The KC Special

I was asked last week to be a guest on The KC Show on Today FM during their broadcast from the 'Taste of Dublin' festival. The premise was simple:  Be interviewed on national radio and in front of a live audience at a posh food festival full of internationally renowned chefs about this absolute car crash of a blog and then make a sandwich for one of my hero's, Damien Dempsey.
No Problem. Want me to do it as gaeilge and with a bag of spiders in my pocket as well lads?
After I'd spent a couple of nights trying to settle the nerves by looking after my local publican's next mortgage payment it became apparent that I'd have no choice but to make a sandwich which would be curing the hollow feelings in my belly and soul. I worked off the principal that it had to be utterly distracting, that your mind would have no choice but to be completely taken over by the collection of tastes, flavours and textures, and thus away from that bastard of a hangover. I had to cover all bases but not overdo it at the same time; it may look to the cynical eye that I've just made a mess of a sandwich by firing everything I could think of into it but that is most definitely not the case. Everything here serves a purpose.

I'll get straight to the extensive list of ingredients used to make one of these fella's.

• Soft White Sub Rolls (I used Marks & Spencer ones, how very rich of me)
• Mayonnaise
• Mustard (Colman's English) 
• White Cheedar Cheese (Kilmeaden Light Green or Purple block is best)
• Tomato
• Rocket
• Scallion
• Coleslaw
• Crispy Onion Bits (they come in a tub, your local supermarket should have them)
• Ground Black Pepper
• Ham (Brady's glazed is what I used)
• Sliced Spanish Chorizo
• Italian Salami
• Cheese & Onion Crisps (I used King on this occasion)

Start off by splitting the roll in half. If you're the proud owner of an electric toaster give both halves a blast in it for about 45 seconds, not for the purpose of toasting, just enough to warm them through. This really gives a soft roll an extra bit of magic in the mouth department.

The order of assembly is quite important and without going into sandwich nerd mode this is what I think works best.

Start off by spreading mayonnaise on both halves, If you don't like mayonnaise you'd probably be best off reading a different blog. On the bottom half  put a little squirt of the mustard and spread it out evenly, the mayo will dilute its strength which would otherwise be a little too distressing for the sensitive hungover palate.
On top of this put three slices of salami, two slices of chorizo (halved) and three slices of tomato.
On the top half of the roll put about 6 slices of cheese of a thickness of your preference, I aim for a cut of about 1.5 to 2mm, then 2 slices of the Irish ham.

Next up absolutely destroy the tomatoes with pepper. I don't put any salt on them because I'm very health concious but I'm sure a little would be no harm if that's your pleasure. Put a generous amount of rocket on top of the tomatoes.
Cut the scallion into thin slices and put them on top of the ham side along with a liberal sprinkling of the crispy onions, don't be afraid that you're putting on too many as they'll need good numbers to break through the next ingredient: The Coleslaw. Coleslaw is a dangerous substance in a sandwich, it's delicious but it completely overpowers everything around it and since this sandwich has no defining central ingredient that you want to stand out you have to be careful with it. The amount above is the absolute most you should put on, I was on my 4th pint and God only knows how many free shot glasses of wine at the time so I was maybe a little too generous.

Which brings me nicely along to the next and final step in creating this monstrosity. Crisps. I've spoken at length before about crisp sandwiches but allow me to reiterate a few points:

• Go with Cheese & Onion, other flavours just aren't as good in a sandwich, simple as that. 
• The brand choice is paramount, Walkers had always been my favourite for this purpose but they've changed the recipe lately and now I'm not so sure so I went for the old reliable King crisp. Don't be tempted to go with fancy artisan brands, they're grand when you're eating them from the bag but their stronger flavour, harder texture and thickness do not suit a sandwich in my opinion. 
• Coleslaw and crisps together is the greatest thing since (I am not going to say it), seriously, put some in your next crisp sandwich. Also in a sandwich like this the coleslaw acts as a glue holding the crisps in place, which is convenient.
• Quantity. Don't go overboard, break up a handful of crisps, the amount above is a good guideline.

That's it, close it up and you're done. Just approach the nearest physically intimidating celebrity, hand it to him and stand nervously to one side while he silently chews his first bite all the while giving away no clue as to whether he's going to take a second bite or spit it out...

He took a second bite. Thanks be to Jaysus. He opened his mouth to speak and out came one, short, music to my ears declaration:

"It's a beauty"

...and with that I could consider the day a success. I'd like to say a huge thank you to KC, Ann, Adelle and Lenny for the opportunity to surely be the first person to walk through the gates of Taste of Dublin (or any other food festival for that matter) with a 6 pack of King crisps under their arm, Damien Dempsey who was, as always, a pleasure and an absolute gentleman and to Stephen Connelly and Tim Crowley for taking these photos and bringing me pints respectively. 

