Dublin Bay Prawns

I love these guys and when I can get my hands on them I do them this way with garlic.
All you need is :
Uncooked Dublin Bay Prawns
1 clove of garlic
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Chopped parsley


Start off by splitting them down the centre. Lay them out on a wire grill rack. Cut the garlic in half and rub the cut end along the flesh of the prawns. Drizzle with olive oil and salt and pepper. Stick them under a very hot grill until cooked. Arrange in a big bowel and sprinkle with parsley to garnish.

We had it outside over looking the bay!

Irish Gravlax

Following on from the last post about catching a salmon here is my recipe for gravlax. We don't have a freezer down in Kerry so we needed some way to make the salmon keep as we couldn't eat it all fresh. It is quite easy to make, although not commonly seen in Ireland is very popular in Sweden.

Here are the ingredients:

2 fillets of salmon

100g coarse salt
75g sugar
some crushed pepper

a bunch of dill chopped ( I didn't have fresh dill so used 2 table spoons of dried dill and it made no difference)

Just mix the salt, sugar, dill and pepper together. You need some cling film too.

Lay out some cling film and then lay the salmon skin side down on it, cover it with the salty mixture. Make a sandwich with the salmon fillets with the flesh side facing each other and the skin side facing out.

Wrap up well in clingfilm and put in a container of some sort. Doesn't matter what kind as long as it is not metal. Stick a weight on top and it should take about 3 days. Turn it every day so the brine penetrates the whole lot. It should keep about a fortnight in the fridge

Salmon

I was in Kerry for a few weeks holidays and on my first day caught my first and only salmon of the trip. I was surprised to catch him as there had been very little rain which is usually needed in order to catch them. The fish fought like a tiger and I ended up with the fish in the river ready to be netted and a drop of about 10 feet from where I was standing on the bank. Nothing for it except to jump into the water which was waist high. I wasnt wearing chest waders, instead my wellies so I got a good soaking. I finally netted the fish which made it all worthwhile and then turned around to climb out. Now while it was easy enough to get into the river it proved a different task to climb the bloody bank back out. I had my rod in one hand and a net with an angry salmon the other. After about ten minutes I was back on dry land. It was one instance when I was glad there was no video, I was quite an undignified picture crawling up the riverbank!

Anyway I got the fish home and decided to eat one half of it fresh and make gravlax with the other half. I will post on the gravlax next time. When I am lucky enough to catch a wild salmon I always do the same thing with it. That is poach it in the fish kettle with some veggies and wine. I then serve it with homemade mayonaise and a cucumber salad. Here are a few pics of dinner that first night with my wife Sandra tucking in!

Piggie course is full

The course I was talking about in the last post is now full! Anyone else looking to do it drop me an email and I will let you know if we when we are running the next one. Speaking of pigs we are still waiting to get our new pigs which is cutting it fine for Christmas hams!! I reckon we should be ok as long as we get them in the next week or so. I will keep you posted.

I have been doing a nice bit of fishing recently including some night time seatrouting with Ben. Ben caught his first seatrout which he was most excited about. So excited that he shouted the place down. I was sure he had fallen in and that I would see him floating by any minute. I dont have any pictures of the seatrout but instead a nice brown trout I caught on the barrow.

Mine is bigger than yours!!!

After coming close a few times I finally managed to catch myself a specimen bass!! I caught this beauty in kerry on razorfish under a bubble float the other week. I am heading down again tomorrow to try and catch her sister!

Corrib Mayfly Trout

This year as every other we head over to the Corrib to try for a few trout during the mayfly. I posted last year about the ins and outs of the fishing so this year I thought I would talk about the other important factor in a day's fishing on Corrib. The lunch! We Always lunch on one of the islands around 2 or 3 in the afternoon and the lunch always involves steak and mushrooms. A bottle of wine along with plenty of tea from the Kelly Kettle keep the troops watered and a few nice fillet steaks from the butcher in Oughterard finish the job.

