Cookbook Profile: Elegant Irish Cooking

Elegant Irish Cooking

by Noel C. Cullen

Elegant Irish Cooking
America's notion of Irish cooking as bland stews and boiled dinners is outdated. After centuries in the culinary shadows, Irish Cookery has recently been raised to the level of sophistication that attracts the attention of the most serious chefs and discerning diners. In the tradition of grand Irish literature comes Elegant Irish Cooking (Lebhar-Friedman Books), a unique cookbook of classic and progressive recipes celebrating Irish cooking.

Ireland's finest chefs are a new breed of French-trained and California-influenced chefs who are bringing new levels of technique, excellence, and variety to Irish cooking, while retaining an emphasis on local ingredients and tradition. The dishes presented in Elegant Irish Cooking are served in Ireland's best restaurants and homes. They rely heavily on indigenous ingredients—including salmon, lamb, potatoes, and spinach—but as do the best dishes in every progressive cuisine, they combine and present the flavors in imaginative and appealing manners.

Chapters range from "Appetizers & Light Meals," "Fish & Seafood Dishes," and "Vegetable and Potato Dishes" to "Salads, Dressings and Cold Sauces," Beef, Lamb and Pork Dishes," and "Veal, Poultry, and Game Dishes." Included are such dishes as Boiled Limerick Ham Shanks with Mustard Grain Cream and Crisp Cabbage, Cashel Irish Blue Cheese Seafood Bake, Roast Pike with Lovage, Bacon and a Chicken Sauce, and Braised Center Cut of Rabbit with Pearl Onions in a Broth of Red Lentils. Elegant Irish Cooking also includes delectable desserts such as Driscoll's Irish Summer Pudding, Ardtara's Toasted Oatmeal and Bushmills Whiskey Pudding, and Eugene's Hot Chocolate Tart, as well as savory soups including Mussel and Ham Bisque, Arklow Fish Stew Baked in a Pastry Crust, and Cream of Watercress Soup with Warm Herbal Drop Scones. An additional chapter on "Basic Preparations, Stocks, and Sauce" offers invaluable advice for preparing such staples as Beef Stock, Veal Stock, Fish Stock, Demi-Glace, Béchamel Sauce, and Hollandaise Sauce.

Noel Cullen's inimitable writing and Ron Manville's scrumptious photographs capture the essence of Ireland and make Elegant Irish Cooking a feast to behold and cherish.

Noel C. Cullen is one of only 52 Certified Master Chefs in the United States. He is a professional chef, as well as President of the American Culinary Federation, Professor of Culinary Arts at Boston University School of Hospitality and the author of several professional culinary arts books. A native of Ireland he lives in Boston.

Buy the Book!

Elegant Irish Cooking
Hundreds of Recipes from the World's Foremost Irish Chefs
By Noel C. Cullen, Ed.D., CMC, AAC
Photography by Ron Manville
Lebhar-Friedman Books
March 2001, $35.00/Hardcover
70 four-color photographs
ISBN: 0-86730-839-7
Information provided by the publisher.