MasterChef Ireland 2014 - Cooking Under Pressure in Croke Park

Sunday, 8^th September 2013; the first time that the MasterChef Ireland final ten contestants came together… and what a day it was! It was a stressful, chaotic, pressurised, exhausting, but brilliant day and one that I will never forget.

The day started early, with the contestants being introduced to each other. I already knew Rich and Charlie as we had all come through the same heat, but I didn’t know the others and was extremely curious to get to meet everyone.

There was little time for conversation as we were bundled onto a coach with no idea of our destination. This added to the collective nervous excitement as none of us knew what to expect. It wasn’t until we saw the unmistakable form of Croke Park in front of us and remembered that it was the day of the All-Ireland Hurling Final between Cork and Clare that we began to speculate whether we might be about to be given some type of cooking challenge in the iconic stadium? We quickly realised that this was the case, but still had no idea exactly what the challenge was going to be.

Edel gives her reaction on hearing what the task is.

Standing by the Liam McCarthy cup in the empty stadium, Nick and Dylan soon informed us that we were to be divided into two teams of five and that each team would be required to prepare and cook 1,050 canapés. These would be served to the teams and their families as soon as the match was finished. It was hard to believe that within a few hours the deserted stadium would be thronged with tens of thousands of supporters shouting for their teams. It was very surreal standing there, looking at the pristine pitch and the magnificent stands and everything seeming so calm.

I was on the blue team along with Rich, Charlie, Edel and Nessa. We were told that we had 350 each of three canapés that we had to prepare within six hours and that they had to be ready to serve immediately once the match was over. We were given recipe outlines for each of the canapés. It was up to each team to decide who to appoint as team captain and how to divide the work.

The three canapés that we had to prepare were:

• Smoked Gubeen Tartlets
• Mini Thai Crab Cakes
• Mini Pitta Breads filled with Marinated Lamb, Baba Ganoush and Rocket

The team agreed that Rich would be team leader and that he would oversee the work and make sure that we all stayed focused.

I volunteered to make the tartlets and immediately set about making the pastry for the 350 individual tartlets. Because of the amount of pastry involved this had to be done in batches. The pastry then had to be rolled out thinly, put into the tart tins, blind baked, before being baked again with the smoked cheese and egg custard mixture.

Me and Rich.

The others had their own challenges to face. There seemed to be no end to the amount of pitta breads that Charlie had to individually bake; Nessa was trying to marinate mountains of lamb and cook it to melting tenderness in the allotted time and Edel had a show-down with some very belligerent crabs, but she prevailed! 

Throughout all of this Rich tried to calm us and halt the quickly developing panic that was setting in. My one overriding memory of the day is of Nessa, Charlie and myself trying to pipe baba ganoush into the beautiful pitta breads so lovingly baked by Charlie, but the ganoush was getting everywhere other than where it was meant to be going. We were covered in the stuff. We invented a new verb for the English language that day – to ganoush or be ganoushed; a very messy activity as the blue team can attest to!

Charlie looking for divine inspiration?

We were given six hours to complete this task, which at the beginning seemed like an eternity… it WASN’T! Time was running out and everyone, not least of all the judges were concerned that we might not have any canapés ready to serve.

We were working in unfamiliar surroundings in make-shift kitchens in rooms under the pitch, preparing food on a large scale but in miniature serving sizes which made everything so finicky to produce. We had to share oven and hob time which became increasingly difficult to co-ordinate as the pressure increased. It was just so stressful, made even more so by the fact that none of us knew each other well and even though we were part of a team we were also competing against each other in the overall competition.

Diana looking calm and composed

All this time, the match was being played above our heads and every so often we would hear the roar of the crowd but we had no idea of what was going on above ground….we just knew that we HAD to produce the blasted canapés!

In the end, we didn’t get the full cohort of canapés completed but our team did manage to finish and serve 900 canapés. In the context of the bizarre situation which we found ourselves in, this was an achievement in itself.

We had been through a stress-filled day surviving on adrenalin and a determination to do our best, but so had the players as the match ended up being a draw; the final score – Cork 3:16 to Clare 0:25. Apparently it was a great match, but all we cared about was that our canapés seemed to have been enjoyed.

