In my student days St Patrick’s Day was really just an excuse for a liquid lunch, a liquid dinner and a liquid evening supper! Several friends included breakfast in that list but even as a carefree student I was never that professional in my drinking habits. Food has always been the greater passion for me and regardless of the craic or peer pressure I would always stop and eat; even if it was a less than gourmet, gourmet burger.

Between student-hood and recent years St Patrick’s Day largely lost its appeal. As I matured I began to resent the connection between our national day and a day in the pub. I will admit it is a type of snobbery in that I believe the overriding Irish stereotype of excessive drinker is long gone. Particularly these days when those of us with families to support, mortgages to pay and all the other responsibilities can hardly afford a champagne lifestyle. There are also the health and social issues surrounding drink and if anything curtails a potential drinking career it’s small children, but that’s not a bad thing at all. Having gone off St Patrick’s Day for quite some time suddenly I’m beginning to ‘get it’ again particularly as the little ones reach an age where the parade is a highlight and they are learning about St Patrick and making St Patrick’s Day stuff at school. La Feile Padraig is definitely having a renaissance in chez Whelan. I’m slowly but surely coming around and I’m also starting to think that it might be a chance to celebrate the good things about being Irish given all the negative political and financial fallout of recent times. I noticed on the news one evening last week that there had even been a Tricolour Commemoration in Waterford recently. Our national flag was raised there for the first time by Thomas Francis Meagher in March 1848.

Maybe we are finally getting a grip on our culture and heritage and finding ways to celebrate it positively without the emphasis on alcohol. I think we can really do that through food and send that message to the world at large. To celebrate St Patrick’s Day we should go all out and gather our family together to enjoy the best of real Irish food. I’m not talking about green food colouring in the mini meringues although it’s a touch that the kids always love. I’m talking about generating a feast for the family.

There are many ways to create this traditional Irish feast, a warming one pot that can be prepared the day before and gently reheated after a cold parade. A large meat pie made with local ingredients and oozing with gravy or you could go all out and create a roast dinner. I like the idea of the roast and it also gives a great deal of choice. Choose from fresh lamb, luscious beef, a tender chicken or turkey. Yes, it’s just long enough since Christmas to bring one to the table again. However I’ve decided that this year we are going to try an even more traditional route and I’ve settled on Bacon and Cabbage with a Mustard Crust. Anybody who has my book, An Irish Butcher Shop, will find this recipe on page 91. It is simply cooked bacon but finished off in the oven with the addition of a crumbed topping. It certainly lifts an everyday bacon dish to a higher level.

I have also been experimenting recently with various cooking liquids. I liked Nigella Lawson’s recommendation for cooking ham in Coke so I thought I’d try it with bacon. I sliced up the onions, put the bacon on top and covered it with Coke. This works quite well with the sweetness of the coke offsetting the saltiness of the bacon and there is a definite, subtle taste change. According to Nigella you can make black bean soup out of the dark, inky liquid left behind but I have yet to try that and found myself just discarding the warm sticky mess that it is. Usually I try to cook the accompanying vegetables in the meat liquid but found that cabbage cooked in coke was all wrong according to my taste buds. The carrots weren’t as offensive but I still wouldn’t recommend it. I also tried cooking the bacon in cider. Arguably a little more expensive than coke but it gave a fine result. While I think I would ultimately prefer the taste of the meat cooked in the coke, the cider cooked cabbage was good. However the best result all round is cabbage cooked in plain bacon water and so for me cooking the bacon in plain water has to win every time.

When serving bacon and cabbage it’s hard not to think of buttery mash, but for a special occasion you could try being a little fancier. There is a simple recipe for potato gratin on page 212 of An Irish Butcher shop that would be just perfect. The creamy cheesy potato dish also provides a moist sauce in and of itself. Some people like to make an onion or white sauce with bacon or ham but potato gratin allows you to dispense with that. My special tip with potato gratin is that it can be very, very hot when it comes from the oven. I like to let it cool slightly before serving as this also helps it to set and therefore it’s easier to portion and looks better on the plate. Five to ten minutes cooling should do it.