I'd also like to give a big shout out to Jean-Christophe Novelli who I met after the show and wanted to have a picture taken with me, he's a big fan of my work and someday dreams of making it as a chef. Never give up Jean-Christophe. Never give up.

Here's a bit of Mr. Dempsey to sooth the soul. Thanks for reading, and don't be afraid to give the page an aul Like on Facebook if you're into this kinda shite.

B.S 

Rasher Sandwich Bagel ( A 1am Kitchen Raid Victory)

I had a bit of a route around the kitchen last night to see if there was the makings of a sandwich and hit the blessed trinity of ingredients.

• Good bread.
• Good cheese.
• Rashers.

In this case sesame seed bagels, decent white cheddar cheese (Kilmeaden purple block) and a full packet of rashers. This is very similar to a rasher sandwich I put up here before but I will repeat myself without guilt if only to hammer home the point that when someone asks you do you want red sauce or brown sauce on your rasher sandwich your reply should always be "I'll have cheese and mayonnaise please".

A halved and lightly toasted bagel generously spread with mayonnaise on both sides filled with 3 rashers and plenty of good cheese is a pleasure in life that I guarantee you will repeat until you shuffle off your mortal coil (which could be sooner rather than later if you keep eating these). If there's a bit of cream cheese knocking around fire that in too, any kind of rocket or spinach leaves in the gaf? By all means go for it... This is all I had so this is how I rolled (or in this case bageled).

Throw a bit of coleslaw and a packet of cheese & onion crisps on the side to really set that shit off and you've got a meal fit for any man, woman or unhealthy child. I seriously don't know how they're not packaging coleslaw and cheese & onion crisps together in some form or other yet, they were born for each other, they're like some non alcoholic yet just as damaging food version of Red Bull and Vodka.

B.S

Preview: Brunch With Boozey. Happy Valley Festival Sunday 2nd June.

This weekend 'Feeding time with...' will be making it's first festival appearance in the form of 

'Brunch with Boozey' at the 'Happy Valley Festival' in Thomastown in Co. Kilkenny.

To say that Thomastown is close to my heart would be a major understatement. In the close to 10 years that I've been visiting this beautiful wild town on the banks of the River Nore I've had a lot of the best times of my life and made countless life long friends in the process. 

The pinnacle of the great festivals on offer here every year is the 'Happy Valley Festival', like everything in Thomastown there's really only a rough guideline as to when it starts and ends but every June Bank Holiday weekend for years I've been making a pilgrimage to partake in and attempt to survive its madness.

This year will be no different except I've been kindly asked to kick off proceedings at the infamous 15 for €15 show in Murphy's that takes place all day Sunday with 'Brunch with Boozey' which will entail amongst other things food for everyone who arrives early AND a Sandwich Competition which is open to anyone attending and all musicians playing during the day. All you have to do is bring a Sandwich to the gig and myself and my panel of esteemed judges will decide how it rates alongside all the others. There will be 2 (drink related) prizes, one for best tasting sandwich and one for the maddest sandwich. Of course I'll insist on having a shot of the winners prize with them, it's only fair.

Also at some point in the day (sobriety permitting)  I'll have a rummage through the pub kitchen, and failing that anywhere else in the town, and construct a Happy Valley inspired sandwich for anyone who fancies a bit of an afternoon snack. 

To keep up with the latest info on this event like my Facebook page and for a full run down on everything at Happy Valley visit www.happyvalleyfestival.com

Looking forward to seeing you there and sharing in a bit of the joyous madness.

B. Swine.

Van Sandwiches: Knoxville Morning Tour Apr '13 Part 1.

Ah life on the open road... The joy and excitement of not having to play by societies rules... Will it be one hour or four hours before we happen upon another roadside service station and the inevitable ham & cheese sandwich from the fridge?... That absolute certainty that you'll be eating those poxy paprika crisps along with it... Will the admission charge to the next soulless service station toilets be 70c or will I hit the jackpot and only be charged 50c?... What insane amount of money will the French extort from us to pass through the next toll bridge?... Will the smell of farts ever leave the van?... Will I ever get sick of Mezzo Mix?... What a great way to live.

Here's a sample of the culinary joys I was subjected to on a daily basis and grew to love and loathe in varying measures while living out of a van with my friends as we travelled around some of Europe.