In memory of the eventful day we all had in Croke Park, I have recreated a version of the little tartlets that and will post the recipe separately.

 

This episode first aired on RTE1; 8.30pm, 1^st April 2014.

Clotted Cream Shortbread

Clotted cream is one of those really naughty foods which are so lovely to eat every now and again as a special indulgent treat. I love its rich, almost buttery taste and always feel so decadent when I eat it.

 

If truth be told, I mostly use clotted cream as an accompaniment in desserts… I use it in place of ice-cream, custard or whipped cream to partner warm apple pies, rhubarb tarts etc. I also love it on freshly baked scones with some homemade raspberry jam.

 

Reading about the origins of clotted cream, I learnt that in the past it was regularly used in place of butter in baked goods. This intrigued me.

 

As is very apparent from many of my posts, I have an enduring love affair with butter; I really can’t see myself and butter ever falling out of love - but I have to admit, I was hugely attracted to the idea of using clotted cream instead of butter in baking. And, yes… I gave in to temptation and recently made a clotted cream cake which was absolutely fabulous! I almost felt like I was cheating on my beloved butter, but the taste and texture of the cake was divine. I had taken a step into the unknown and there was no going back. I felt that there was room in my life for both butter AND clotted cream! I wasn’t going to give either up! Excuse the pun, but I wanted my cake and I wanted to eat it as well!

 

In my research I came across references to clotted cream shortbread but was unable to source any recipes. Emboldened by the heady feelings of blossoming love, I resolved that the lack of recipes would not thwart me. As a starting point I decided to adapt my basic shortbread recipe by replacing half the weight of butter with an equal weight of clotted cream. The biscuits I made were wonderful… there’s nothing more to say. They were delicious! DELICIOUS! I urge you to make them.

Ingredients:

100g butter, softened
80g caster sugar

100g clotted cream

200g plain flour

100g cornflour (or rice flour if a crunchier biscuit is wanted)

Method:

Make the dough:

1. Put the butter and caster sugar into a mixing bowl and cream together using a hand-held electric mixer until light and fluffy.

2. Slowly work in half the flour using a wooden spoon and then thoroughly mix in the clotted cream followed by the rest of the flour and the cornflour to create a firm dough.

3. Wrap the dough in cling film and chill for at least half an hour in the fridge.

Bake the biscuits:

4. Preheat oven to 170C/Fan Oven 150C/Gas Mark 3. Line two baking trays with non-stick baking parchment and set aside.

5. Remove the dough from the fridge and roll out to a thickness of approximately 5mm with a rolling pin and stamp out individual biscuits using cookie cutters of your own choice (I used a round cookie cutter, approximately 6cm in diameter).

6. Place the biscuits on the prepared trays and bake for 10-13 minutes until pale golden and cooked through.

7. Remove from the oven when baked and allow to cool for 5 minutes on the tray before removing to a wire rack to finish cooling. Sprinkle with a little extra caster sugar before removing to the cooling rack, if desired.

Makes 20 biscuits.

     

Maple Syrup & Pecan Scones

One of the great things about my never dwindling enthusiasm for cooking and baking is that the more I do, the more confident I become in adapting recipes to use the ingredients that I have immediately to hand. When I first started cooking, I always had to have the exact ingredients specified and I would slavishly follow recipes. As I have become more confident in the kitchen and my understanding of the basic principles of cooking has grown, I regularly change recipes around and experiment. Sometimes it doesn’t work out as planned, but quite often it does.

 

I had some pecan nuts left over after another dish which I was keen to use up, so decided that I would roughly chop them up and add them to my basic soda bread recipe. As I was weighing everything out, it suddenly occurred to me that the classic combination of pecan nuts and maple syrup would work beautifully as a flavour accent in come brown scones so they are what I made.

 

I didn’t want a densely brown scone so I also changed the ratio of white to brown flour that I normally use to include a greater proportion of white flour.

I was delighted with how the scones turned out. They were slightly sweet courtesy of the maple syrup used and the nutty crunch of the pecans worked wonderfully with the stoneground wholemeal flour.

