dinner, or cooking in Ireland with one tiny sauté pan, a cheap wok, 3 crappy knives & a fridge that would fit in your dishwasher

Actually, dinner is looking up. My kitchenware is the pits, but I have finally begun to crack the shopping. As soon as you know where to look, there are good ingredients everywhere. My first and still most important find is the organic farm shop (see the blog for 18 April). Tomorrow I am going again. This time the shopkeeper will have an organic free range chicken for me which she will have cut in half and wrapped as separate pieces. I'll get the lovely eggs and fill my box with produce, and, this week, I'll get some of the locally sourced cheese. I gave the last piece I bought to Alan and Eleanor. 

Another new shopping spot is at the truck that parks in the Esso station in Edenderry each Thursday. This is a portable fish shop. Today I went for the first time. It is fish heaven. There is cod, haddock (fresh and smoked), plaice, whiting, salmon, gorgeous pink trout, and mackerel whose skin looks like it was painted by the monks who make the Book of Kells. The bottom shelf holds tubsful of crayfish and mussels. I bought two huge cod fillets for Eleanor and a lovely haddock fillet for my dinner. Next week: mussels. (I didn't ask about the farmed vs. wild issue, which I'll try to get up the nerve to do next week. The fishmonger was on the phone with what appeared to be his bookie when I got there and I had to wait several minutes before he hung up and waited on me.  The phone rang again as he was getting my change and I stood there another five minutes waiting for it, while the line behind me grew. He doesn't seem to have the ethic shared by most shopkeepers here that a paying customer is a welcome sight.)

The other great find is the Eden Deli, a haven in an otherwise unremarkable collection of eating establishments. The owner bakes fresh bread daily; her granary loaf (whole wheat bread) is to die for. I finally broke down and bought a bread knife so that I could cut the bread properly (I was using a serrated paring knife and sort of circling the loaf). Her mainstay is soda bread, and even though hers is lovely, dense and sweet, I much prefer the chewy and delicious wheat bread. You have to get there early to get these loaves; her bread is certainly not a secret, and she nearly always sells out by midday. 

Below is a recipe I made recently. I bought the sausages at a local butcher who guarantees the meat is 100% Irish.

Monday night dinner

2 Cumberland sausages (pork with lots of herbs,very soft and light)

A can of butter beans, no other white beans being available

Chilean white wine

A bouillon cube of chicken stock

Fresh oregano

Some fabulous mixed organic greens (rocket, nettles, etc)

Garlic

Red pepper

Red onion

Having slowly sauteed the red pepper and onion the night before in the wok, I added them to the butter beans in the tiny saute pan, threw in some minced garlic, then poured over the chicken ‘stock’ and some white wine. In desperation at creating something that had some taste I added a large pinch of sea salt and several grinds of pepper. In the wok I cooked the sausage by browning them a bit in olive oil, then pouring some wine over them and covering them tightly with a glass cover that is way too small for the wok but nonetheless did the trick.

I cut up the cooked sausage, then briefly added it to the bean mixture. I poured the whole mixture over the greens and ate it in front of the telly. It was delicious. The next day I had the leftovers for lunch. Even better.