I stuck a few pictures of the festivities below.

We also caught trout, this beauty went back but was estimated to be 12 or 13 pounds weight!

Redcurrant Jelly

OK so the summer hols went on a little bit longer than expected! I have tons and tons of stuff to stick on here about the wedding, the stag, the honeymoon as well as the usual stuff at home.

Here is my recipe of the classic accompaniment to venison, terrine, pate and the like

It couldn't be easier to make. Just get equal quantities of both redcurrants and sugar. Boil up the fruit until it realises it's juice (about ten minutes) and then add in the sugar. Boil for eight minutes before straining through muslin and into sterilised jars. Simple as that!

Tom Doorley digs the Bounty!

Been meaning to put this up. I recieved this message from food writer Tom Doorley about barrowsbounty.com.
"Hiya Liam. This looks really good. Keep up the good work. You have inspired me to start blogging again".
I must be doing something right!!! Good man Tom!

Trout Cakes

I was out recently fishing and caught the trout pictured below. Happy days says I, the perfect excuse to try out my new fish kettle!
We make fish cakes quite a bit and serve them with a salad and some sweet chili jam and they always go down well.

I cooked the trout in a bottle of white wine topped up with some water along with onions garlic and some herbs. The principal is the same no matter what fish you are cooking in a fish kettle. You bring it to the boil, then simmer for 5 minutes and take it off the heat and allow to cool by which time the fish is cooked to perfection!

Next take the meat off the fish making sure there are no bones and make up the cakes.

This is the recipe I follow:

450g cooked deboned fish
grated rind and juice of 1 lime

4 spring onions finely chopped

1 red chili deseeded and finely chopped

1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger

1 teaspoon crushed garlic

3 tablespoons coriander leaves

3 tablespoons mayonnaise

125g white breadcrumbs

salt and pepper

Mix the fish, lime rind and juice, spring onions, chili, ginger, garlic, chopped coriander, mayonnaise, and breadcrumbs until they make a smooth paste (make sure to mix really well). Season to taste.

Divide the mixture into 12 equal portions, make them into balls and then flatten the balls to make the cakes.

Heat the frying pan and add some oil. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes on each side until golden brown.

Job Done!

The Barrow's Bounty

Our local river the Barrow threw up a nice bounty last week when the trout season opened.

I managed to get down to the river on Patrick's day to try my luck. It is always a bit hit and miss at this time of year as the trout recover from the rigours of spawning and the weather is a bit cold for loads of flies to be about. You may think that I am setting the scene for a fishless story but you would be mistaken! I managed to winkle out six trout in a couple of hours so I was thrilled.

Winter Beach fishing

Me and a few pals went to Kerry recently to try for a salmon and do some night beach fishing for the bass. We were lucky with the weather in so far as it wasn't raining( always a bonus in Kerry!) but Jesus it was cold!
We spent the days on the river bank chasing the salmon and then took to the beach after dinner each night. We did question our sanity a few times mind you as we pulled on our wet cold gear in the shed and wondered whether we would not have been better off settling down for the evening in one of the local pubs. Anyway we persisted and made our way down to the local strand armed with plenty of lugworm and razorfish for bait. We were staying with a pal of mine who organises fishing trips at his fishing lodge which he runs with his partner Lynn.
We set up the gear and cast out into the surf more in hope than expectation with it being so cold. All was quiet for about 20 minutes and then we heard a shout as Neil had hooked a bass. It wasn't a big fish, about 2 lbs but was very welcome all the same and was quickly released. We hoped that it might be a sign of things to come but unfortunately that was it, not another sausage was to be had. Things looked up though when our host produced the hot toddys to cheer up our flagging spirits!!! I will be back down over Easter and hope to have a bit more luck as the water temperature should have improved.

Me catching a salmon in Kerry

Save our Bass!

