Buying Irish at the local markets

Market Meal #4

Making up a meal from your local market is a great idea. It gives your shopping a focus on the day and not alone are you supporting local producers and buying Irish but you are also in for a treat.

And these kind of meals don’t have to be that expensive. The basics in this one, from the English Market here in Cork, cost about a fiver a head. Allow about a euro for the liver, 3 euro 50 for the fish and 50 cents for the pear.

Bought the liver from Eoin O’Mahony and used a recipe called Catalan Style Liver. It turned out to be a brilliant dish, a fantastic starter. Here the liver is browned and lightly simmered in a well flavoured tomato and raisin sauce with extra flavour coming from a dash of Madeira or Sherry (we used Port) and served with croutons.

I’ve always thought that Cod and Tomatoes go perfectly well together and that was the case with a French recipe Cabillaud a la Provençal (basically cod with a Tomato and herb sauce). Simply delicious.

The pears, bought across the way from O’Mahony’s, were grilled with honey and served with ice cream. Perfect with a shot of Tokaji Aszu.

A few minutes around the market and we had the makings of a fabulous meal for ourselves.

Hederman's smoked mackerel

Meal #4a

Now, there was a fair bit of work in the meal above. Even the pears took more work than you’d think. But if you want an easy meal from the market, here is one, constructed from food bought at the Midleton Farmer’s Market.

Starter: treat yourself to the fantastic smoked mackerel from the Hederman stand. Pure class. Must be the best around.

Mains: Just turn around and go to the Green Saffron stall and pick up one of their meal deals for €8.50. We got enough Chicken Korma, rice and naan bread for two. Easy to prepare and very tasty indeed.

Cheese: Ardsallagh’s hard mature goat cheese with any relish you like. You get quite a chunk of this cheese for about €5.50 and less than half that will do for this course. Love their fresh soft cheese also but the hard (they also have a smoked version) is nice for a change.

Cost per head for the basics: €7.50 approx.