough for several salads and will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks…

Ingredients (serves 4)

¾ kilogram of  beetroot (about 5 medium)
1 orange, zested and juiced
3 thyme sprigs
1 ½  teaspoons sea salt
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Salad & Vinaigrette

4 cups mixed lettuce
2 oranges
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
½  teaspoon orange zest, finely grated
¼ cup white balsamic vinegar
½  cup canola oil
¼  cup olive oil
1 cup blue cheese, crumbled
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees. Peel the beetroot and cut into quarters place these on a large piece of foil.

Peel the zest from one orange and sprinkle over the beetroot quarters. Cut the remainder of the orange in half and squeeze the juice over the beetroot, add the honey, thyme sprigs, salt and butter.  Seal the foil and place on a baking tray in the oven.  Bake for 45 minutes or until tender.

For the dressing, finely grate ½ teaspoon of orange zest and place in a mixing bowl. Remove the skin of the oranges including the white membrane with a knife, cut between the white membranes to release the orange segments. Set the segments aside and squeeze out any remaining juices into the mixing bowl.

Add the mustard, vinegar and orange zest to the mixing bowl.  Then gradually add the oils while whisking constantly to emulsify the vinaigrette adding salt to taste.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the lettuce leaves with just enough of the vinaigrette to lightly coat the leaves.

Arrange the lettuce on four serving plates.  Add the beets and orange segments.  Spoon a little more of the vinaigrette over the beets.  Add black pepper to taste and sprinkle on the blue cheese.

Tom and Linda from the Wine Buff Sligo have armed themselves with a new camera and are about to expose to the world their culinary delights and skills. Tom loves Mexican and Asian cuisines (my tongue took a few days to cool down after my last visit) and Linda graduated from culinary school in Arizona and worked at a Mediterranean/Italian restaurant, Bravo Bistro. They recently added a SousVide Supreme to their kitchen arsenal. You can read about this on SV Kitchen. 

For us this month they have put together a barbeque burger with a twist. Banh Mi Burgers, I know sounds like a song title from the Sultans of Ping! from Cork.

The famous Vietnamese sandwich, Banh Mi, is typically made from sliced or shredded meat served on a French baguette with a few condiments. We had some beautiful buns made by our neighbour Clo at The French Market in Sligo and had some beef mince so we thought we’d try to make burgers. We were delighted with the results. They were delicious and easy to prepare. The combination of chilles, fish sauce and lemongrass made the burgers slightly hot (happy Tom) and very tasty.

You could use a baguette instead of the bun, just cut the baguette into four inch lengths and shape the burgers in a more rectangular shape.  Or you can use regular hamburger buns.  We love chilles (Tom again !), the hotter the better but you can certainly tone down the heat by using fewer and or milder chilles.  We also use Three Crabs fish sauce as it’s the best we’ve found.  We can’t find it in Sligo but we have found it at the Oriental Emporium in Dublin.

Ingredients

Burgers:
600 grams beef mince.
2 stalks of lemongrass (tough outer skins removed, just use the softer inner part of the stalk) minced.
3 cloves garlic, minced.
2 thai bird chilles, minced.
3 spring onions, chopped.
1  tablespoon ground nut oil.
3  tablespoons fish sauce  preferably Three Crabs brand
Ground pepper.

Garnishes and Buns:
2 carrots, julienned (that’s cutting them into thin slices about 6 cm long). 
¼ cup sugar.
¼ cup rice vinegar.
½ cup water.
½ cucumber julienned.
1 red and green medium hot chillies thinly sliced (Tom is at it again).
Mayonnaise to taste.
4 buns.

For the burgers:
Heat a small frying pan over moderately high heat, add the ground nut oil and saute the lemongrass, garlic, bird chilles, and spring onions until softened.  Let mixture cool.

Combine mince, sautéed mixture, fish sauce and a few pinches of ground pepper.

Form mince into four patties to fit the size of buns/bread.

For the garnishes:
Combine the sugar, rice vinegar and water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil.  Take off the heat and add the carrots. Let sit for 30 minutes.

To finish:
Heat up the barbecue or start the coals.  If the weather’s not great, (yes we are in Ireland) use your oven grill.Toast the buns on the barbecue, then spread mayonnaise on each half of the buns.

Cook the burgers on the bbq about 4 minutes per side or until cooked to your liking.

Place the burgers on the buns and add the pickled carrots, julienned cucumbers and chille slices. 

The Wine Buff’s Wine match

We served the burgers with Beaubois Rose, Great !!!!!

The weather during the week in Cork turned a little bit cold, a little bit damp, and as we say in Cork raining cats and dogs or just “lashing”. So time to curl up with a big chunky pot of stew.

Carbonnade is a Belgian beef stew make with Belgian beer and plenty of onions, in my Irish version I have replaced the Belgian beer with Cork stout and added ham and leaks. Hope you enjoy and would appreciate any feedback.

 Ingredients

 Diced beef, about 1kg
 One gammon steak.
 Butter or olive oil
 2 onions
 2 cloves of garlic or to your taste.
 2 tablespoons of French mustard
 2 table spoons of tomato paste.
 ½ pint of beef stock.
 3 sprigs of thyme
 1 bay leaf
 1 leak.
 ½ litre of stout (Murphy’s)
 Sea salt and Ground pepper
 1 tablespoon of red currant jelly.
 Splash of cider, the rest for the chef.
 Cinnamon powder.

Heat the pan on the hob at medium heat. Pat the beef dry with paper towels to remove any excess water, if you don’t then when you place the beef in the pan you will be steaming it and not browning it. Another tip is don’t add salt to your beef before cooking as this also draws water out of the meat. Dice the gammon steak and also add to the pan till browned.

Add a good knob of butter or splash of olive oil to the pan, wait till the butter is fully melted and toss in the diced beef. Fry each side of the beef for about 3 minutes, then turnover, no need for continually stirring, just get it good and browned. Transfer to a bowl and repeat with the next batch of beef until done.

Pour the juices from the pan and another knob of butter or olive oil in a casserole dish; make sure you get everything from the pan including meat stuck to the pan. Heat on the hob and add the sliced onions, cook until browned for about 15 minutes.

Then add the beef stock, 3 sprigs of thyme, crushed garlic, 2 tablespoons of tomato paste, 1 bay leaf, chopped leak, 2 tablespoons of French mustard, stir and add ½ litre of stout, being from Cork I prefer Murphy’s as it is a little sweeter then Guinness or Beamish.

Increase the heat and bring to a full simmer, then reduce the heat to low and partially cover for 3 hours. Stir every half hour making sure the stew is not sticking to the bottom of the casserole dish. About 15 mins before finishing add a tablespoon of red currant jelly and a splash of cider.

Serve with baby boiled potatoes, a dollop of butter and chopped parsley.

Mike’s Wine Match

Beef stew seems to call out for a big red and the Syrah grape is ideal, this is the only grape grown in the northern Rhône Valley. Its also grown throughout the world and known in Australia as Shiraz. For the stew we drank a Syrah from the Languedoc region of France, from the vineyards of Mas du Novi called the Mas du Novi Prestigi, excellent.