Fly Fishing for Bass

My favorite type of fishing is fly fishing for bass in the sea. It has become popular in the last few years and is called swffing or salt water fly fishing by those in the know. I fish mainly with my two brothers and we are lucky enough that we have a family holiday home in Ballinskelligs near Waterville so we have plenty of opportunity to fish for bass. The bass pictured above was caught on a recent trip with my brothers and weighted about 5.5 lbs. We return the vast majority of fish and only keep the odd one for the table. Bass in Irish waters are extremly slow growing and a 10lb fish may well be 20 years old so catch and release is vital.

We fish often with a local guide called John Quinlan who has taught us a huge amount about this type of fishing. He has some videos of his clients fly fishing in Ballinskelligs Bay(click here for the link)
Anyway we kept one of the 18 bass on a recent weekend mission and here is what we did with it!

I have two favorite ways of cooking the fish. The first is to pan roast a fillet which I will go through in another post in the future, the second way is to BBQ the fish whole or with the head removed if it is too large.

I simply gut the fish and and dry out the cavity. If I am leaving the head on it is important to cut out the gills. One other tip I have found useful is not to descale the fish when cooking like this. The bass have very large thick scales and I find that if you BBQ the fish the scales give some protection to the delicate flesh against the fierce heat of the fire. To finish the preperation cut three deep slashes in each side of the fish and stuff slices of lime into the slashes. I also put some wedges of lime in the cavity along with some salt and pepper.

It is hard to say exactly how long to leave the fish on the heat as each BBQ will vary but I have found 7-8 mins on each side about right. To find out if the fish is cooked see if the flesh lifts off the backbone. If it does it is you are laughing, if not stickit on for a few more minutes! As you can see from the pictures I use a gadget which holds the fish together and avoids sticking to the BBQ. They can be picked up anywhere that sells BBQ stuff.

When the fish is cooked carefully remove the skin (remember that those scales are still on there) I usually serve it in portions rather than bring the whole fish to the table but the choice is yours.

Goes well with rice or maybe a green salad.

Lobster Fishing

We have always had a few lobster pots in Kerry. We throw them every summer and do alright for ourselves. We catch the odd lobster and plenty of edible crabs.
The idea is simple enough, get a lobster pot, tie a rope to it with a buoy attached to the end and then throw it into the sea somewhere that is good and rocky! We bait ours with mackerel and generally leave them out overnight. The following day you lift the pots and hope you have a nice lobster in there rather than an angry conger eel.

Once you have caught your lobster keep him in a bucket of sea water and try not to give him a name like my girlfriend once did. It made it all the harder to eat "Larry" that evening for dinner!
The prescribed way of cooking lobster is to put your live lobster in the freezer for 20 minutes, while he is in the freezer boil up a big pot of salted water. Pop the lobster into the water and simmer for about 15 minutes for the first pound and if you are lucky enough to catch a really big one 10 minutes per additional pound.

My favorite thing to do with a lobster is make the classic French dish, Lobster thermidor.

Here is what you need for 2 people:

1 lobster about 1kg

half an onion finely chopped,

20g butter

half glass of white wine

200ml of bechamel sauce ( just google bechamel and there are loads of really good recipes)

1 teaspoon of English mustard

Sprig of tarragon, chopped

50g Gruyere cheese or cheddar at a push.

pinch of cayenne pepper
salt and pepper

Cook the lobster as described above. Split the lobster length ways. To do this turn him on his back and cut through with a sharp heavy knife. Scoop out the meat from the tail and the brown meat from the head. Remove the nasty bits from the head so that you are left with two empty shell halves.

Sweat the onions with the butter in a frying pan until soft and then add the wine. Reduce until you are left with a tablespoon of liquid. Stir in the bechamel sauce along with the tarragon and mustard and simmer for a minute or two. Take off the heat and add three quarters of the cheese, the cayenne pepper and the lobster meat. Season with salt and pepper and mix well. Next simply fill the empty shells with the mixture and top off with the remaining cheese. Pop under a hot grill until brown and bubbling.

