A summer feast: 3 recipes from Killruddery House in Wicklow

Killruddery beetroot, Fivemiletown goat’s cheese mousse, pickled apple, togarashi and Killruddery garden leaves salad

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:
For the goat’s cheese mousse:
• 15g horseradish
• 300g Fivemiletown goat’s cheese
• 75g of cream

For the beetroot:
• 4 medium beetroots
• Splash of sherry vinegar
• Splash of olive oil
• Pinch of salt
• One small bunch of thyme
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 star anise
• Rind of one lemon
• Rind of one orange

For the pickled apple:
• 1/2 Granny Smith apple
• 300g vinegar pickle (make this with 300g water, 200g white sugar and 100g
vinegar)

For the salad:
• 1/2 Granny Smith apple
• Good quality salad leaves – quantity depending on how much you would like per person
• Seasonal herbs – quantity depending on how much you would like per person

For the togarashi:
• 1g dried orange
• 1g dried yuzu
• 1g dried lemon
• 10g kombu
• 1g dried chilli flakes
• 2g black peppercorns
• 2g pink peppercorns
• One sheet of nori seaweed
• 2g garlic powder
• 1g smoked paprika
• 50g white sesame seeds
• 50g black sesame seeds
• 1g ginger powder
• 4g flaky sea salt
• 10g poppy seeds

METHOD:
To make the whipped goat’s cheese mousse:
1. Grate the horseradish into the cream
2. In a saucepan, gently heat the cream and horseradish mixture and allow to cool and infuse for two hours
3. After two hours, strain the horseradish from the cream and add the cooled cream to the goat’s cheese
4. Using a balloon whisk, whip the cream and goat’s cheese mixture until light and airy, before adding to a piping bag and setting aside

For the beetroot:
1. Cut the tops off the beetroot and add whole to an oven tray, adding a splash of olive oil, sherry vinegar, a pinch of salt, thyme, bay leaf, star anise, lemon and orange rind. Cover the tray in tinfoil and cook at 140C until cooked through (check after 90 minutes)
2. Once cooked, peel the beetroots using a cloth and once peeled, cut into bitesize pieces and allow to cool

For the pickled apple:
1. Thinly slice half a Granny Smith apple on a mandoline and add to a cold vinegar pickle and set aside (reserve the other half for your salad) – A basic pickle can be made using three parts water to two parts sugar and one part vinegar

For the salad leaves:
1. Using the best good quality lettuce or salad leaves that you can buy, add your preferred combination of seasonal herbs (for example, fennel, flat leaf parsley and chervil) to this mix – In the Grain Store Restaurant, Niall O’Sullivan and his team use foraged items like wild garlic flowers, wild leek flowers, borage, primrose, sorrell and hairy bitter cress, but please only pick these herbs if you are absolutely certain that you have correctly identified them
2. Dress the leaves with a drizzle of olive oil and fresh lemon juice, ensuring all the leaves and herbs are dressed well

For the togarashi:
1. Toast all of the ingredients in a dry pan, leave to cool and blend to a powder in a high-speed food processor

To serve:
1. Pipe your chilled goat’s cheese mousse in a circle on your serving dish (Use the photo of the dish for reference)
2. Dress your beetroot pieces with a drizzle of olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice, and place on top of the goat’s cheese ring
3. Add slices of pickled apple and fresh apple, and place your dressed salad leaves on top of the beetroot, creating a wreath effect on the plate
4. Top the dish with a sprinkle of togarashi and serve

Killruddery Farm pressed Middle White pork belly & boudin noir, rhubarb & woodruff ketchup and Wicklow wild garlic

Serves 4, generously

INGREDIENTS:
For the pork belly:
• 800g boneless pork belly
• 1kg of duck fat
• 4 generous slices of boudin noir or good quality black pudding

For the pork belly cure:
• 300g sea salt
• 200g caster sugar
• 2 star anise
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 4g smoked paprika
• 4g black pepper
• 4g fennel seed
• One handful of parsley
• One handful thyme
• Zest of one lemon
• Zest of one orange

For the rhubarb and woodruff ketchup:
• 1/2 granny smith apple, sliced
• 200g rhubarb, sliced
• One small onion
• One raw beetroot
• 4g dried woodruff (if unavailable add a small drop of vanilla extract)
• 25g sherry vinegar
• One juniper berry
• One star anise
• One clove
• 75g caster sugar
• Zest of one orange
• 2g fennel seeds

METHOD:
To prepare the pork:
1. Prepare your pork belly cure by blitzing all of your ingredients in a food processor until you reach a course powder consistency
2. Generously massage the cure into the pork belly, cover and leave to cure for 4 hours
3. After 4 hours, rinse the salt off the pork and submerge the pork in the duck fat in a deep tray, cover in tin foil and cook at 100C for 4 hours or until tender
4. After 4 hours, remove the pork from the duck fat and allow to cool, before pressing between two trays overnight