The finished scones were delicious made even more so that I ate them with a generous wedge of perfectly ripe Cashel Blue cheese. The blue cheese tasted absolutely fabulous with the slightly sweet and nutty scones… Absolute heaven!

 

Ingredients:

200g plain flour
1 heaped teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp salt

275g stoneground wholemeal flour

60g pecan nuts chopped

300-325ml buttermilk

50ml maple syrup

1 egg, lightly beaten

To finish:

9-12 whole pecan nuts 

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/Fan Oven 180C/Gas Mark 6. Lightly flour a baking sheet and set aside.
2. Sift the plain flour, salt and bicarbonate of soda into a large mixing bowl. Add the chopped nuts and mix through.
3. Add the egg and maple syrup and then pour in most of the buttermilk (do not add it all at once as you may not need it all). Mix everything together to create a soft, but not sticky dough.

4. Turn out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead very briefly. Pat the dough with your hands until it is approximately 4cms thick and then stamp out circles of the dough a round cookie cutter (approximately 6cms in diameter). Place these on the floured baking tray. Just before baking press a whole pecan nut onto the top of each scone. Bake in the preheated oven for 12-14 minutes until well risen and golden brown.

5. Allow to cool on a wire rack.

 Makes 9-12 scones depending on size of cutter used.
 

     

Custard Creams

I love foods that evoke a nostalgic sense of well-being within me. Invariably many of these foods are either comfort foods or foods that I would consider “treats” and all of them originate from childhood memories. When I was a child, the only biscuits that were ever bought with any regularity were plain digestive or Rich Tea biscuits. Chocolate covered digestives, sugary Nice biscuits, Bourbon Creams or Custard Creams were only ever purchased for so-called “special occasions”. I especially loved Christmas time when friends and neighbours would give us large tins containing a selection of different types of biscuits. These foods hold a special place in my memory specifically because we didn’t get to eat them all that often.

This is not to suggest that we were not given great foods and lovely things to eat; my grandmother was an amazing cook and always served the most delicious homemade meals often including fabulous desserts or cakes that she had baked.

 

However, there are certain foods, that when I eat them, even now, make me feel as if I am being a little self-indulgent. Being a somewhat ungrateful and greedy child I always yearned to eat shop-bought biscuits and cakes. To me, they were the epitome of sophisticated food… how little I knew then and how it wasn’t until later in life when I began to really appreciate what good food, using quality ingredients tasted like, how privileged and fortunate we were to have someone like my grandmother regularly cooking these things for us.

Chief amongst my childhood must-haves were custard cream biscuits. I just loved them. The creamy buttercream like filling sandwiched between two crisp shortbread like biscuits. I loved the fact that the biscuits had a pattern on them…this seemed to further emphasize the almost debauched and frivolous nature of the biscuits and made them feel all the more appealing to eat.

 

The recipe that I give here is in homage to the custard cream biscuits of my childhood. They taste fabulous and like their mass-produced cousins are very moreish to eat – one is never enough.

I used an imprint mat that I use for cake decorating to press a pattern on to the biscuit dough prior to baking. I still want to play around with the consistency of the biscuit dough, as I want to perfect one that has a smoother finish after baking, but I will give this recipe here as it just tasted so good and the finished biscuits look so pretty.

I was surprised how well these biscuits kept, even after they were filled, still retaining their crispness and biscuity texture.
 

Ingredients:

200g plain flour
50g custard powder

1 tsp baking powder

75g caster sugar

125g butter

1 medium egg

1 tblsp milk

Filling:

75g butter, softened

125g icing sugar

25g custard powder
 

Method:

1. Sieve the flour, custard powder, baking powder into a bowl. Add the butter and using your fingertips, rub the butter in until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the sugar and stir through.
2. Add the milk and the egg and using a fork mix into the flour mixture until everything comes together to form a dough Wrap the dough in cling-film and chill in the fridge for at least half an hour.

