Tag: fitness

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Field Mushroom Soup with Crunchy Garlic Croutons @kerrygoldusa

Field_Mushroom_Soup_with_Crunchy_Garlic_Croutons

Serves: 4

This soup doesn’t take much more than 20 minutes to make from start to finish. The lemon juice helps to bring out the mushrooms’ natural, savoury flavour. If you are trying to be healthy at the moment, omit the cream and dilute with a little extra stock if necessary – you’ll find it’s still pretty good.

Ingredients:

  • 1½ lb field or open cup button mushrooms, chopped
  • juice of ½ lemon
  • 4 tbsp (2oz) Kerrygold Salted Butter
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 1 large garlic clove, crushed
  • 2 tbsp plain flour
  • 3 cups (1½ pints) vegetable stock (from a stock cube is fine)
  • pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
  • ½ cup (4fl oz) cream
  • 2 tsp chopped fresh chives
  • For the garlic croutons:
  • 4 tbsp (2oz) Kerrygold butter
  • 2 thick slices sourdough bread, crusts removed and diced
  • 1 large garlic clove, crushed
  • salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

Sprinkle the mushrooms with the lemon juice. Melt the butter in a large pan. Add the onion and garlic and cook gently for a few minutes until softened but not coloured. Increase the heat, add the mushrooms and cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring. Stir in the flour and cook for another minute, stirring.

Gradually pour the stock into the pan, add the nutmeg, season to taste and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat, cover and simmer gently for about 10 minutes or until the mushrooms are completely tender. Blend to a purée in a food processor or with a hand held blender. Return to a clean pan, season to taste and stir in most of the cream, reserving a little to garnish.

Meanwhile, make the garlic croutons. Heat the butter in a non-stick frying pan and once it has melted and is starting to sizzle, stir in the garlic and then tip in the sourdough bread cubes, tossing to coat. Season to taste and continue to sauté for 3-4 minutes until golden brown. Tip on to kitchen paper to drain off any excess butter.

To serve, reheat the soup gently, then ladle into warmed bowls and add swirls of the reserved cream. Garnish with the crunchy garlic croutons and add a sprinkling of chives to each one.

http://kerrygoldusa.com/recipes/field-mushroom-soup-with-crunchy-garlic-croutons

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Molly Malone’s cockle and mussel chowder @rachelallen1

molly malones chowder

Info:

Serves 4–6
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 tbsp sunfl ower oil
  • 110g (4oz) smoked bacon, diced
  • 25g (1oz) butter
  • 110g (4oz) leek, trimmed and very finely diced
  • 110g (4oz) carrot, very finely diced
  • 275g (10oz) potato (about 1 medium), peeled and finely diced
  • 1kg (2lb 2oz) mixed cockles and mussels
  • 300ml (11fl oz) dry white wine
  • 200ml (7fl oz) milk
  • 200ml (7fl oz) single or double cream
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 4 tbsp roughly chopped fresh parsley

Molly Malone was a beautiful girl who sold cockles and mussels and died tragically of a fever while still young, or so the song goes. Molly may not have been a real girl, but since at least the 17th century, there have been fishmongers on the streets of Dublin who sell ‘Cockles and Mussels, alive, alive, oh!’

Cockles, with their distinctive flavour and lovely curved shell, are traditionally eaten in Ireland with Oatcakes. If you can only find mussels, this chowder will be just as good.

Serve either as a substantial starter or with chunks of crusty bread as a meal in its own right.

Heat the sunflower oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the bacon and sauté for about 1 minute, until crisp and golden. Add the butter to the pan and melt. Then add the leek, carrot and potato. Reduce the heat to low and sauté gently for 4–5 minutes, until soft but not browned.

Meanwhile, prepare the cockles and mussels. Scrub the shells clean and discard any that remain open when you tap them against a hard surface. Remove the beard – the little fibrous tuft – from each mussel. Bring the wine to a boil in a large saucepan and add the cockles and mussels. Cover with a tight-fi tting lid and cook for 3–4 minutes, shaking the pan occasionally, until the shells have opened.

Remove from the heat, drain the shellfi sh in a colander, reserving the cooking juices, and discard any shells that remain closed. Return the shellfi sh to the empty pan to keep warm. Place a fine sieve over a measuring jug and strain the cooking liquid. You should have at least 600ml (1 pint); if not, add water to make up that quantity.

Add the pan juices and the milk to the bacon and vegetable mixture and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 6–8 minutes, until the potato is tender. Add the cream and simmer for another 2–3 minutes, until the soup is reduced and thickened slightly. Season with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, remove half of the cockles and mussels from their shells and add them with the remaining cockles and mussels still in their shells to the chowder. Stir in the parsley and serve at once.

http://www.rachelallen.com/post/molly-malones-cockle-and-mussel-chowder

 

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Rachel’s Smoked Mackerel, Apple and Fennel Salad

rachel-rocket-recipes_2

Serves 4-6.

You will need:

5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons lemon juice

Salt and freshly-ground black pepper

2 fennel bulbs, trimmed and cut lengthways into 3-4mm (¼in) slices

2 apples (unpeeled), quartered, cored and cut into wedges 5mm (¼in-½in) thick

4 smoked mackerel fillets, skin removed and flesh torn into bite-sized chunks

4 handfuls of rocket leaves

First, add the extra-virgin olive oil and the lemon juice to a large bowl. Season with the salt and freshly ground black pepper, then whisk everything together. Next, add in the sliced fennel, the wedges of apple and the chunks of mackerel. Mix together well, then add the rocket leaves and gently toss everything together to dress the leaves. 
Divide between plates and serve immediately.