Ireland. Lunch time and we pointed the van out of Newbridge in the direction of Rosslare Harbour. Not wanting to ruin my dinner in a couple of hours I'd make do with a packet of Ripples and what would be my last bottle of Lucozade for nearly 2 and a half weeks. I followed this up with a pint of Guinness in Enniscorthy while watching a bit of football and a bag of cans at the last off-license before the harbour, all of which turned out to be bad ideas considering we didn't so much sail to France as jostle with the sea like two pissed 18 year old lads would outside a niteclub on a Saturday night, both as equally afraid to throw the first punch as they are to lose face in front of their girlfriends. Not a pleasant 18 hour crossing.

We hit the ground running wanting to make our first destination of Amsterdam in good time, of course this didn't happen, primarily due to the nation of Belgium just being one long drawn out traffic jam. We did manage to pull into some brand of a service station in France before this where I purchased the above combination of bread and potatoes whilst exhausting my full arsenal of the French language over the duration of the transaction. Not expecting a whole lot from either I got roughly what I expected. Bolognese crisps aren't going to be drawing you away from Cheese & Onion should they try to fob them off on us any time soon. The sandwich was never going to win any awards, it was my boundless optimism that the French are enjoying a better standard of garage snack to us that set me up for this minor disappointment. 

A special mention needs to go out to the this gear, Mezzo Mix. Lucozade being my morning kick starter of choice for many years I often struggle when abroad to find a suitable alternative. I'd gotten numerous messages to try this orange flavoured cola, which is in abundant supply throughout Germany, and while expecting to be sickened by it I was more than drawn in to its subtle and endearingly flavoursome beauty. It got me out of many a minor hangover over the following weeks.

I can honestly say that my only culinary disappointment with the entirety of my time in Germany, and I'm sure my compadres would agree with me on this, is that there is severe hardship involved in locating a crisp that is not Paprika flavoured. This isn't a problem for the first or maybe second packet but by Jaysus they soon wear very thin on the taste buds. This sandwich was quite similar to it's French counterpart apart form the inclusion of Salami in place of the Jambon (that being 'Ham' and not the delicacy that it refers to in Ireland). The salad dressing was nice and spicy thanks to some red peppers and jalapeños but I did it no favours by letting it sit in a scorching hot van for a half an hour before consumption. 

There's not a lot to say about this. Just a pastry with some bog standard tomato bolognese sauce in it and the obligatory large bag of Paprika's. Germany proceeded to hit me with the above scenarios (and some very similar variants) for the duration of our stay... Then we crossed back over the border into France...

About 5 minutes over the German/France border we stopped into the first garage we saw. Equal parts delighted with the varieties of crisps on display and pissed off with the only sandwich available to me I set about making the most of the situation...

By constructing this monstrosity. 

At some point along the trip a bottle of hot sauce found its way into the belly of our 4 wheeled beast and I thought this would be the catalyst to make this utterly boring French cheese roll topped with Cheeseburger crisps (they tasted exactly like a Micky D's cheeseburger, decide for yourself if this is a good or bad thing) into something a little more exciting. I was wrong, it was a hardship that set me up not very nicely for the 6 hour drive to Paris. Bad Buzz.

Why break the habit? Last day and 15 minutes from Cherbourg and the ferry home we made our final stop off. While the lads set about buying enough bottles of wine to capsize the ferry I made a lonely venture around the massive supermarket hoping against all hope that I might see a sandwich that was more appealing than the previous weeks Ham & Cheese, clearly I didn't. I decided the only thing to make it interesting would be to consume it with Ham & Cheese flavour crisps, or in this case the nearest I could find to crisps being some kind of own brand snacks they called 'Monster Munch' that bore little physical or tastual resemblance to any Monster Munch I've eaten before. All in all I had hoped for more from the garages of Europe, but that's just the way it goes... Thankfully the food we had outside the van was worlds apart from this hardship, I'll tell you all about that very soon in Part 2...

B.S

Manchester, March '13

Right.
Manchester.
First things fucking first.
What in the name of all that is holy is this fucking thing?

Everybody has a line they won't cross... This is my line.

I go over for a nice quite weekend. You know... meet up with a couple of friends, go to a United match, few harmless pints afterwards... "ah sure we'll stop in here (random kebab shop) for something to eat before we head home"... That was my first mistake. The next was ordering a "mixed" kebab.
I don't know what this thing was or who it belonged to or was attached to in a previous life but it wasn't about to join the long list of nasty shit I've eaten over the years I can tell you that.