To prepare the pickled apple:
1. Thinly slice a granny smith apple on a mandoline and add to a cold vinegar pickle (a basic pickle can be made with three parts water to two parts sugar to one part vinegar) and set aside
To prepare the ketchup – this will make more than you need but you can enjoy it with other meats
2. Thinly slice the apple, beetroot, rhubarb and onion and cook down with a splash of oil until soft
3. Add the remaining ingredients and cook for 20 minutes on a medium heat
4. Once everything has been cooked, blitz all of the ingredients in a high speed blender until you reach a smooth texture
5. Set aside

To serve:
1. Trim the edges of the pork belly and cut into four portions, score the fat and place a piece of parchment paper in a dry pan and slowly cook the pork for 4-5 minutes on a medium to low heat
2. Next, place the pork belly into a pre-heated oven at 180C for 8-10 minutes or until crispy
3. While the pork is cooking, cut 4 pieces of boudin noir (or good quality black pudding) and place on a seperate tray with parchment paper and place into the oven for 8-10 minutes
4. Add a spoon of the ketchup to each plate, plate up the pork and boudin noir, and top with a slice of pickled apple
5. Garnish the dish with some wild garlic shoots and flowers and serve

Vanilla set custard, blood orange sorbet & caramelised white chocolate soil

EQUIPEMENT
blowtorch, cooking probe and ice-cream machine for this recipe.

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:
For the custard:
• 40g egg yolks
• 30g caster sugar
• 135g cream
• 80g milk
• 10g glucose
• 3/4 sheet of gelatine
• Vanilla extract – to taste

For the blood orange jelly:
• 50g sugar stock syrup – equal parts water to sugar
• 50g blood orange juice
• Splash of sherry vinegar
• Pinch of citric acid
• Zest of one orange
• One sheet of gelatine

For the white chocolate soil:
• 50g milk powder
• 20g 0.0 flour
• 20g spelt flour
• 30g caster sugar
• 40g butter
• 50g corn flour
• 3g flaky sea salt

For the caramelised white chocolate:
• 100g white chocolate

For the blood orange sorbet:
• 500g blood orange juice
• 500g sugar syrup (Equal parts water to sugar)
• 2.5g citric acid
• 8g sherry vinegar
• 4g hibiscus if available

METHOD
To make the vanilla custard:
1. In a large bowl, whisk the sugar and egg yolks together with the vanilla extract
2. Soak the gelatine in cold water and in a saucepan, heat your milk and cream together
3. Once the milk and cream have come to the boil, slowly pour this into the egg and sugar mixture, stirring at all times
4. Transfer this mixture back into the saucepan and over a medium heat, continuously stir and cook until it comes to 80C, measuring the temperature with a cooking probe
5. Squeeze out the gelatine leaf and add to your hot cream mix and immediately pass this mixture through a sieve into a pouring jug
6. Allow the mixture to cool slightly
7. Take four stainless steel ring moulds, cover one side of each mould with clingfilm (tightly) and turn the ring upside down so that the clingfilm is on the base, before pouring in the vanilla mix, allowing the custard to cool. Take care and make sure no leakages occur
8. Leave to set in the fridge for 4-5 hours

To make the jelly:
1. Bring all of the ingredients up to the boil and once boiled, take off the heat
2. Soak half a sheet of gelatine in cold water and add this to the orange mix
3. Place the mixture into a container and put in the fridge until it’s cool but not set
4. Once cooled, pour on top of the set custard, ensuring that the custard has completely set before pouring

To make the white chocolate crumb:
1. Using the bread crumbing method, mix all of your ingredients in a bowl until you reach a bread crumb consistency
2. Place on a tray and cook in the oven at 140C for 20 minutes or until light golden colour
3. Allow to cool

For the carmelised white chocolate:
1. Place the white chocolate in the oven at 140C and cook until it melts and caramelises (it will be a light golden brown)
2. Once both the white chocolate crumb and the caramelised white chocolate have cooled, grate the caramelised chocolate into the crumb and mix together well

For the blood orange sorbet:
1. In a saucepan, bring everything to the boil
2. Take the mixture off the heat and allow to cool before churning in an ice cream machine until you reach your desired sorbet consistency

To serve:
1. To serve the custard, carefully remove the clingfilm from the metal ring and place on a plate. Blowtorch for two seconds to allow the custard to release easily onto the plate
2. Spoon on the white chocolate soil, serve with some of the blood orange jelly and finish with a quenelle of freshly churned sorbet

*Please note, these are recipes based on dishes which feature on the menu of the Grain Store Restaurant at Killruddery House and so recipes may make a little more than specified

Photography: Jo Murphy