The great thing about a bacon or ham joint is that it is just as good cold in a sandwich or with some coleslaw and salads the next day. Cook a large enough joint and the day after St Patrick’s Day will be an easy ride to get you in the mood for a nice weekend. It certainly shortens the week. Enjoy. I welcome your feedback to [email protected]

We hope you enjoyed reading this post by Pat Whelan of James Whelan Butchers. Pat is a 5th generation butcher, cook book author and the director of  James Whelan Butchers with shops in Clonmel, the Avoca Food Market Monkstown and Avoca Rathcoole. Sign up to our newsletter for more updates from James Whelan Butchers

Online Butcher Pat Whelan writes on meat and food in general and this week he talks about the humble sausage.

It must be our current fascination with all things frugal that every food magazine I’ve come across recently has at least one sausage recipe in it.  Toad in the Hole has been resurrected from its 1970s resting place and is seriously sexy again.  Just in case you haven’t come across it Toad in the Hole is an English dish of sausages baked in Yorkshire pudding batter and if made properly can be comfort food heaven.  Leaving the batter aside every chef also seems to have some take on bangers and mash.  They’re attempting to tart it up with a fashionable sprig of rosemary here or a handful of coriander there, but it is still sausage. Dry and plump, smothered in batter or gravy, puffed up with herbs – the pork sausage has had an Oprah style makeover and the audience is going wild.

I suppose it had to happen.  During the boom sausages had no need to grace a dinner plate.   The abundance of builders in the country had devoured truckloads of sausages in breakfast rolls before most of us even put our feet on the floor.   Sausages had a function as a breakfast staple and a child’s tea perhaps.  Before the downturn the idea of sausages for dinner would have been alien to many.  It’s quite funny how we quickly murdered our inner food snob in light of penury.

However the humble sausage is very versatile and every fridge and freezer in the land should keep a pack to hand and they have a good shelf life for a meat product.  There are the obvious uses; a quick sausage sandwich or a cooked breakfast but I have often used a few sausages for stuffing when I haven’t had sausage meat to hand.  Chopped small they enliven a dull omelette which is basically a combined cooked breakfast at lunch or suppertime.  Then there are the more complicated baked sausages in mustard and Toad in the Hole often served with “frilly” mash.  I use the word frilly because few chefs can leave mash alone these days.  They have to snip in some chives or throw in a pinch of cumin.  Stop playing with the mash, all it needs is butter and plenty of it!  Finally the onion gravy is a thing of much debate and getting it right is crucial.

And where did those names come from?  Bangers and Mash, Toad in the Hole, weanies (American) and Pigs in a Blanket!  If you Google Toad in the Hole you may be told on several websites that it is so called because the sausages resemble toads’ heads popping out of the batter.  It’s nonsensical in the extreme.  I’ve looked at Toad in the Hole from every angle and there is nothing anywhere in the dish that resembles a toad, let alone a hole!  Another suggestion is that Toad in the Hole was the name of an 18^th century tavern game where people threw discs into holes in the table; a slightly more plausible answer perhaps but nothing concrete.  Pigs in blankets are probably just a visual description.  In England pigs in blankets are small sausages wrapped in bacon; a party food or Christmas dinner accompaniment while in America the blanket is usually pastry and more like our common sausage rolls.    Weanies or Weaners in America come from the German name for Vienna, (Wien) where a particular pork and beef mix sausage came from.

We all know what a sausage is but if we didn’t have one to hand and a visiting alien asked us to define it in words what would you say?  Sausage is a food, generally made from meat mashed together with salt, herbs and spices and put into a long narrow casing.  Irish sausages are usually made from pork but every country has its own version and sausage can be prepared by drying, curing or smoking.

For many years butchers made their own sausages.  The general idea, shape and size were the same but obviously the taste varied slightly.  In my own shop we have a secret recipe for our award winning sausages.  When a James Whelan Butcher is deemed ready, and it takes many, many years of service, we reveal the “secret of the sausage to him” in a grand ceremony in the cold room!  Regular readers will know that I’m joking of course, but we do make excellent sausages to our own specific recipe.  You won’t find a James Whelan Butchers’ sausage anywhere else and I’ll personally stand over the quality, the texture and the taste.  While many like the challenge of making their own there are such good sausages available to buy that it seems an unnecessary and painstaking task.