I was well chuffed with the spread of gear we were presented with when I opened the take away boxes, it looked super, just the way to end a grand weekend. By Jaysus I abandoned all notions of finishing my kebab after I pulled that creature from its depths.

It creeped me out to the point that I'd to leave the room and eat my gravy chips on the balcony and even then I wasn't right.
The gravy chips were very very lovely though.
(photos up to here by my compadre and photographer of some note Steve Neville)

Anyway I'll reverse the lorry a bit...
Day 1. In my usual fashion of ignoring all the detailed well considered advice of friends on where to eat in a place I'm travelling to I set off for Manchester with a belly full of breakfast roll and Lucozade and proceeded to eat nothing but slices of pizza for the remainder of my first day. Take that curry mile.

Day 2 started not so good. After spending the previous evening drinking bottle after bottle of beer and slice after slice of pizza with a soundtrack of Thin Lizzy and The Stone Roses with my friends Steve and Lorraine in their magnificently appointed apartment overlooking Old Trafford, followed by numerous more ill advised pints in the residents bar of my hotel the old stomach wasn't in the best of form. I avoided the over priced room service breakfast and decided a cure all Lucozade would do the trick. I wandered up to Old Trafford soon after and decided a bit of food might not go astray after all.

food travel shows... I am available for work...

A simple standard fare hot dog was about all that was on offer to a fella like me in the cheap seats... I think you'll forgive me if I don't dwell too long on the hot dog, it was what it was.
What is worth mentioning though is shortly after this photo was taken and the dog eaten I wandered down to the edge of the pitch and stood face right up against the safety netting just to the left of the practice goal seen in the picture as Manchester United's well paid ball booters practised taking shots. Me being the gobshite I am decided to pay more attention to sub keeper Anders Lindegaard's imminent dive rather than the flight of the ball that had just left the foot of Robin van Persie. A ball that didn't hit its presumed intended target but instead connected quite sweetly with, to the surprise of both Mr. van Persie and myself; not to mention to the considerable amusement of everyone around me, the middle of my forehead.
Safe in the knowledge that I'd gotten my daily dose of public humiliation out of the way I happily watched United beat Norwich 4-0 and continued on with my day.

Later on that evening Steve, Lorraine and myself decided to head into Deansgate for a bit of grub and ended up in a pub called The Knott Bar. A nice place with a full jukebox, wet pints and, considering they were 3 minutes away from finishing their food service for the evening, good burgers.
Lorraine went for the vegetarian option of the haloumi and falafel burger which she was kind enough to let me taste.

It was really nice; a lot of times the vegetarian options in restaurants can be quite boring and limited but this was something I, as a carnivore, would have been quite happy with.

Myself and Steve had a choice between a beef burger or a lamb burger with goats cheese; we decided to fuck shit up and order one of each and create a half beef/half lamb hybrid.

Again they were really good; my only complaint and this is not being levelled solely at this establishment; it's at a growing number of restaurants who think that it's suitable to replace a burger bun with ciabatta bread. It's not. It's too much. A buns primary job as far as I'm concerned is to hold its contents together on their voyage from plate to face. With ciabatta you've to do too much work to get to the good stuff; it's like a child proof cap on a burger. It's too tough, too filling and acts like a sponge leaving the overall burger eating experience a lot drier. Apart from that the food was delicious.
This leads me up to the aforementioned point in the night where we went for a few drinks and ended up in that less than ideal kebab situation but sure you know how that panned out.

Day 3 and wanting to banish the previous nights demons from my system I met up with Steve and we headed into town to get our breakfast on. We arrived at a nice looking spot called The Koffee Pot. As tempting as the prospect of Haggis for breakfast was I went for an old reliable fry up (no picture required) while Steve ordered Kippers. You're on your own there fella.

What arrived down to him was one of the more unusual plates of breakfast I've seen, a wedge of toast you could build a house on topped with kippers, a poached egg and wholegrain mustard butter. I sampled a bit of course... and while not horrified I happily returned to my full English breakfast.
Weekend over I set about making my way back to Ireland stopping only for some kind of a vanilla cream custard filled chocolate coated donut from Krispy Kreme which was pretty fucking spectacular.

Until next time Manchester, I'll try my best to be a little more adventurous but it's not really my style.

B.S

G'wan the lads

Tayto Bar - Milk Chocolate Bar with Cheese & Onion Crisps

Back in January news broke that Tayto were selling their own brand of chocolate at their Tayto Park in Ashbourne Co. Meath. The only question on anyone's lips upon hearing this was "What, is there crisps IN the chocolate?"

There wasn't. But look what the cute hoors have gone and done now...

