Local garden-to-table enthusiasts can find inspiration in an unlikely place: a farm across the Atlantic. Darina Allen, one of Ireland’s most famous chefs, and her brother Rory O’Connell founded Ballymaloe Cookery School in Shanagarry, County Cork, Ireland in 1983. The school is surrounded by formal gardens including an herb garden, an ornamental fruit garden and a kitchen potager and sits amidst a 100-acre organic farm that produces fruits and vegetables throughout the year with much of the harvest used by the school.
Allen shares her enthusiasm for gardening and cooking in “Grow Cook Nourish: 400 Seasonal Recipes from the Ballymaloe Cookery School Kitchen Garden” (Kyle Books, $49.99), recently reissued in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the cooking school. The recipes reflect the influence of her global travels, and celebrate the best of local food production and Irish food culture. They encourage the reader with approachable recipes that look at produce in new and delicious ways. She writes that she originally thought the title of this book should be, “Grow some of your own food and cook it” because she believes so strongly in the importance of local produce.
“Anyone can grow, anywhere, in any space. Even if you live in a skyscraper or a high-rise flat with a balcony, you can grow some of your own food.”
She is clearly in love with her subject and what she has written is a veritable encyclopedia of how to sow seeds and nurture plants, and harvest and cook what grows to nourish yourself and others. Her garden advice applies as well in Georgia as it does in Ireland.
The book’s 640 pages include over 200 pages devoted to growing and cooking vegetables, covering everything from turnips and leeks to lesser-known vegetables such as scorzonera and salsify. She includes 130 pages on fruit, 120 pages on herbs, 60 pages on things that grow wild such as blackberries or can be foraged such as dandelions and hawthorn berries and 25 pages on edible flowers.
Each entry includes information on varieties and tips for growing, as well as the pests and diseases the plants might encounter and what you can do if you find yourself with what she refers to as a “glut” of whatever you’ve harvested.
It’s a treasure trove for the gardeners among us, but this is not just a book for gardeners. It is a cookbook full of kitchen inspiration with over 400 beautifully illustrated recipes that give lie to the idea that Irish food is all stew, soda bread and corned beef with boiled cabbage.
RECIPES
Prepare a farm- or garden-to-table meal with these recipes for a tart filled with potatoes, green onions and goat cheese; lamb chops served with a Peruvian salsa of feta pureed with fresh herbs; and salad that showcases fresh carrots, beets and apples. Recipes adapted from “Grow Cook Nourish” by Darina Allen. Reproduced with permission of Kyle books.
Credit: Clare Winfield
Credit: Clare Winfield
Goat Cheese, Spring Onion & Potato Tart
The inclusion of egg in the pastry mixture makes for a sturdy crust. Brushing the prebaked crust with the reserved egg mixture helps avoid a soggy bottom once the crust is filled and baked. Note that the filling calls for cooked new potatoes.
Allen suggests serving the tart with a green salad, as shown in the photo.
Note: For nutritional calculations, a “pinch” is defined as 1/16 teaspoon.
Credit: Clare Winfield
Credit: Clare Winfield
Lamb Chops with Uchucuta Sauce
Allen writes that uchucuta sauce is a Peruvian salsa made with fresh cheese produced throughout the Andes mountain region blended with hot rocoto peppers and huacatay, a herb unique to that area. Her recipe is based on a version from Martin Morales of the now-closed London Peruvian restaurant Ceviche and substitutes flat-leaf parsley, cilantro, mint and tarragon for the huacatay and harissa or sriracha for the rocoto peppers.
If you have leftover sauce, it makes a delicious dip for raw vegetables or topping for boiled potatoes.
Note: For nutritional calculations, the amount of salt included is 1/4 teaspoon.
Credit: Clare Winfield
Credit: Clare Winfield
Caramelized Carrot, Beetroot & Apple Salad
Cut your carrots in half lengthwise if they are 1 inch in diameter or larger. Note that the salad calls for cooked beets.
In the photo, the salad includes wild spring greens such as dandelion, purslane and chickweed. If your garden doesn’t yield similar tender spring greens, arugula or watercress make a fine substitute.
Note: For nutritional calculations, a “pinch” is defined as 1/16 teaspoon.
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