Whatever kind of sausage you are after it can be easily found in today’s market.  From the oily Spanish chorizo that works so well in many dishes to the firm Frankfurter or plump and juicy traditional Irish pork sausage there are a myriad of inexpensive dishes to prepare.  Try as many as you can.  Some you’ll love and others will be too spicy, too chewy, too gritty, too smoky; you’ll never know until you try and don’t just resign the more unusual ones to pizza toppings and buffet platters.  Heat them in a pan and see what happens or mix them with some other ingredients or try them cold.  The big challenge will be to see if you can create an acceptable dinner with the humble sausage.  I am very confident that cooked with a little style and given some respect bangers and mash could have them dancing in the aisles and asking for seconds but you have to stick to the rules:

1.  Buy the best possible sausages you can get your hands on. (Butchers are probably your best bet.)

2. Master the art of onion gravy and, whatever the recipe says, cut the onions big and coarse!

3. Leave the mash alone – smooth and naked but for a butter lake is all the perfection needed.

I welcome your feedback to [email protected]

We hope you enjoyed reading this post by Pat Whelan of James Whelan Butchers. Pat is a 5th generation butcher, cook book author and the director of  James Whelan Butchers with shops in Clonmel, the Avoca Food Market Monkstown and Avoca Rathcoole. Sign up to our newsletter for more updates from James Whelan Butchers

Online Butcher Pat Whelan writes on meat and food in general and this week he talks healthy eating for diabetics.

I know you’ll all be thrilled to hear that my new exercise and eating programme are going according to plan and, so far, I have managed to shift close to six pounds in weight or just over 2 kilos!  Okay, given the fact that I am a tall, broad man let’s not break out the bunting just yet.  I’m not expecting huge gasps about my diminished physical appearance and few will notice any visible difference, but I do and I’m absolutely thrilled with the progress.

If I’m honest I have spent more time working on the exercise than pursuing a punitive eating regime.  Basically I’m keeping an eye on portion size, making slightly better choices and saying ‘No’ to unnecessary snacks; hardly deprivation.  However the more I delve into this lifestyle change the more I realise how timely it actually was.  My own research suggests that my increasing waistline was pushing me closer and closer to ill health than I would ever have readily admitted. We know that being unfit and overweight makes it difficult to exert too much energy without feeling distinctly winded. Then along with the difficult breathing and gasping for air, your heart is pounding furiously and working much harder than it was ever intended to.  Now I’m not referring to feeling like this after a long run or vigourous workout, but when the exercise has been a race against a three year old one length of the hallway and even with such short legs he still wins!  I wish I could tell you that my three year old was displaying Olympic potential and that’s why I can’t beat him, but that’s just not true. While I was aware of the threat of heart disease, to my great shame, I was largely ignoring an even bigger potential problem on the horizon and that was type 2 diabetes.

Diabetes occurs when the blood sugar level is too high.  This happens when the body is not burning up carbohydrates properly due to a defect in the pancreas, the gland that produces insulin.  Insulin is the hormone which keeps blood sugar levels within the normal healthy range.  Diabetes may be present either when no insulin is made or when insulin is made but not working properly.  Type 1 diabetes often occurs before the age of 35 and usually in people who produce no insulin.  They have to inject insulin to regulate blood sugar levels.  Type 2 diabetes is where a person can make insulin but the system is malfunctioning, usually due to overload.  That is why type 2 is usually associated with being overweight and is more commonly found in adults over the age of 40.   Where type 2 is concerned lifestyle and diet are hugely important for regulation and control and, indeed, prevention in the first place.  While symptoms of diabetes vary in instensity they may include lack of energy, tiredness, excessive thirst, frequent peeing, vision blurring and recurrent infection.  Just to clarify, these are only guides: I’m a butcher and not reliable for medical facts but I do know a few people with diabetes and how they maintain normal lives despite it.

