Simply Delicious: Recipes from swede and bacon soup to moules provençale

There's always a place for classic British home cooking, which has been masterfully brought together in Darina Allen's latest cookbook

(Peter Cassidy)

Swede and bacon soup with parsley oil

I love swede, an inexpensive, super-versatile vegetable with lots of flavour – one that’s often forgotten. This soup is an example of how it can sing. A little diced chorizo or some chorizo crumbs mixed with some chopped parsley is also delicious sprinkled on top.

Serves 6-8

1 tablespoon sunflower oil
150g rindless streaky bacon, cut into 1cm dice
110g onions, chopped
110g potatoes, peeled and diced
350g swede, peeled and cut into 7mm dice
900ml homemade chicken stock
Cream or creamy milk, to taste
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the parsley oil

50g freshly chopped flat-leaf parsley
50ml extra virgin olive oil

For the garnish

Freshly ground black pepper
Fried diced bacon croutons

First make the parsley oil. Whizz the parsley with the olive oil until smooth and green. Next make the soup. Heat the oil in a saucepan, add the bacon and cook over a gentle heat until crisp and golden. Remove to a plate with a slotted spoon and set aside.

Toss the onions, potatoes and swede in the oil. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper. Cover with a paper lid to keep in the steam and sweat over a gentle heat for about 10 minutes until soft but not coloured. Add the stock, bring to the boil and simmer for 10–15 minutes until the vegetables are fully cooked. Liquidise, taste and add a little cream or creamy milk and some extra seasoning if necessary.

Serve with a drizzle of parsley oil, a grind of black pepper and a mixture of crispy bacon and croutons sprinkled on top.

Variation: For a vegetarian version, use vegetable stock instead of chicken stock and omit the bacon. For a vegan option, omit the cream or creamy milk as well.

(Peter Cassidy)

Moules provençale

Mussels, although available year-round in Ireland are plumpest and best in the colder months of the year. They are terrifically good value in comparison to other shellfish, very versatile and a perennial favourite; don’t skimp on the garlic in this recipe or they will taste rather dull and “bready”. You can also use this recipe with cockles or palourdes, a type of clam which grows off the West Cork coast, around Kenmare Bay.

48 mussels, preferably wild, approx. 1.5–1.8kg

For the Provençale butter

2 large garlic cloves 
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil 
75g salted butter
Softened fresh white breadcrumbs

Check that all the mussels are closed. If any are open, tap the mussel on the work top. If they do not close within a few seconds, discard. (The rule with shellfish is always, ‘If in doubt, throw it out’.) Scrape off any barnacles from the mussel shells. Wash the mussels well in several changes of cold water. Then spread them in a single layer in a pan, cover with a folded tea towel or a lid and cook over a gentle heat until the shells open. This usually takes 2-3 minutes, the mussels are cooked just as soon as the shells pop open. Remove them from the pan immediately or they will shrink and toughen.

Remove the beard (the little tuft of coarse ‘hair’ which attached the mussel to the rock or rope it grew on). Discard one shell. Loosen the mussel from the other shell, but leave it in the shell. Leave to get quite cold.

Meanwhile, make the Provençale butter. Peel and crush the garlic and pound it in a mortar with the finely chopped parsley and extra virgin olive oil. Gradually beat in the butter (this may be done either in a bowl or a food processor). Spread the soft garlic butter evenly over the mussels in the shells and dip each one into the soft, white breadcrumbs. They may be prepared ahead to this point and frozen in a covered box lined with clingfilm or parchment paper.

Brown under the grill and serve with crusty white bread to mop up the delicious garlicky juices.

Variation: Mussels with wild garlic or watercress butter. Substitute wild garlic or watercress leaves for parsley in the above recipe.

(Peter Cassidy)

Irish blue cheese warm salad

Some ripe, crumbly Cashel Blue cheese now made by Jane and Louis Grubb’s daughter Sarah would be wonderful for this salad. A few little cubes of ripe pear are of course delicious here too. To add variation, you can choose between a selection of organic salad leaves, such as watercress, radicchio, endive, rocket, oakleaf​ and butterhead.

Serves 4

12 round croutons, 5mm thick, cut from a thin French stick
45g salted butter, softened
1 garlic clove, peeled
140g smoked streaky bacon, cut into 5mm lardons
50g Irish farmhouse blue cheese
1 heaped tablespoon of chervil sprigs or freshly chopped flat-leaf parsley

For the vinaigrette dressing

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon arachide or sunflower oil
2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons freshly chopped chervil and
2 teaspoons freshly chopped tarragon or
4 teaspoons freshly chopped flat-leaf parsley

Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4. Whisk together the ingredients for the vinaigrette dressing.

Wash and dry the mixture of lettuces and salad leaves and tear into bite-sized pieces. Spread both sides of the rounds of bread with softened butter. Put onto a baking sheet and bake for about 20 minutes until golden and crisp on both sides. Rub them with a clove of garlic and keep hot in a low oven with the door slightly open. Blanch and refresh the bacon, dry well on kitchen paper. Just before serving, sauté the bacon dice in a little extra virgin olive oil until golden.

To serve, dress the lettuce with some vinaigrette in a salad bowl. Use just enough to make the leaves glisten. Crumble the cheese with a fork and add it to the salad, tossing them well together. Divide between four plates. Scatter the hot crispy bacon over the top, put three warm croutons on each plate and sprinkle sprigs of chervil or chopped parsley over the salad. Serve immediately.

Extracted ‘Simply Delicious’ by Darina Allen. Published by Kyle Book. Photography by Peter Cassidy