King Pie The Almighty Pie-y-One Of Pie Town - Pie

It was a cold dark evening and I wanted pie. Lots of pie. Really lots of pie. So much pie in fact, that if King Pie The Almighty Pie-y-One Of Pie Town came to visit even He would think there was a lot of pie here. Sadly however, King Pie The Almighty Pie-y-One Of Pie Town doesn't exist. And neither does Pie Town. Bollox anyway.

For this pie, now named King Pie The Almighty Pie-y-One Of Pie Town - Pie. There are, there is, no there are lots of ingredients but do feel free to use less and make a lesser pie. If that's how you are going to show your respect to the late King, then fine, you lesser pie lover.

You will need: 1 x pack of puff pastry; 1 x squash, peeled and chopped, 2 x Sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks; bunch of kale; bunch of spinach; mushrooms chopped, maybe 500g, or maybe not; 300g goats cheese, I used Ryefield from Sheridans; 500g of walnuts roasted; few cloves of garlic; some spices, I used hot smoked Paprika, cayenne pepper, ground ciniminimaoninm.

Preheat your oven to 180c and roast the Squash, which was mixed with the ground cinionmoninim, and on the same tray roast the sweet spuds which have been mixed with cayenne pepper and paprika. Add some whole cloves of garlic too. Give them all a good season and a drizzle with some oil. Rub the spices into them and the roast until cooked. The sweet spuds will prob cook a bit quicker. Remove when cooked and blitz.

At the same time, roast your walnuts for about 10mins. Remove and set aside.

While the above are roasting, fry off your mushrooms with some rosemary, season well and set aside. In the same pan fry off the kale, season it and set aside. Still using the same pan fry off the spinach for about 30secs, remove and squeeze out the excess liquid.

Mix the spinach, kale, half of the walnuts, slightly crushed and some of the goats cheese together with the pureed veg. Taste and season if needed.

Next, roll out your pastry to fit your dish. Line the bottom with the roast veg mix, followed by a layer of mushrooms. Top with the rest of the goats cheese and bake at 180c until brown gooey and golden. About 10 before the end add the rest of the walnuts. It's nice to add some sliced chili also.

No tapas, but still, we have to eat...

Ratatouille with Chorizo-Butter-stuffed-Chicken

Not exactly a tapas post, but a post none the less. And we managed to get chorizo in there somewhere too! On a cold Sunday with a fridge full of veg, a sort of made up ratatouille was born. Simply sweat off your onion, celery and garlic until soft. Add your tomato paste, fresh tomatoes, chopped veg, whatever you have, we added some courgettes, mushrooms, and roasted aubergine (halve an aubergine, score the flesh, season and rub in some oil and roast alongside some garlic cloves. When done, simply scrape the flesh from the skin into the ratatouille). Add some chicken stock, bay leaves, thyme and rosemary. Cook gentle for about an hour.

We had it with champ, simply add some sliced spring onion to your mash. If you want to you can stuff a chicken breast with chorizo butter and roast it.







Chocolate Sponge Cake
(filled with with blackcurrant cream)

Salty Squid is partial to some sweet spongy cakeness. Not always, but sometimes. This cake was made by creaming equal parts butter and sugar (I used 125g) until pale and fluffy, like a ghost-sock. Add an egg, fold in 125g of self raising flour, sifted and about 60g of melted dark chocolate. Bake at 180 for about 20mins and allow to cool on a wire rack.

Slice in half and fill with cream, or if you want you can add some nice homemade jam to your cream and a little bit of Kirsch. A short but sweet post.

Stuffed Cucumber, Morcilla and Leek & Sweet Potato Tart

A new year and a new post! It was about this time last year since the rent-a-brain duo of Salty Squid had the great idea to start a blog. And oh how great it has been! Salty Squid has had a great year cooking chorizo in various ways a disguising it as a new dish each week. We were also busy finding random reasons to deep fry anything that could fit into the pan. And yes, we did buy a particularly big pan.

As mentioned at the start of this post, it is a new year, 2011 in fact. And around this time of year we all get a bit caught up in 'food trends' and 'what will be big for 2011'. After browsing many (1ish) blogs on this subject they all seem to concur that tapas or 'tapas style' (real words used on this very blog in like, 2010!!!) will be big in 2011! Rock on we say! That means that Salty Squid has in fact been ahead of the trend by about a year! Look no further dear reader (thanks Ma x), the future of Irish food is right here at Salty Squid!

So sit back, stand up and tuck in to our new post. Just remember, at least you will be able to say you read this blog when nobody else did!

Stuffed Cucumber with a) Tomato-Feta, b) Kale-Feta Pesto

Ingredients: A cucumber; block of feta; 2tbsp cream cheese; 2tbsp tomato paste; smoked paprika; squeeze of lemon juice; bunch of Kale; nutmeg; s&p

This is really straight forward. Mix about a cup of feta or maybe just over a cup, or perhaps just a little less, depends really, with the cream cheese. Take half of this mixture and combine with the tomato paste and paprika. Give a squeeze of lemon juice - but make sure to do this from a height. As that's what they do on TV. Stand on the counter and place the mix on the floor if necessary to achieve a good height. Although not in that order. As in, place the mix on the floor first THEN climb atop of the counter. Unless of course you have really long arms, then you should be able to climb on top of the counter and then place the mix on the floor. Although, if you have really long arms you probably wont need to stand on the counter and place the mix on the floor, you could probably just raise your arms to a sufficient height to achieve the desired effect. Season to taste.

For the kale pesto, simply fry of the kale in a little stock or water, season and set aside to cool. Mix the cooled kale with the other half of the cheese mix, a little nutmeg here will make it taste like a little nutmeg was added.

Using a peeler, peel strips of cucumber. Place some filling at one end of the cucumber and roll. Perfect as a food when hungry.





Morcilla with Kale, Chickpeas and Pine nuts

Ingredients: Morcilla, casing removed; 1x tin of chickpeas; 2tbsp pine nuts, toasted or 'tewsted' if from a posh neighbourhood; large bunch of kale, chopped; white wine; chicken stock; 3x cloves of garlic, sliced

Heat some rapeseed oil in a pan, add the morcilla and cook for a few mins. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Add the drained chickpeas and pine nuts. Add the white wine and reduce, followed by about a cup of stock. Cook for a min or two, just to reduce, you don't want it too wet, it's not a stew. Season well with lots of black pepper.






Leek & Sweet Potato Tart

Ingredients: 3x leeks, cleaned and trimmed and chopped; 1x large sweet potato, peeled, diced and blanched; 1x clove of garlic, chopped; feta and any left over fillings from the cucumbers above;

For the pastry: 150g flour and butter, pinch of salt, nutmeg, some cold water.

Roll out the pastry and line your tart mould or moulds

Sweat the leeks and in some butter and oil until soft, add the sweet potatoes that you cooked earlier to the pan and toss. Season it well, lots of s&p. Remove from the heat and add to the tart moulds. Dot with feta and bake fir about 25mins at 180c





In the glass:
Marques de Caceres, Rioja, Crianza 2006, 13%

On the stereo:
Tina Dico, Telegraph