paddy's day

thursday
in IRE, st. patrick's day is a bank holiday. businesses are closed, schools are closed and everyone observes the day of saint patrick with parades and loads of guinness. because SPD fell on a thursday this year, we had class thursday and friday was our observed holiday at ballymaloe.

thursday was my last morning in the demo kitchen. i was in early to prepare a special dessert for my parents who were coming in for lunch and staying for afternoon demo. i had considered some individual lemon cakes with lemon curd filling, but didn't think it would have fit so nicely into my order of work. so i opted for the chocolate mousse. i put a few fresh raspberries in the bottom of the green glasses i used, poured the chocolate mousse on top and then set them in the fridge to set.

the rest of the morning was spent cooking and preparing lobster, making chips and hollandaise sauce. the humane way to cook lobster is to put the lobsters into a pot of tepid water and then bring it to the boil. the slow rise in temperature puts the lobster into a coma and within minutes it's dead. since we were being resourceful and re-using water, my lobsters didn't have such a humane death. they went head first into the boiling water. i quickly secured the lid and braced myself for the screaming i was sure to hear. when i didn't hear anything, i told myself the little guys had a heart attack which meant a short, painless death. after boiling them in the salt water until they turned red, i transferred them to a pot of court bouillon to finish cooking. they were later removed and placed on a baking tray to cool. while they cooled, i made the hollandaise sauce and cut up potatoes for chips. hollandaise is simply made by whisking up two egg yolks in a cold saucepan, turning on a low heat and then slowly adding butter, a few tablespoons at a time. the chips were parbaked for a few minutes, to soften on the inside, and then rested them on some kitchen paper to dry.

the lobsters were split in half and then the meat was removed and placed into a saucepan with shallots, mushrooms, salt, pepper and cream. when the lobster and cream sauce was of the desired thickness, i removed it from the heat and let it rest. i cooked off the rest of my chips and then plated up one portion of the lobster. i filled a dried out lobster shell with the creamy lobster filling and piled a portion of chips beside it. once my food was tasted and graded, i put the plate in the oven to stay warm until my parents arrived for lunch. when they arrived, i made up a second plate of lobster and then took both plates into the dining room and to the table where my parents had sat. we had a nice visit while they ate and then when they had finished, i went and retrieved their desserts. i think it was a very lovely anniversary meal. :)

i introduced many of my classmates to my parents before we headed into demo. rory made some curry dishes, a poached salmon with spinach and tomato sauce and a few desserts with puff pastry. mom wasn't too interested in tasting any of the dishes except for the rhubarb vol au vole and dad had a plate with everything. the poached salmon was something he thinks he would make.

after demo, dad bought a fish from the local fish supplier while mom helped me pack up for the weekend and then we were off to crosshaven. since it was SPD AND their anniversary, we stopped in cronin's for a pint before heading home. we had a nice chat with sean about black and white lighthouses while we watched denis add green food coloring to the budweiser. when our pint glasses were empty, we headed to the house. we were stopped along the way by larry the census guy. he and dad spent about 5 minutes sorting out where exactly middle lodge was located according to the map that larry had. i was reminded of that great SNL skit with tim meadows and my buddy, christopher walken. 'boy, i really overshot it with that 80!'

dad let me fillet the fish once we got home and unpacked. he removed the head and i did the rest. once the fillets were wrapped up tightly and in the freezer, dad started making dinner.

we didn't have too late of an evening as we were driving to galway early friday morning.