NeighbourFood, Cork (2026)

08/06/2023

**Cork Chilli Company Molten Lamb Recipe**

Shanks are a cost effective way to cook lamb. This recipe is for oven or BBQ but make sure if you do BBQ you don't have it over the high flame.

This recipe will work with any Cork Chilli Co sauce so you can choose the intensity of your chilli.

The veggies below are a selection which can be added to or substituted. Just be sure it lines an even base on the bottom of your tray.

recipe credit: GOZNEY

1.5-2kg/53-70 Oz Lamb shanks (or shoulder)
3tbsp/ 1.5 fl Oz. vegetable oil
1.3kg/46 Oz tomatoes on the vine, halved
3 red peppers, sliced chunky
2 red onions, sliced chunky
2 garlic bulbs, halved
2 fennel bulbs, halved
300ml/ 10 fl Oz. chicken stock
500ml/17 fl Oz. lamb stock
3x Fresh rosemary sprigs

For the dry rub
2tbsp/1.2 fl Oz. Maldon salt
½ tsp/ 0.1 fl Oz. ground cinnamon
1 tbsp/ 0.2 fl Oz. rosemary
1 tsp / 0.2 fl Oz. garlic powder
2 tsp/ 0.4 fl Oz. cumin
1 tsp . 0.2 fl Oz. coriander
1 tsp / 0.2 fl Oz. fennel seeds*

(toast these in a pan and crush in a pestle & mortar)

For the glaze

2 tbsp any Cork Chilli Co Sauce of your choosing
1 tbsp of Honey
1 lemon, juiced

Step 1:
Warm your BBQ or oven to top temp.

Step 2:
Toast the cumin, coriander and fennel seeds in a pan. Once toasted, grind these up in a Pessel and Mortar, adding in the rest of the dry rub spices and some flaky sea salt.

Step 3:
Place the onions, peppers, tomatoes, garlic and fennel into the tray.

Step 4:
Rub the oil over the lamb shoulder followed by the dry rub.

Step 5:
Place the lamb shoulder on top of the vegetables along with some rosemary, and place into the oven or BBQ at around 250 - 300°C/575°F. Check on the lamb every now and then, give it a turn.

Step 6:
Once the lamb has achieved a nice colour, remove the tray, pour in the stock, cover with foil and return to the BBQ or oven (drop temp to 150) and cook until the meat is pulling away from the bone.

Step 7:
For the glaze, stir all the ingredients together in a bowl. Glaze over lamb and return to the oven for a few minutes for the glaze to set.

Step 8:
Remove from the oven, pull the lamb and pour over some of the cooking juices.

This can be eaten over rice, mash or polenta

26/05/2023

Around the end of January each year, the autonomous region of Catalonia pays homage to the humble calçot (a bit like a cross between a spring onion and a leek) with a festival dedicated entirely to the vegetable. All over the region around this time, grilled calçots are served in restaurants, and locals even throw calçot parties, but it’s the small town of Valls in the Tarragona province that really goes crazy for them with a special Calçotada Festival.
The festival begins early in the morning when locals dressed in traditional costumes grill thousands of calçots outside in the middle of the town squares. The sweet, charred smell of burning calçots can be detected for miles around.

The next part of the festival is a competition to judge the best bunch of calçots grown by local farmers, as well as the best romesco sauce – traditionally eaten with the grilled vegetable. Made from almonds, garlic, olive oil, red pepper, tomatoes, and bread crumbs, it makes for the perfect accompaniment. During this time, there’s also the chance to look around at the many stalls selling classic Catalan delicacies such as cheeses, bread, ham, chorizo, and, of course, calçot products such as calçot bread and calçot coca (similar to focaccia).

After the judging is over, the festival moves up a gear with street parades, dancing, and music. A large calçot dances through the streets while being followed by giants, horses, and musicians playing classic Catalan tunes. Local school children also join the festivities, performing traditional dances with sticks. The parade culminates in the large town square where one of the main highlights of the festival takes places – the calçot eating competition.

So if the Catalonians can go so crazy for this particular dish, there must be something to it!

Ingredients:

1 small garlic clove, crushed
2 roasted and peeled red peppers
1 slice of stale bread, crust removed
1 large roasted tomato
30g toasted almonds
20g roasted and skinned hazelnuts
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp sherry vinegar, plus a little more to taste
2 tbsp olive oil
dried chilli to taste
500g Spring Onions

Method

Step 1
To make the sauce, put everything, apart from the chilli, into a food processor. Blend into a thick sauce. Add more olive oil or a dash of hot water to loosen. Season with salt, pepper and a pinch or two of chilli to your taste. Add a shake more vinegar to increase the piquancy, if you think it needs it. This can be made ahead of time.

Step 2
To cook the calçots, preheat your oven to 200°C/Gas 6. Heat a griddle pan until very hot. Griddle the calçots until the outsides are marked and starting to blacken and burn. If you have a gas hob you can pass them over an open gas flame too, for some extra charring.

