Ireland, June 2022

 After 3.5 years I finally got home to Ireland!  Amazing how much we packed in.  Amongst other things: met tons and tons of Patrick's relatives, saw Oliver Reed's final resting place in Churchtown, Cork (stayed two nights in the village actually), overnighted in The Shelbourne (eek! Bit of a lifelong dream realised),  a night in Powerscourt Hotel, Enniskerry, visited with my family, met up with Alice and spent a nice bit of time with Enid and Ciaran in Ranelagh.

Pictured below are some food highlights of the hol

Centre of the pic is the absolute climax of the food journey - the amazing seafood tower that Ciaran treated us to in his lovely Lawn Tennis Club restaurant.  Lobster, mussels, clams, oysters, salmon, crab, prawns. Oh my!

Other amazing food places visited: One Pico on Molesworth St, Sikka in Powerscourt, Matt The Threshers on Pembroke, Reilly's on Merrion St, various pubs in Dingle and the surrounds.  Good, Irish ingredients just can't be beat!

It really was just a wonderful trip.

Barbecue Tales part 13 - Lemon Fish

I have posted before about fish as part of my "Barbecue Tales" series.  We have cooked fish tacos, cooked fish in the fish basket, and cooked fish on the barbecue on foil (lovely and sumptuous!) Well today I proudly present to you fish cooked in the fishbasket which is lined with lemon.

But let me take a step back and tell you where all this beautiful fish came from.  Enid and Ciaran are staying with me, woohoo, and today we went out with the Salty Goat boat for a fishing day.  It was a great day and we all had success.  Enid caught the highest number of fish out of the three of us, I caught the biggest fish, and Ciaran...well Ciaran gave us a right old laugh when reeling in his very first fish which was putting up a great fight.  He battles and battles and then up comes the fish, the tiniest little tiddler ever!

I digress.  Back to the cooking.  So the lemon served three purposes - flavor of course, adding moisture to the already succulent fish, and kept the fish from sticking to the fish basket.  A win on all counts,

And of course there is nothing as good as eating fish that you caught yourself.  We had a fabulous dinner the three of us.  And afterwards we had scrumptious Key Lime Pie for dessert. Done and Done. Done!

My big fat fabulous seafood weekend

This weekend it was all about the Irish seafood!

 

On Thursday night we went to Urchin on Stephen's Green (it's part of the Cliff Townhouse) where we had a selection of prawns (pil pil and gambas) and also a portion of beef cheek.

It was so  nice that we actually went back on Friday night (after drinks in Kennedy's bar on Tara Street) and ordered just the prawns gambas to share.

Recognising us from the night before the lovely staff sent us over 2 little shrimp croquettes which while interesting didn't taste of very much.

And then the finale!

A seafood platter for two from the Bloody Stream in Howth,

Which we actually shared between three (Enid came along for the train ride), accompanied by two sides of sweet potato fries and onion rings it worked perfectly.

 

Can you see everything that is packed on there? Mussels in a lovely hot creamy broth, garlic bread for dipping into said broth, oysters, prawns, crab meat, smoked salmon, and poached salmon. It was excellent! It was my first time in the Bloody Stream and it will not be my last.