Mayfly Madness

Every year around this time fishermen become preoccupied with the mayfly. The usual greeting at this time between fishermen is, "Are you going west?" or "Are you going to the mayfly?". What they are asking is are you going to the great western loughs such as Corrib or Mask to join in with the annual mayfly hatch with takes place from mid May for a couple of weeks.

The trout go crazy for the mayfly and often the big wise old trout who cannot be tempted to take your hook at any other time of year throws caution to the wind and gorges on this seasonal treat, often to his own demise!

Arguably the hub of the excitement is Oughterard, with every boat and gillie long since booked out. As for finding a bed, good luck! The whole place feels like it has gone mayfly mad.
Traditionally it was called "duffer's fortnight" due to the fact that no matter how bad an angler you were you couldn't but catch trout at this time of year.

The method most often used is called dapping. Dapping is a very simple method of fishing. The main prerequisite is wind which blows out your line ahead of a drifting boat. Attached to the end of your line is a hook with two or three mayfly impaled to it. You keep the flies tripping across the surface of the water until hopefully a big wild brown trout throws caution to the wind and makes a lunge for it. It is truly spectacular to see a big brownie appearing out of a wave to attack your fly. It always catches me by surprise a little bit no matter how hard I am concentrating!

A typical mayfly day on the lough begins with a leisurely breakfast. People hit the water from about 10 until 12. Usually you fish for a few hours before pulling in on one of the loughs islands for lunch. Lunch is a very important part of the day with wine always playing a big part. Some people go the whole hog and bring a BBQ to cook steaks, however we usually tend to have something cold and easy to eat. It has been known to have a snooze at this point before heading back out to try and tempt another few trout. Some people fish right on into the night but most people will finish up around 6 or 7, just in time to head home for a shower and then out for dinner and a few pints.

Trout Fishing on Lough Namona in kerry

I fish quite a bit with a guide in south Kerry called John Quinlan (pictured with me on the left) . He runs fishing holidays with his partner Lynn at Thatch Cottage. He guides for all sorts of species from salmon and trout in rivers and lakes to mullet, pollock and of course bass in the sea. Fly fishing is his thing and he has helped me catch plenty of those wiley Kerry fish over the years. I will post more about the sea fishing in another post but I am more concerned today with telling you about a recent trip we had on my favorite Kerry lake called Namona.

John, my brother and I headed out early in the morning full of misplaced optimism which is always the case! We never seem to learn and always think that this is going to be the day when we catch trout after trout and salmon after salmon!

We fished for salmon for a while at the point where the river drains into the lough and although the conditions were good we didnt have a touch. We changed tack and went after the brown trout and sea trout that abound in the lake. The brownies are never big fish in these lakes due to the acidity of the water. There simply isnt the same level of insects that live in the limestone lakes of the west so these little trout are always hungry and therefore in theory easier to catch!

We met a few brownies and some small sea trout and fished on untill we had enough for lunch. We usually break for lunch and barbecue the mornings catch on the lakeshore washed down with plenty of tea. I am not sure if it is the beauty of the scencery, the fact that we are enevitably starving after our morning's efforts or just the plain fact that the fish are super fresh but they taste superb.

No fancy preperation here. We simply gut the fishing, wash them out in the lake itself and stick them on the barbecue for 10 mins or so. We eat them with our fingers on homemade bread and then sit back with a mug of tea that was brewed in the kelly kettle and admire the view while lunch is digested. It has been known for us to fall asleep in the heather and wake up an hour later cursing that we have missed the best of the fishing but I suppose thats all part of it.

In the afternoon we met several more trout and landed a fair few of them. At one point John spotted a White-tailed Sea Eagle soaring up above the lake. We must have watched it for ten minutes and it didnt beat it's wings once. It just used the thermal wind current to get higher and higher into the sky. It really was a wonderful thing to see and made the day for us. Unfortunatly I have heard since that the eagle was killed by someone who laid poison on meat.

We fished on untill dusk and picked up a few more fish, nothing spectacular but a great day was had by all.