Salamander Supper Club - Italian Night

"How bloody difficult can it be to cut pork??!"

Last Saturday night was exciting and terrifying. I teamed up with Joe from Salamander Coffee House for the first "Salamander Supper Club." Joe approached me with the idea a month previously and after some thinking and chatting we decided that our first night should be Italian with a change of cuisine each month. Doing Italian first was the obvious choice for me, it is the cuisine I'm most familiar and comfortable with and as I was cooking for more than 10 people for the first time, it was important for it to be as comfortable as possible.

From the start I knew what I wanted the main dish to be. Porchetta is a wonderful dish from the Lazio region. Originally it was made with a whole suckling pig (gutted and stuffed) but in recent years this has been replaced with pork belly. Stuffed with liver, almonds and oregano and slow roasted, it is the perfect mix of succulent flesh with crispy crackling. This was to be sitting on a bed a peperonata, a Piedmontese pepper, tomato and onion stew, and joined by potatoes with olive oil, onion and tomato. After our trial night we decided to switch the potatoes to a garlic gratin as the dishes were too tomato heavy, it may veer more towards a French style but it suited the dish perfectly, creative license and all that jazz. The dish was finished with a simple salsa verde to bring extra freshness to proceedings.

For starter we decided on a tasting plate of Italian dishes. Again I was keen to go with options that aren't seen too often in Ireland. Stuffed mussels (with capers, anchovies and chilli) were joined by a roasted tomato and basil bruschetta and an arancino with lamb ragu sauce. Arancini are a magnificent Sicilian snack food made from leftover risotto. The rice ball is sometimes stuffed with ragu but I prefer to have it with a good flavoured tomato sauce for dipping. The stuffed mussels were my favourite part of the menu. The capers, anchovies and chilli give them a tangy, salty and spicy hit and are the perfect way to elevate the humble shell fish.

For dessert there was only ever one choice. Tiramisu has always been my favourite dessert and Joe did a great job on it. I always find it interesting how different people judge the amount of booze in the biscuit and I think he got just enough in to keep the carousers happy while not so much to anger the nephalists.

The night itself was a serious learning curve for me. Having Ali, my brother Shane and Joe's brother Jeff in the kitchen was life saving. Surprisingly the cooking wasn't really the issue, it was the cutting! The Porchetta was the bane of my life. The crackling was nigh on impossible to cut and when I eventually got through it I had applied so much pressure that the flesh and stuffing fell apart. Luckily the diners were more interested in the taste than the look and everybody seemed happy with their meal. Although the pressure was on we managed to get 28 starters and 28 mains out of the kitchen in an hour. A success by any standards. The night was finished off with one of Salamander's delicious coffees or teas. Joe takes his coffee seriously and to my surprise, freshly grinds just enough coffee for each cup just before making, it shows.

When discussing the supper club, we were keen to involve as many local suppliers as possible. Pigs on the Green supplied the free range pork belly and liver, Nick's Fish supplied the mussels, Nolan's of Kilcullen supplied the lamb for the Arancini sauce while Winelab supplied the magnificent wine on tap.

Typically I forgot my camera on the night so the pictures are from the trial night.

We will be announcing details of our next Supper Club night very soon so keep an eye on the facebook page.

Porchetta

Porchetta is a beautiful Italian dish which, along with Pecorino Romano, is probably the most important food to come from the Lazio region. Traditionally it was made by cleaning out and de-boning a pig, stuffing it with some of the entrails and herbs and roasting it whole over a wood buring fire. It is said to have been the favourite dish of the emperor Nero, clearly a man with good taste! 

This recipe is a slightly simpler approach to the classic. Pork belly gives the perfect mix of crackling, fat and flesh while the liver in the stuffing balances the sweet meat perfectly. Porchetta can be served as a roast dinner but to me it's at its best thinly sliced on a crispy bap. Whatever isn't eaten can be sliced and frozen.

Serves 6 as dinner or 12 sandwiches

1.5 KG piece of boneless Pork Belly
1 tbsp Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
2 sprigs of Rosemary
Sea Salt and Freshly Ground Pepper
Butcher's String

For the Stuffing:

1 tbsp Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
1 Onion (finely chopped)
1 clove of Garlic (finely chopped)
150g Pork Liver (finely chopped)
1 tsp Dried Oregano
1/4 glass of Red Wine
Handful of Flaked Almonds
Sea Salt and Freshly Ground Pepper

1. First make the stuffing. Add the oil to a pan over a medium heat and add the onion and garlic. Season lightly and cook for 7-10 minutes until softened. Be careful not to burn the garlic. Add the liver and oregano and continue to cook for 1-2 minutes before adding the wine. Cook off the alcohol for 2-3 minutes and remove from the heat. Stir in the flaked almonds and allow to cool completely.

2. Lay the belly out, skin side down, and season well. Spread the stuffing out evenly all over the meat and carefully roll the meat up so that the stuffing is on the inside with the skin on the outside. Tie up every few centimeters to hold the joint together. Cover and put into the fridge for a few hours (or overnight) to marinade.

3. Make sure the outside of the Porchetta is completely dry before putting it into a baking dish with the seem on the the bottom. Pour over the oil and scatter the rosemary on top. Season and put into a pre-heated 200 degree oven. Cook for 20 minutes before turning the temperature down to 160 degrees. Cook for a further two and a half hours, turning back up to 200 for the final 10-15 minutes.

Review: Italee, Cork City

Italee - Caffe Italiano

Oliver Plunkett Street, Cork City

It's a dark, damp evening in Cork City and I find myself looking for somewhere interesting to eat. Nothing too formal, I'm in jeans and a scraggy fleece, on my way to mix a gig in Coughlans (apparently pronounced 'Caullings' in Cork!). At the top of Oliver Plunkett Street I happen upon a small Italian cafe that (as luck would have it) stays open late on a Friday night and is still serving. I always feel a little awkward about eating out on my own but of the five tables at the back of this little spot there's three of us flying solo. Nothing to be afraid of after all!

The service is laid back and friendly, exactly what you would expect in a cafe. I go for baked rigatoni with porchetta and mozzarella in a tomato sauce with a glass of the house red. The food is good, really good when you consider the price. The dish is well balanced and although it lacks a little seasoning, it's still very tasty. The wine is excellent too. The cafe has a selection of house wines and I went with the waitress' recommendation of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo. The espresso to finish is excellent. I sometimes get frustrated with coffee in Ireland; not here though!

When in Italy, the rule is to go where the locals are and although I see few locals in here, I soon realize I'm one of only two Irish people. The rest are happy Italians surrounding my little table. I could be in Rome on a sunny afternoon or Florence on a mild night but alas I'm not, I'm in Cork, on a dark and damp June evening.

Cafe Ratings:

Food: 8/10
Service: 9/10
Ambience: 8/10
Selection: 8/10
Value for Money: 9/10

Overall: 8/10 Highly Recommended