Paul Brogan’s favourite food from childhood? “A good, old-fashioned Irish mammy salad with whatever was in the fridge. I love it. Chicken, ham, cheese, coleslaw, potato salad, egg mayo – what’s not to like?
“Where I grew up in Co Kildare , we had a sweet factory nearby. So, my childhood tasted of whatever free samples we could scrounge. I don’t have one core food memory, but a collection from family holidays in Spain and Italy ; the simple, banging flavours have an influence on how I cook today and how I like to eat – only a few ingredients on the plate but everything done really nicely.”
Some of those flavours appear on his menus now. “Tomatoes and slow-roasted tomatoes are a big nostalgic food for me. So they appear regularly on some of my dishes. At the minute in Cora we have semi-dried tomatoes in our piperade that goes on the rosti dish. Personally, I don’t think you should mess with a lot of the classics. Stay true to the classic recipe and execute it as best you can, really. They’re classics for a reason.”
A simple summer dinner he recommends is Caesar salad to start, lamb with peas, fresh mint and new potatoes drizzled with garlic butter and parsley for main, and then strawberries and cream to finish – “guzzled down with a nice bottle of white outside in the sun and you’re laughing”.
Beyond the plate, summer memories are of family and friends in the back garden, “eating some nice grub and drinking – responsibly, of course – until the sun goes in. Then get the heaters on and polish off all the wine while having the craic. It’s all about having the craic.”
“Our new sandwich at Cora is a little play on an Irish favourite of bacon and cabbage: Dijon mustard and brown sugar slow cooked pork belly, mixed with home-made sauerkraut cabbage with fresh apple and pickled mustard seeds, and served with parsley aioli, dressed rocket leaves, crispy pork crackling and crispy shallots, seasoned with vinegar powder and all stacked on a home-made focaccia bread. This sandwich is an absolute flavour bomb,” says Brogan.
The Irish mammy’s salad plate is a winner for O’Toole too. “The rolled-up ham, potato salad, egg salad, sliced onion with tomato, coleslaw and lettuce. Summer picky bits on a day it’s too hot to cook,” she says. “Where I’m from, summer tasted like hay. We would be out all day jumping on hay bales and running around the fields, and not that I intentionally ate the hay, but I definitely did from some of the falls I got.”
Of the foods she loved back then that she reinterprets today, “potatoes were always a big thing, so I love using potatoes now and one of our most popular plates at Grangecon Kitchen is the breakfast hash browns.
“Classic summer dishes for me means using fresh, organic and local produce. This is not exactly reinventing the wheel but not many places can say they stick to that ethos – I’m happy to say that at Grangecon Kitchen we do.
“The summer signature ingredient for me is tomato – we use beautiful organic tomatoes from Castleruddery farm every year and the smell alone would entice you. A simple dish I adore for summer is tomato tonnato with fresh tomatoes, anchovies and aioli.”
“I grew up in South Africa so braais, a South African style of cooking similar to a barbecue, played such a big part of my childhood memories. Nothing says summer to me like a braai by the pool with family and friends.”
Summer tasted of fresh local fruits such as peaches, mangos and watermelon and the smoky taste of wood-flamed sosa…