Step 3
While the calçots are on the griddle, take a sheet of baking parchment and run it under some warm water. Scrunch it up in you hands until it becomes soft and pliable. When the calçots are nicely charred, wrap them in the wet baking parchment and pop them in the oven for 5 mins so that they cook through to the centre.

Step 4
Serve them whole, with a bowl of sauce on the side. Peel away the charred skins and dip them in the sauce as you eat.

26/04/2023

Recently we were asked down to GIY HQ to chat to Mick and Co for a new TV show they were making for RTÉ called . It's always a treat to visit them in in Waterford and the chats are always mighty.
Food Matters airs each Wednesday and we will feature TONIGHT.

We actually recorded a postcast there which you can hear here... https://shows.acast.com/the-neighbourfood-podcast/episodes/giy-diaries-with-michael-kelly-the-grow-it-yourself-food-rev

27/03/2023

Spring is in the air, and with the flowers blooming it’s hard not to smile when you see these joyous bursts of colour. Not only do flowers brighten your day, they are super romantic and express emotions that sometimes words just cannot. We also love the creativity that comes with flowers from the colour, the shape, the textures and the beautiful fragrance which just heightens every sense. In many ways flowers are even beyond beauty, with healing powers used in medicines and an integral part of a healthy ecosystem.

In this week’s NeighbourFood Podcast we speak to flower farmer Anna Hogan, from Seekings Flower Farm, in Ballymacoda. In the growing season you will find row upon row of beautiful, Irish cut-flowers, all cultivated from bulbs or seed. Her nature-inspired bouquets are full of romance, colour and fragrance. Now it’s not just flowers you’ll find in her bunch, as she often compliments this with aromatic herbs such as lemon verbena, fennel, dill and mint, all of which further enhance their beautiful scent.

Anna is also part of the Flower Farmers of Ireland who are a nationwide network of Irish sustainable flower growers. It’s all part of the floral revolution, a movement mainly driven by female flower farmers who are connecting with nature, much like the farm to fork movement. And in many ways this is redefining the global cut-flower industry, by producing much loved, locally-grown, seasonal, scented blooms and fresh cut foliage for people who love their flowers to look and smell as if they were picked from the garden this morning.

And that was the focus of our conversation, where we hear about the significance of flowers and why we feel so connected to them. What the Irish flower industry is like, as well as how much is imported and how much is locally grown? We learn that Irish flower farming is a growing sector in more than the obvious sense, but in terms of education, public awareness, social farming, pollination and green matters.

https://shows.acast.com/the-neighbourfood-podcast/episodes/IrishFlowerIndustry-AnnaHogan

25/02/2023

Spring Spinach Frittata

Italian's always favor simplicity and I'm agreeing with them more and more over time. I always saw something like a frittata as a great way to use up whatever's in the fridge. A bit like a pizza I would through in a hardened cheese, some veggies, some meat.
The reality is that there is a magic in the classics. Here's a truely elegant marriage of flavors.

If you are not ready to get as simple as we are going here, I have included the optional extra's to jazz up your frittata.

4 large eggs
¼ cup milk (Gloun Cross Dairy)
1 garlic clove, minced
Extra-virgin olive oil / Butter
2-4 cups fresh spinach (Kilbrack Farm)
¼ cup or so scallions, chopped (reserve some for garnish)
Sea salt and fresh black pepper

Pinch of paprika or other spices you like (optional)
Chopped sun dried tomatoes (optional)
Pinch of red pepper flakes (optional)
Grated parmesan or pecorino cheese (also optional)

Method

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
Crack the eggs into a medium bowl and whisk them together with the milk, salt, pepper, minced garlic, and any spices you want to add. Set aside.
In a medium skillet, sauté the spinach and scallions in a bit of olive oil until the spinach is mostly wilted. Add a pinch of salt.*
Place the cooked spinach into the egg bowl with the sun dried tomatoes, if using, and gently mix.
Pour the whole mixture into your cast iron skillet (add some cheese on top if you want to) and bake in the oven until it puffs up and becomes golden brown. My skillet was a 5″ mini skillet, so I cooked mine for about 20 minutes. If you have a larger skillet and a bigger batch of eggs, you will need to cook it longer. Just watch it and poke at it a bit until your eggs are firm-ish and cooked.
Remove from the oven and let cool. Slice and serve.

24/02/2023

It's been a while we haven't spoken about eggs.
For me, they are one of the most obvious examples that sourcing your food locally is infinitely better for you.

Eggs are not much more expensive bought from a local farm. As an egg ages it loses it's freshness and much of it's incredible qualities. Just try poaching a fresh egg from any producer on NeighbourFood in a pot of salted water next to an egg from a stardard supermarket.

A fresh egg placed into a swirling pot of salter water will gather and form a perfect ball. This is due to the fact that the egg has not begun to deteriorate which happens over time while the eggs you bought over the shelf travelled in a truck, rested in a warehouse and eventually arrived on a shelf waiting for you to pick them up.

