Especially for Emma McDonald who moved to Cornwall and is suffering from Yellow Door blueberry scone withdrawal! Now Cornwall is a lovely place, but all that clotted cream deserves a really lovely scone.
Blueberry scones
Makes 20 large scones
700g soda bread flour
150g caster sugar
½ tsp salt
120g butter
100g fresh or frozen blueberries
350 – 400ml buttermilk
1 egg, beaten
Preheat the oven to 200°C
Mix the flour, caster sugar and salt in a bowl. Add the butter and rub it in, using your fingers until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the blueberries at this stage and mix through. Add the buttermilk and mix again until the mixture starts to come together.
Turn the mixture out onto a lightly floured surface and work it with your hands until it forms a ball. Pat out to a thickness of 4-5cm and, using a large scone cutter, stamp out the scones. You could use a large diameter glass if you don’t have a cutter. Place them on a baking sheet and glaze the tops with beaten egg.
Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden on the top and cooked through. Serve warm from the oven with lots more good Irish butter and home-made preserves.
Spring seems to have just about sprung, and our gardens are coming to life.
We are really proud to be one of the sponsors of Sow, Grow, Munch, a book for schools and community groups written by our own Jilly Dougan. More details to follow on that.
One of the things that anyone could do at home is sow peas for pea shoots. You get that fantastic fresh pea flavour in as little as 2-3 weeks and they are packed with vitamins A, C and Folic acid.
Here’s how…
Use recycled disposable plastic cups, yoghurt pots, seed trays or anything which will hold compost and has drainage holes in the bottom.
Any dried pea will do such as the ones you get in the corner shop. You can soak the peas in cold water for an hour or overnight beforehand which will speed up the germination process, but it’s not necessary. ¾ fill your pot or tray with compost, dampen slightly and scatter the peas over the surface quite closely together. Cover with compost, and keep moist but not wet. Place on a windowsill or somewhere light and in about 3 weeks when the pea shoots are 8-10cm high cut them off with a pair of scissors. If you cut them about 3cm up (above the first set of leaves) they will regrow to give you another crop. Pea shoots are great just eaten as a snack, in sandwiches or tossed into salad.
We love our spuds, we’re Irish, of course we do!
We were delighted to have been honoured with the mightiest innovation for our smoked potato mash. Organised by the Mighty Spud.
And we’re in great company, as you can see…
“Northern Ireland is well known for its top quality food but the Mighty Spud Awards 2016 took things to a whole new level. Our finalists battled it out in four hotly contested categories but in the end the four winners stood out for their mighty taste, quality and ability to push the boundaries when it comes to the humble spud. The Mightiest Chip in Northern Ireland was awarded to Mortons, Ballycastle who were a standout in the category, The Hillside Bistro, Hillsborough won Mightiest Mash, Tony and Jen’s, Belfast picked up the accolade for Mightiest Healthy Potato Dish and The Yellow Door, Portadown is honoured with serving the Mightiest Innovative Potato dish in the province”.
How do we make this yummy mash? Watch the video here.
Read the whole story here.
We love having success at the Guild of Fine Foods Great Taste Awards, and 2015 was no exception! We were delighted to win a coveted 2 star for our Christmas pudding.
Here’s what the judges said
“Great fruit content that is well soaked giving a really moist and surprisingly light pudding. Well balanced with fruit, alcohol and crumb. A great pudding, well done”
Did you know we also won the Golden Fork for Best Signature Deli dish in 2013 and 2014 with a Strangford prawn and Comber potato soup, and a beef cheek and smoked potato mash pie.
Our latest new toy is an Urban Cultivator™, an ingenious indoor growing system and the first that we know of in Northern Ireland.
Whilst we can grow our own micro herbs and pea shoots for about 8 months of the year in a greenhouse this little fully automated system lets us carry on to a throughout the winter months.
So far we’re delighted and can’t wait to experiment more.
Chilli Hot Chocolate
When it’s chilly outside, get some chilli inside. This is a fantastic warming drink to have on a winter’s day; we’ve been known to put it in a flask to bring on an outing!
For added spice you can add a couple of cloves, a piece of cinnamon star or a star anise to the milk at the infusing stage.
Ingredients: 1 litre milk, 2 red chillies halved lengthways and deseeded, 200g dark chocolate (at least 60% cocoa solids), broken into small pieces, 200ml single cream.
Pour the milk into a saucepan. Pop in the chillies and bring to a slow simmer, taking care not to let the milk boil over. Remove from the heat and set aside for 10 minutes to let the chillies infuse.
Add the chocolate and cream, and reheat over a low heat. Stir constantly until the chocolate has melted, then remove the chillies. Serve immediately, or pour into a thermos flask for your winter picnic!
