Pasta - It's A Whole New World

Good day today - everything came out pretty well and my pasta was fab, fab, fab - best thing I've made so far I think, can't believe I made my own tagliatelle from scratch, more on that later!

I started with the French apple tart which meant another shortcrust pastry base - decided to up the ante a little and make a slightly more challenging type of pastry, basically even more butter which means you've to work with it so quickly. I was so frightened of the butter getting warm that I put it in the freezer for a while before starting and then, for a touch of S&M first thing in the morning, ran my hands under the cold tap for a few minutes until I couldn't feel them anymore, honestly my life is sad!

It worked though, other than the fact that rubbing in rock hard butter to flour (with hands you no longer have a relationship with) was a first class lesson in frustration but it got full marks in the end and my teacher described it as "beautiful" which was wicked, YAY, unbelievably pastry seems to be becoming my thing. Filled with it with apple and a vanilla cream custard and then finished it off with an apricot glaze when it had done it's time in the oven, too good for words.

From there it was onto the ugliest fish in the world, Mr. Monkfish, bless the one I got was so tiny which did mean he was really easy to fillet, poached him in water, made a little vinaigrette to pop onto him and that was that, probably one of the lowest calorie things I've made to date.

Before and after.................



And then the last thing was the pasta, I'd made the dough in the morning, hard as a rock mind you, it's a really dry dough and if you didn't have a pasta rolley machine thingy I imagine the novelty of homemade pasta would wear off quick sticks but OMG, I know I said this yesterday but I have to say it again, it was sublime - you only have to put it into boiling water for a minute or two and then I tossed it with butter, parsley, a bit of parmesan and pepper, heavenly. No time for a pic since I wanted to present it ASAP when it was it's best and although it tasted fab, a bowl of pasta is a bowl of pasta in terms of how it looks, you'll just have to taste it sometime instead.

Afternoon demo was with Rachel - to begin with, Frank Murphy, the local butcher in Midleton came in to chat to us for 15 minutes and he was lovely, an 8th generation butcher who can tell you exactly where every animal comes from, down to which field it spent it's (hopefully happy) life in - we've been into his shop a few times on our weekend shopping trips and it is so much more personal than just picking a plastic-wrapped number off the shelf at Tesco and there's no doubt, better quality too and not really that different in terms of price. One of the things he bought to show us, and which we later learnt to pickle and in a few days time to cook, shock and horror, was a whole ox tongue, definitely not my cup of tea but hey, if I managed a sea urchin and smoked eel I reckon I'll have to add this to my list of wierd things eaten whilst at Ballymaloe.

So body parts aside, we then moved on with the rest of the demo and WOW, so my kind of food - chicken and coconut laksa (Mayalay/Indonesian-style soup), all sorts of Thai curries, red and green, the most incredible pork fillet with spices and cream (my dish of the day by far), all sorts of vegetables, orzo which is another kind of pasta that's having an identity crisis, looks like rice but tastes like pasta (more of the butter and parsley, so good), fattoush which is the most brilliant Middle Eastern bread, tomato and cucumber salad, lemon and chocolate mousse and brioche.

The brichoe was incredible - it's got soooooo much butter in it that you can't leave it to rise in a warm place as you would with other breads (because it would just melt into a giant mess of buttery disgustingness) so your best bet is to make the dough in the morning, leave it to rise for about 6 hours in the fridge, then shape it and pop it back into the fridge for it's second go at doubling in size and then straight into the oven the next morning, freshly baked for breakfast - as Rachel told us, if the way to a man's heart is through his stomach and just-out-of-the-oven brioche with strawberry jam and good coffee doesn't work, you should cut your losses and move on, it's a no-hope zone.

We got our exam results after demo and I'm so pleased, more than I'd hoped for, YAY! Now only the nightmare end of course ones to go..........................a 3 hour practical marathon where you've to cook your own three course menu as well as bread and 4 written papers...............too early to think about it, I'm off home for a glass of vino.

Oh and last thing, isn't this cute, made for Halloween weekend and sold at the Midleton Farmer's Market, trick or treat bread, so sweet.

And very, very last thing, quick pic for you of the Demo Kitchen which is where I am this week (and would like to stay forever, it's so nice)!