I put this picture up on the Feeding time... Facebook page yesterday evening and the frenzied reaction to it was pretty much split down the middle between people dying to try it and people absolutely disgusted by this unholy union.

But obviously first and foremost what everyone want's to know is what's it like and is it nice.

Well it's not revolting as I was expecting. I thought I'd be spitting it out and passing the rest on to some unsuspecting mug.
I'll try to make this as concise as possible.

• The chocolate isn't the best, but I wasn't expecting much on that front.
• The crisp pieces are a small step up from dust but still plentiful enough (7% apparently) so that you can hear a little crunch in your mouth. 
• The overall experience is like eating a bar of chocolate with crispy pieces in it, kinda like a Golden Crisp or similar but with much much smaller bits, while the after-taste of a chocolate and crisp binge is being dispersed into your mouth as if by magic.

Third line down in the ingredients, Tayto Cheese and Onion!

But this is where it misses the point. That after-taste is a gentle (shameful to some, not me) reminder of what you've just eaten, in this case a bag of Tayto and a bar of chocolate, except you haven't. Crisps and chocolate are delicious together, whether you're a crisps before chocolate person (like me), chocolate before crisps or you eat both at the same time. It's an experience that can't be replaced. Not that this is what Tayto are trying to do here; I've just never wanted the taste of  chocolate and crisps in my mouth without actually eating them, anyone who has gotten a shift off someone who's just after eating this combination can attest to this. 

The bar is a novelty and nothing more in my opinion and it seems that Tayto don't seem to be marketing it as anything but that; They're playing up the 'Limited Edition' tag and it would be wise for them not to expect much repeat business.

Give it a try but you'll back to the old reliable bag and a bar in no time.

Hopefully this be the last of Tayto's chocolate experiments although if I spot a Turkish Delight infused with Prawn Cocktail crisps they will be getting another 99c out of me.

B.S

Tea and Brown Sauce. Don't Bother.

Ever see that film Intermission?
Colm Meaney's in it.

There's a famous scene in it where three lads played by Cillian Murphy, Colin Farrell and Brían O'Byrne are sitting in a café having breakfast when Cillian Murphy's character requests some brown sauce, when the waitress duly obliges he proceeds to pour a generous amount of the sauce into his cup of tea where he's met with the eloquent response of "ya scummy fucker" from Colin Farrell's character.
O'Byrne's character then requests "a shot" of the sauce, says its delicious and so our Colin not wanting to miss out tries it in his own tea then drops the classic and much quoted line...

 "That's fuckin' delish man"

I, like every other soul upon witnessing this scene, had one basic thought manifest in my head...
"Nah, that couldn't be nice... Could it?"

I'm not a tea drinker. I have drank cups of tea, I just don't drink them on a regular basis. I don't understand people who get in from a hard day at the office and all they want is a cup of tea. Tea, in this sense being a standard cup with milk and no sugar, is something I find boring as shite.

I like sugar, I find a spoon of sugar improves the taste of tea.
I like honey, I also think it makes tea more palatable.
I have a similar feelings when it comes to the inclusion of whiskey or brandy to tea.

I also love Brown Sauce.

Which brings me to 3.30am this morning. Bored, wide awake and experiencing more than a little cabin fever 'that' scene from Intermission came into my brain. I should have told my brain to fuck off ya scummy fucker but in my mind I had nothing to lose.

In retrospect, I won't say my first mistake as there were many up to this point, my next mistake was putting milk into the tea.
The moment I poured the 'shot' of brown sauce, similar in proportion to that of the film, into the tea the milk had a reaction which I will only describe as horrific.

Serious curdling going on.

I should have aborted the mission right then and there and no one would have been any the wiser.
But no no, I decided to plough on.

I reassured myself with the knowledge that I would only have to take a sip, what harm could that do? The purpose of this exercise was not to see how I felt after drinking a full cup but solely to find out how it tasted.

I raised the cup to my mouth, placed my lips on the edge ( it's getting all Fifty Shades Of Tae in here... I'll get my coat) and took a sip...

It wasn't that bad. Not at all what I was expecting, kinda fruity, "I think I can manage another sip" I thought.

This second sip is where everything went to shit.
It was not fuckin' delish man.
I'll spare you the grotesqueness but I will say I have a new found familiarity with my kitchen sink and the dog, who had being sleeping at the time, isn't being friendly to me today.

A decent scientist would focus on the milk and the fact that it curdled, that I should re do the experiment with a cup of tea without milk. Yeah. I probably won't be doing that.

I'll leave it up to yourselves whether or not you want to give this 'a shot'...

B.S