March, 2017 | One Man's Meat

Spring Lamb Chump with Cumin – Beat the lunch snobs at their own game.

Working in an office, as I do, I observe all kinds of hierarchies. There is the obvious boss, manager, worker that has stood the test of time in most organisations. In this digital age, there is the techno pyramid, with a black clad Head of IT ruling supreme, the workings of the organisation totally dependant on him and his code punching underlings. Outriders to these are the maverick rainmakers. These are guys who write their own rules. They can afford to ignore corporate standards, run up big expenses and never work on Fridays. They bring in business and can do pretty much as they please. While they bring in the business, they don’t bring in their lunch so we can forget them for this exercise.

28th March 2017

Conor Bofin

41 Comments

Sous Vide Duck With Mango Chilli Sauce – The Market Gets What It Will Bear.

I’m a sucker for fruit. I love the taste that makes me feel so alive and that feeling of fresh fruit juice, dribbling through my unkempt beard. One of my absolute favourites is mango. Living here in Ireland, I don’t get that feeling too often as we tend to get a pretty poor substitute for the real thing. The supermarkets conspire with international fruit companies to supply what is oft referred to as ‘market appropriate produce’ to different countries. They also charge ‘what the market will bear’ when setting prices. Hence, we in Ireland end up with mangos that would be more use in a civil disturbance than they are as a fresh fruit. I believe that we overpay for the privilege too.

21st March 2017

Conor Bofin

39 Comments

St. Patrick and his dog – The facts revealed at last.

There are many ‘versions’ of the story of St. Patrick. Given the time of year, I thought I should clarify the situation and give you the cold hard facts about the man. The first thing we know is that he was Welsh. This we know by the type of crosier he carried. There are rumours that he might have been a Scotsman but any sheep farmer knows that the Scottish crozier has a very different head to the Welsh. Scottish sheep have a thicker necks than Welsh and as a result, the Scottish crozier has a more open crook, making it useless for snake scooping. St. Patrick hunted snakes with the aid of a dalmatian hound. In fact, the great Irish patron saint named one of the three (for there are only three) traditional Irish foods after the dog.

16th March 2017

Conor Bofin

80 Comments

Beef Short Ribs with Star Anise and Ginger – The Best of Both Worlds

Around these parts, having one’s cake and eating it is deemed not to be possible. The same goes in Italy where they say “Volere la botte piena e la moglie ubriaca” – to want the barrel full and the wife drunk. In Hungary, they say “Egy fenékkel nem lehet két lovat megülni” – It is impossible to ride two horses with one butt. I take issue with this defeatism. You can have the best of both worlds, if beef short ribs with a little Oriental twist is your thing.

14th March 2017

Conor Bofin

31 Comments

Daub of Beef in the Last Chance Saloon.

The very mention of the ‘Last Chance Saloon’ brings up imagery of gnarled and grizzled old men leaning their heavy elbows on the greasy bar of despair as they reflect on wasted lives and opportunity forgone. Thankfully, I’m not one of those, at least not yet. There is a double whammy of last chance about this recipe all the same. But, that’s no reason to not cook it. (That was a double negative about a double whammy BTW.)