Whether type 1 or type 2 the most important thing for the diabetic is to maintain proper blood sugar levels.  The diabetic must always remember that there is a ditch on both sides of the road.  Going too long without food can be just as problematic as eating the wrong foods.  Balance is very important.  For this reason many diabetics find it better to eat several smaller meals throughout the day rather than three large meals with protracted intervals in between.  The diet should include a variety of fruits including apples, oranges, peaches and plums.  It is recommended to eat whole fruit as it provides plenty of soluble fibre as well as natural sugar.  Whole grain is much better when it comes to bread, pasta and cereals.  Fish is seen as a lifesaver for diabetics especially considering that fish, like salmon and sardines, are full of omega 3 fatty acids which are said to help reduce the risk of heart disease.  Diabetic cooking should definitely include a little seafood.  Vegetables, which should be part of any good diet are also good for diabetics particularly the greens such as asparagus, broccoli, spinach and cauliflower.  Protein is also crucial and lean and red meat and poultry play their part.  While meat and poultry are excellent sources of protein for the diabetic the key is to limit the amount of fat.  Eat the poultry without the skin and look for lean cuts of meat.

The diabetics and those that live with diabetics that I know are all a little wary of specific ‘diabetic’ food.  They use one or two products but often sparingly and most try and eat as naturally as possible seeing this as a healthier approach all round.  Specially produced diabetic foods also tend to be more expensive than their mass produced equivalents for non diabetics.  Of course the thing with food is that if you are preparing meals for a family and people have special dietary requirements, it is always good to find recipes that everyone can share without singling out the person with the ‘disease’.  That’s what I’ve attempted to do this week and as lamb is a lean meat it certainly ticks all the boxes.

Finally though, type 2 diabetes is largely preventable by a change in lifestyle.  If you are at risk forget about losing weight for cosmetic reasons and think about how just a few small changes could have you back on the road to excellent health in no time.  Life is short and we should enjoy it particularly when it comes to food, but we won’t be able to do that if we’re unwell.  Take control today, the choice is up to you.

I welcome your feedback to [email protected]

We hope you enjoyed reading this post by Pat Whelan of James Whelan Butchers. Pat is a 5th generation butcher, cook book author and the director of  James Whelan Butchers with shops in Clonmel, the Avoca Handweavers Rathcoole and Kilmacanogue, Dunnes Stores Cornelscourt, Rathmines and Swords in Dublin. Sign up to our newsletter for more updates from James Whelan Butchers

The human condition is a strange one indeed.  We are always on the look out for the next ‘new’ thing; eagerly anticipating its arrival.  It is particularly obvious when it comes to technology.  Once the object of our desire and fascination is procured we adore it for all of five minutes and then quickly get used to it and suddenly realise that despite the advantages we now have yet another gadget to mind, manage and administer.  I have noticed that we can sometimes apply the same philosophy to food.  Having lived through and survived the tiger years we are now a nation of well travelled and relatively sophisticated people.  In a lifetime most of us can recall a fine dining experience or two, sampling the exotic at least once and, of course, television regularly beams its take on epicurean sophistication into our living rooms.  With our new found interest in culinary arts we have to be careful that we don’t fall into the trap of considering it boring or old fashioned unless it is three miniscule pieces of monkfish arranged like a piece of art on a plate with a red coloured sauce dotted around the sides and the green of some rocket setting the whole thing off.

In every other sphere of human enjoyment reinvention is the name of the game.  Fashion is a good example with headlines often screaming the return of some decade or another.  To be honest it is all a little lost on me as I am in the fortunate position of having my own personal stylist; my wife.  Unless it was blatantly obvious I probably couldn’t tell you which era somebody was wearing but I understand the theory that everything eventually comes back into fashion, often with just a small twist.  For most men the analogy is probably better drawn in the world of music.  Classic songs are often recorded by modern artists who give them a new lease of life.  Often they will just re-record; a new voice offering the only freshness required. Usually there is a new arrangement, the addition of a little sax perhaps or replacing an acoustic guitar with an electric one to rock it all up.  Fast energetic songs have been slowed down to modern ballads and vice versa.  In many cases the original song with the original artist has been taken and re-mastered or re-mixed with some new instruments or an additional vocal and, like magic, a new hit is born.  It was the same lyric and the same song with just enough tweaking for it to feel new all over again.

If we apply this to food we get what I like to call the cornflakes theory.  If you haven’t had cornflakes in a long time and consider them boring, just try a bowl and you will be surprised how good they are.  Stick with cornflakes everyday for a month and pretty soon they will be relegated back to the place where you considered that eating the box was more appetising.  This just proves our need as humans for variety but we mustn’t mix up variety with the pressure of constantly needing ‘new’ and ‘original’.