3. Preheat the oven to 180C/Fan Oven 160C/ Gas Mark 4.
4. Line two large baking trays with non-stick baking parchment. Lightly flour your work-surface and roll out the dough until it is about 3mm thick. Using a rectangular cookie cutter (4.5 cms x 3cms) or other cutter of your choice stamp out individual cookies.

5. Put the cookies on the prepared baking trays and bake in the preheated oven for 12-14 minutes until a light golden colour. Allow to cool for five minutes and then transfer on to a wire rack to finish cooling completely.

Filling:

6. Place the butter, icing sugar and custard powder into a bowl and using a hand-held electric mixer, beat together until smooth.

7. Use the filling to sandwich the biscuits together in pairs.
 

Makes 20 sandwiched biscuits.

      

Pear Custard Tart

Pears and almonds taste wonderful together and whilst I often make pear frangipane tarts, I wanted to make something a little different this time. I had a couple of boxes of amaretti leftover after Christmas and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to exploit their wonderful, intensely almond flavour. Initially, I was going to make a set pear cheesecake using crumbled amaretti for the base of the cheesecake; but then I decided to be a little bit more adventurous and make a pear custard tart into which I would crumble some of the amaretti. My brother had recently given me a gift of a bottle of Poires William – a wonderful pear flavoured liqueur and I felt that a generous splash of this in the custard would be delicious and would further accentuate the pear elements of this dessert.

I know that I have recently posted quite a few tart recipes, but this is because I love the fact that they can be prepared beforehand and served up when required. I am equally fond of both sweet and savoury tarts and find that using basic cooking skills and techniques; they can be easily adapted to include a range of ingredients that you may have hanging around in the fridge or at the back of the kitchen cupboard.

This tart is really tasty and looks so elegant – I was delighted with how it turned out. Despite being pre-soaked with the pear liqueur, they retain some of their crunch, which adds a pleasing contrast to the soft creaminess of the tart as whole. For this reason, it is important that you use the hard and not the soft type of amaretti.

I have not sweetened the custard as the pears were poached in a sugar syrup and I felt that this added enough sweetness. At a very fundamental level, I wanted the focus of this tart to be on the pears, and everything else to complement and not distract from their wonderful taste. It also occurred to me that a few hard gingernut biscuits might also work very well in place of the amaretti.

Ingredients:

Pastry:
175g plain flour

50g icing sugar

100g butter, cubed

1 egg yolk

1 tblsp cold water

To poach the pears:

3 pears, peeled, halved and cored

75g caster sugar

150ml water

Filling:

75g amaretti biscuits (the hard type)

2 tblsp Poires William

175ml double cream

2 large eggs

A little icing sugar for dusting the finished tart
 

Method:

Make pastry:
1. Sieve the flour and icing sugar into a large bowl. And the diced butter and using your fingertips, rub into the flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
2. Make a well in the centre and add the egg yolk and water and mix using a fork until everything comes together. Turn out on to a lightly floured work surface and knead briefly to form into a ball. Wrap in cling film and place in the fridge to rest for at least half an hour.

To blind-bake the pastry:

3. Preheat the oven to 190C/Fan Oven 170C/Gas Mark 5.

4. Roll out the pastry thinly on a lightly floured work-surface. Use to line a 20cm round x 4cm high tart tin with removable base. Prick the pastry several times with a fork. Place some non-stick baking parchment on the pastry and then fill with baking beans. Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes, removing the parchment and the baking beans for the final five minutes until the pastry is cooked and a light golden brown colour.

5. Remove from the oven and set aside.

To poach the pears:

6. Place the pears in a small saucepan with the water and sugar. Bring up to the boil and then reduce heat and simmer gently until the pears are just poached – this should take 7-10 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool a little.

To finish the tart:

7. Place the amaretti in a bowl and sprinkle over the Poires William. Separately whisk together the cream and eggs and pour on top of the soaking amaretti.

8. Drain the pears and arrange neatly, cut-side down on the base of the tart case. Gently pour over the amaretti custard filling and bake in the pre-heated oven for approximately 45 minutes until firm and set.

9. Remove from oven when cooked and allow to cool still slightly warm, dusted with a little icing sugar.

Serves 6-8.