The Search Re-visited

rainbow chard from the market to cheer up a dark day

 After last Thursday's disappointing trip to the co-op market, I thought it only fair to re-visit it on a Saturday morning when it's in full swing before totally making my mind up on it's merits, so off I went this morning to check it out. I knew I'd caught it on a bad day the last time, and with me in a bad mood to boot it was never going to be a fair appraisal of what the place really had to offer. I'm pleased to say that this morning it did live up to my expectations.....to a point (more on that in a minute).

The place was bustling, despite it being one of those awful, dark Dublin mornings, where to leave your bed at all is nothing short of a miracle. But miracles happened and off I trundled with shopping bag in hand. And I wasn't alone. There was a great buzz to the place. What had been an empty, soul-less room on Thursday was transformed into a vibrant and plentiful marketplace. There were no less than four different veg stalls (again more on that later...can you feel a rant coming on?), cake stalls, bread stalls, (including one selling bread made from Kamut wheat, never heard of it before, very interesting, I feel lots of nerdy bread experimentation coming on!) cheese stalls, jewelery, olive oil, the list goes on. There were also a few stalls selling nice treats for lunch as well as the in house cafe which was doing a roaring trade. There was plenty of seating for those who wanted to eat but to be honest you'd have a tough job trying to find a seat, it was so busy. In short it was unrecognisable from what I had visited last week. And I was thrilled to have been proved wrong. My other favourite thing was that there was a small and very understated trad session being had in the seating area that filled the place with gorgeous tunes as well as a busker at the front door. The whole thing just felt lovely. So lovely in fact that I'm sorely tempted to join, where for 25 euro you become a member and are entitled to discounts off produce and an opportunity to get involved in the market through volunteering and inclusion in decision making and possible planning.

Anyway, memberships and market domination aside, I had a small list of items I wanted to get to make a bean soup later but I was determined to only buy Irish veg....queue rant....This is a new thing of mine and I seem to be getting quite bogged down in it. Having gone to an interesting talk on the Slow Food movement in DIT's Cathal Brugha Street, I'm more inspired than ever to try to eat responsibly. So, where at all possible I'm buying Irish produced food and trying to cut down on my meat intake. I had a good old look around the veg that was on offer in the market. There's quite the selection and at first glance I was delighted. They were all organic, but I decided to see what they had on offer before I started getting ranty (see previous rant here). As I looked around my initial joy at the array on offer soon started to fade as I realised that at least half the veg on offer was not produced in Ireland. I can kind of understand the need to import things like avocados, kiwis, mangoes, that sort of thing. Although, I'm not sure it's impossible to grow them here, given the right equipment, but possibly prohibitively expensive to do so commercially. So I let those go. But then I started seeing that a lot of the onions, garlic, apples, celery and pears (amongst other non exotic stuff) were also imported (A lot from Holland for some reason). Now, I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure Ireland is capable of growing onions. And apples? You've got to be kidding me? It's autumn. Aren't we over-run with falling apples? I'm clearly missing something here. I don't understand how the organic philosophy fits in with the practice of unnecessary importation of produce that is easily grown in this country. I  plucked up the courage to ask the seller about the importation of his foreign produce. He buys it off these guys who import it and then sell it wholesale in Ireland. Healy's also have a stall at the co-op. My courage did not go far enough however to ask him why he had to import apples at all and why he couldn't find an Irish producer to suit his needs instead? Must get braver next time...Baby steps.

Luckily I did not need much in the way of exotic veg for my soup base and was able to pick up the carrots and onions (Irish)  from the market. I gave up when it came to the celery, the only available being from Holland and I was proving a point now. Who needs celery I thought? I picked up a few other bits and pieces in the shop and went on my way. It was only after I'd left that the answer to my question hit me...I need celery dammit....my soup needs celery. So in I went to Londis on the way home a bit defeated. You go to all the effort to go to a farmers market and you have to go to Londis for the celery? Sheesh. I gave in to the thought that I would be getting celery from China, but at least it wouldn't cost the earth. And there it was....Irish grown celery. Ok, it wasn't organic, but it was Irish. So it's clearly not impossible to grow celery in Ireland. This is very frustrating. It seems I will have to make a choice. What is my priority here? Irish grown or organic? I don't claim to understand the ins and outs of the fruit and veg market in Ireland and even less so the organic fruit and veg market, but it seems to me that we should be trying to avoid any unnecessary food miles on our produce at all costs. Which brings me back to my point, would it not be better to buy un-organic Irish produce than organic foreign produce? Honestly I don't know the answer, but for now I'm going to go with Irish first, organic second until someone can explain to me why I'm wrong. 