Recently with friends coming over for an informal kitchen supper I suggested a simple Shepherds Pie.  While nobody said anything as such I felt little enthusiasm about it.  Now to clarify I will admit to being a philistine and making my version of Shepherds Pie with beef mince rather than lamb.  As someone once pointed out to me “You don’t see shepherds minding cattle!”  Hence Shepherds Pie is traditionally made with lamb with a mashed potato topping and Cottage Pie is the one using the beef.  So if I’m being correct, I was attempting a Cottage Pie.

So here I was with a simple dish that has sustained generations.  What happened next was interesting.  Having been sidetracked completely by the newspaper, I prepared the meat filling and suddenly realised I was up against time when it came to peeling and mashing potatoes and then baking the whole thing in the oven.  As necessity is the mother of invention I had to actually think.  I hoped that the god of the fridge would speak in a loud inspirational voice if I peered inside.  I wasn’t disappointed.  Staring up at me were some sad and slightly stale pitta breads.  There was no doubt that their next destination was the bin.  With a surge of hope I grabbed them and threw them into the blender making a decent batch of pitta breadcrumbs.  I grated some lovely local cheese and then cut up some fresh chives and mixed the whole lot together to form a crumb topping and spread it over the meat mixture.  I also randomly dotted some small knobs of butter about the top as well.  While that baked in the oven I prepared my signature creamy mash.

For fun I brought the entire dish to the table where the pitta and cheese crust had browned beautifully and looked really inviting.  Breaking into the dish with a spoon I felt like a ravenous animal breaking the ice on a frozen pond and finding the lovely ice cool water beneath. In my case it was the steaming, aroma of the meat filling that rose up and as it filled the air it drew pleasing sighs from my little hungry audience.  All I can say is that plates were literally licked clean and one or two went back for seconds.  We had all forgotten the pleasures and comfort of a simple Shepherds (Cottage) Pie.  My necessary twist of pitta bread topping certainly gave it a modern edge but the reality is that in terms of food, it was no different to how my own mother made it years ago; fresh meat, local vegetables, good quality stock and a few locally sourced herbs and everyone felt like they had been introduced to something ‘new’ again.

You see food, just like music and songs, has a wonderful power and ability to invoke memories; both good and bad.  I was blessed to have a mother and other family members who could cook well.  Looking back their food would be considered simple by today’s sophisticated standards, but like good songs they are dishes that have stood the test of time.  Indeed most modern dishes are just fancy twists on something that has gone before it.  I think it was the great King Solomon who said, “There is nothing new under the sun.”  Then again I think he would probably have been pretty impressed with the iPhone.  I welcome your feedback to [email protected]

We hope you enjoyed reading this post by Pat Whelan of James Whelan Butchers. Pat is a 5th generation butcher, cook book author and the director of  James Whelan Butchers with shops in Clonmel, the Avoca Handweavers Rathcoole and Kilmacanogue, Dunnes Stores Cornelscourt, Rathmines and Swords in Dublin. Sign up to our newsletter for more updates from James Whelan Butchers

Online Butcher Pat Whelan writes on meat and food in general and this week he talks about his plans to loose weight through exercise and healthy eating.

I really felt that the Chinese New Year falling on the 3^rd of February was so appropriate.  I’ve always maintained, and even mentioned it here once or twice, that the western way of declaring all things new in the deep winter of January 1^st is folly in the extreme.  We make impossible resolutions just after a mammoth Christmas blowout.  Instead of taking the time to savour the memories of December and complete the hibernation period of winter, humans throw themselves into new regimes that just go against nature. Generally we start off with great gusto and by the middle of January the ‘f’ word is rearing its ugly head. (I was thinking ‘failure’ but I have no doubt that the other ‘f’ word will be uttered many times also.)

For the purposes of this I am going to concentrate on those that made New Year’s diet resolutions.  If your diet and exercise plan has already been abandoned, don’t worry, you are not alone.  The problem is you started too early.  January should be about gearing up gently towards the beginning of something new that will start in the spring, which technically was February 1^st.  The first month should be used to clear the house of all the tempting Christmas leftovers and think about the year ahead, slowly.  It is also a month where dark, cold days and nights are not helpful to outdoor exercise.  By February all that is changing.  There is a noticeable stretch in daylight hours and a natural feeling of rebirth and ‘newness’ in the air.  This natural sense of energy will influence appetite and activity if you allow yourself to sync with it.