This deterioration happens with all food. But this is not just an aesthetic effect. Nutrition and flavour also escape over time.

Why not try some eggs this week (Cork Rooftop Farm have wonderful "Pasture Raised" eggs which have been created by very happy hens.

"Our delicious eggs come from happy, healthy hens which are raised on pasture, moved daily and enjoy a balanced diet of free access forage and organic grains. We move our hens daily in order to build soil health in the pastures we graze and also to provide a fresh salad bowl of forage for the hens to roam freely within. Research has shown that this type of pasture farming of laying hens results in healthier eggs, containing more Omega 3 oils, less cholesterol and higher levels of vitamins D, E and beta carotene. Beta-carotene gives the extra yellow yolk that characterise our eggs."

23/02/2023

Our podcast episode Knead to know is now out. A chat with the microbakers of Ireland featuring Laura O’Donovan of So-Doh Renvyle, Gráinne McGough of Grá Arán and Angela Nöthlings of Ryes & Shine.*

Link to episode - https://shows.acast.com/the-neighbourfood-podcast/episodes/MicrobakersOfIreland

This week we are chatting to three different microbakers from different parts of Ireland, who bake real bread using only flour, water and salt, for local customers within their local communities.

Our guests are Angela Nöthlings, Ryes & Shine, Cork; Laura O’Donovan So-Doh, Renvyle, Connemara and Gráinne McGough of Grá Arán, Wicklow

These are three stories of three different solopreneurs who join us to talk about their experiences with starting and growing their individual business from their kitchen counter tops to repurposed studios and garden sheds. We also talk about about the network of microbakers both in Ireland and around the world who support, encourage, mentor and inspire each other, and of course we hear about the importance of real bread from a health perspective, with the simplicity of the most basic of ingredients ingredients in making a wholesome and nutritious loaf.

We found it inspiring listening to their can-do attitudes, an insight into their microbaking world and perhaps even motivation for anyone who is thinking of going down the microbakery route themselves.

07/02/2023

Pádraic Fogarty is an ecologist and environmental scientist, chairman of the Irish Wildlife Trust from 2009-2013, editor of 'Irish Wildlife' magazine from 2009 to 2017 and currently acts as their campaign officer. He is author of 'Whittled Away - Ireland's Vanishing Nature', published in 2017.

In this episode of the NeighbourFood podcast, we chat with him about the ecological state of Ireland today; the EU’s new “Nature Restoration Law”; marine protected zones; what’s exciting about some new policies and movements and take a look at COP15, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

And while Ireland and the world may be in a catastrophic state biodiversity wise, we talk about the vision for bringing nature in all it’s glory back into our lives, by changing mindsets and actions.

Padraic’s knowledge and passion for nature is a pleasure to listen to. A massive thanks to him for his time in joining us to chat and if you are motivated by any of these topics today and would like to find out more, check out the Irish Wildlife Trust website iwt.ie or for some nice listening after you finish this, why not check out Irish their podcast series “Shaping New Mountains”.

Link in Bio!!

07/02/2023

This week's chat with Padraic Fogarty of Irish Wildlife Trust was super! We chatted about "The state of the nation" when it comes to biodiversity, what's the story with all these COP's and one new law in particular that's turning heads.
Padraic’s knowledge and passion for nature is a pleasure to listen to. A massive thanks to him for his time in joining us to chat and if you are motivated by any of these topics today and would like to find out more, check out the Irish Wildlife Trust website iwt.ie or for some nice listening after you finish this, why not check out Irish their podcast series “Shaping New Mountains”.

https://open.acast.com/public/streams/613f40254a3f860012a4e318/episodes/63e02a9637f68800117256da.mp3

26/01/2023

The Best Toasted Sandwich

Learning new recipes or techniques isn't just about dinner! Perfecting snacks is one of my favourites and easily one of the best, is grilled cheese.

I remember the moment perfectly, many years ago, when my uncle told me the best toasted cheese sandich was done in a pan and not a grill. Might not seem sensical, but trust me!

The choice of cheese is of course essential and best achieved by combinations. You will want a mature cheese for flavour but mixed with a melting cheese for consistency. It's also crucial to get a crust.

Check out our Cork Market neighbourfood.ie/corkcity for our best toastie techniques.

Any tips???

Are you a pan or grill?
What's your cheese mix??
Any other additions??

16/01/2023

**IN SEASON** Are you familiar with Blood Oranges? Often perceived as a bit of a gimmick, this variety actually have quite a unique flavour profile being distinctly raspberry-like in addition to the usual citrus notes. They make an incredible salad with fennel and nigella seeds

18/12/2022

Our final Turkey tips post.
With key pointers on how to let your turkey rest, make your gravy and carve it up!

NeighbourFood

08/06/2023

26/05/2023

26/04/2023

27/03/2023

25/02/2023

24/02/2023

23/02/2023

07/02/2023

07/02/2023

26/01/2023

16/01/2023

18/12/2022

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