This responsibility thing is hard work. 

Dahl (not the author, the food)

Seeing as the shops all seem to be getting carried away with early Christmas enthusiasm, I've decided to go with the 'if you can't beat em, join em' philosophy. That in mind I've been thinking of my Christmas wish list. This may also be a result of having too much time on my hands resulting in excessive day dreaming. Regardless, the first thing on my list, in case anyone's interested, is Indian cooking lessons. As you can see I'm throwing caution to the recessionary wind this year and thinking BIG! Realistically, there's not much chance of getting what's on the list anyway so might as well be creative. 

I love Indian food. Really love Indian food. I desperately miss the cheap and cheery Indian restaurants of London and have found it hard to find the same experience in Dublin. That said, I think there's some great places opening up that I have yet to try,  so I've not lost hope on this front yet. There's lots to explore out there I'm sure. To be honest I can't really afford to go out for dinner much these days so I thought I'd try a little home experimentation in Indian inspired cuisine. (I say inspired because I'm sure it's about as authentic as a leprechaun in a sari.)

I've also been trying to explore a more vegetarian diet. Like most Irish people I've been raised on a diet of meat and potatoes and feel cheated when the meat is left off the plate. However, what with all this talk of global warming and upcoming food crises, I've been becoming increasingly more aware of how much meat I eat just for the sake of eating it, not because I'm actually enjoying it or need it. Don't get me wrong, I'll never be a vegetarian, I just couldn't do it, but I would like to start eating a little more responsibly, both for my benefit, the environment's and let's not forget my pocket's.

So pulses would seem to be where I'm heading. Which brings me to the Dahl. It seems to embody perfectly the combination of my newly embraced pseudo-vegetarianism and my love of Indian food. Tarka Dahl is one of my favourite things to order in an Indian restaurant (yet I rarely do order it because I would feel cheated if I didn't have some sort of meat curry - idiocy really) and I'd dearly love to learn how to make it properly. In the absence of anyone to teach me how to make it I took it upon myself and yesterday I gave it a try. I had a quick glance at a few recipes online and then made it up from there. The result was actually not bad. I wouldn't say it was anything like any Dahl I've had in an Indian restaurant but it was definitely something I would try and make again. Maybe I'll follow a recipe next time. But where would the fun be in that?

Here's what I did.

Ingredients:
 
Serves about 4

250g green lentils
2 bay leaf
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp cumin 
1 tsp coriander
half tsp cayenne pepper
pinch chilli flakes
1 onion 
1 inch ginger 
2 cloves garlic
3 tomatoes
oil or butter for frying

Method:

1. Add your lentils and bay leaf to a pan of salted, boiling water and simmer as per instructions (about 20mins). You can use stock if you want more depth of flavour.
2. Fry the onions, ginger and garlic in the oil.
3. Add the turmeric, cumin, corinder, cayenne pepper and chilli flakes. The spice mix is really up to yourself. I toasted cumin and coriander seeds, about a teaspoon of each, in a dry pan. I then ground them in a pestle and mortar and added a teaspoon of turmeric, half a teaspoon of cayenne pepper and a few chilli flakes. 
4.  Fry the spice mix with the onions, garlic and ginger until it starts to give off an nice aroma.
5. Add three chopped tomatoes.
6. Simmer for ten minutes with a lid on. Make sure it doesn't go dry, you may need to add some more water or stock.
7. When the lentils are done add them to your sauce. You can add some of the cooking liquid as you like depending on what consistency you want your sauce to be.
8. Some recipes suggest breaking down the lentils a bit to make them more of a paste-like consistency. Next time I would try and do this with half of the lentils and keep the other half whole to vary the texture.

Onions, tomatoes and spices give the basis of your flavour. I added peppers too!

End result - not bad!

Autumnal Supper Club - the low down

Friday came and went and a fantastic supper was had. Thanks to all my guests who helped make the evening so special. It was great to welcome some new faces. 
It was a totally different atmosphere from the first time round which I found really exciting and has made me really keen to do more and see what happens next....

Read all about it here!