I’m unusually conscious of diets and weight loss this week because I have declared to the world, via Twitter, that I am determined to lose one pound a week until the end of the year.  Maybe you could join me?  While Twitter is a fun way to communicate, having made the statement I suddenly realised that I had just told several hundred people about my plan so I’d better stick to it.  The other factor that has spurred me to action is the frankness of some of our elderly customers at the shop.   From personal experience I am convinced that the older you get the part of your brain that says, “Don’t say that”, diminishes in effectiveness and after the age of about 75 it stops working completely and you are free to say what you like.  I know this because the only people that comment on my weight are elderly customers.  One kind soul recently enquired if I was having trouble with an overactive thyroid.  No, no, just an overactive fork I’m afraid!

And that’s really the nub of it isn’t it?  Eat less and exercise more; it is a simple philosophy but, for some reason we just don’t get it.  I probably don’t get enough proper exercise these days.  Like everyone else I’ll play the ‘time’ card and cite all the other commitments in my life.  However, we all get the same 24 hours in a day and there are plenty of very happy and successful people that haven’t lost a family or let their businesses go by spending time exercising.  On the other hand the thought of exercising is often much worse than the actual activity itself.  As someone once said, “Why punish your legs for something your lips have done.”

The other common pitfall with diets is that we set silly goals and then look at the mountain of work ahead of us and the ultimate goal weight that seems impossible.  I’ve tried all that and it hasn’t worked.  This time I’m aiming for a one pound weight loss and concentrating on this week only.   I am ‘chunking it’ down as they say in the self help world; chopping it up into tiny bite size pieces and I think I might just get there.

This first week is going to be all about awareness of portion size and rebalancing my plate.  In my case it is probably the amount of food I am consuming rather than the type of food that is to blame.  I love good nutritious, wholesome food that is health giving, but even too much of that can cause problems.  I love meat but I’m going to watch the gravy and the sauces for both content and quantity.  I did a great chicken and spinach curry over the weekend and, just as a little experiment, I used a low fat coconut milk in the recipe rather than the normal full fat one.  No one noticed the difference!  That’s my strategy this time; no big, grandiose gestures, but small, manageable changes.  I am a butter lover and have no desire to move some chemically created butter like substance into my fridge because I find that I can really believe it’s not butter, but I am going to monitor and reduce my use of the real stuff a tad.

I also intend to try and do it nature’s way this time.  Isn’t it interesting that as the animals wake after the heavy sleep of winter the foods available naturally are all light, crisp and refreshing?  Baby vegetables, like little leeks, scallions, small tender carrots young spinach and rhubarb abound with lovely fresh mint and chives from the herb gardens.  Spring lamb will be springing back into focus any day now and some juicy lamb chops and tender vegetables can make a delicious and relatively light meal.  Indeed a rack of lamb is a great succulent roast with, of course, some fresh mint sauce.  Actually mint also works well with duck and when accompanied by baby new potatoes and a few freshly cooked asparagus tips the result is sublime and healthful.

How you cook can also have an impact so for the next week I am going to include at least one stir fry, some steamed vegetables and maybe a light casserole.  And on that I leave you with my other substitution tip for the week; instead of enriching your casseroles with full fat cream at the end, try a little reduced fat crème fraiche or, better still, low fat Greek yoghurt; again a small change that won’t compromise taste.  Here’s to this time next week when I will be one pound lighter than I am today. There is definitely a slim and healthy person on the inside of me screaming to get out but up to now I’ve been trying to kill him with fine Swiss chocolate.  Next time he calls I’ll encourage him with a mange tout and who knows, maybe one day we might actually get to meet. I’ll let you know from time to time how I’m getting on and if you are taking up the challenge of one pound a week with me let me know by email, facebook or twitter or drop by the shop at the Oakville Shopping Centre. I welcome your comments to [email protected]

We hope you enjoyed reading this post by Pat Whelan of James Whelan Butchers. Pat is a 5th generation butcher, cook book author and the director of  James Whelan Butchers with shops in Clonmel, the Avoca Handweavers Rathcoole and Kilmacanogue, Dunnes Stores Cornelscourt, Rathmines and Swords in Dublin. Sign up to our newsletter for more updates from James Whelan Butchers