The Food Phoenix Blog

by Dr Catriona Walsh What is all the fuss about cassoulet? You might have heard of a dish that hails from the south of France called cassoulet. Described as a simple peasants' dish, it is actually a labour of love that can require days of preparation, even though the ingredients are essentially beans, onions, tomato, some herbs, sausage, and a lot of meat. What makes cassoulet so special is that it is a dish resplendent with connective tissue. Skin and joints really elevate this simple casserole to the ultimate gelatine-rich comfort food and, like so many casseroles, cassoulet actually improves if you allow it to sit in the fridge for a few days allowing the flavours to meld. Some people swear that the secret to a good cassoulet is to add extra pork rind, but I make do with the trotters, the skin of the pork knuckle, the bacon rind and the duck skin. Also it really has an obscene amount of garlic. It's just as well it gets cooked for such a long time. Cassoulet really d...

by Catriona Walsh These lovely little pigs can be found on Pheasants' Hill Farm where they have a splendid view of the Mourne Mountains and a quite wonderful outdoors life. None of them built their houses out of straw. Every Saturday Pheasants' Hill Farm sell their ethically raised rare breeds meat at St George's Market, Belfast . There is also a little farm shop on site near Killyleagh. They even deliver throughout the British Isles using Parcelforce. Background A good stock is a great foundational recipe to have. Stocks, soups and broths have an extremely long history of use, certainly predating bread and beer by many thousands of years. Boiling meat and bones probably even predates the use of pottery, since our early hunter gatherer ancestors may have been able to use animal hides, gut, bladder or bark to make waterproof containers that would endure boiling . The name "bone broth" is now being used to describe any savoury liquid dish where bones, meat,...

By Dr Catriona Walsh Image by unsplash-logo Jorge Zapata Recently headlines about pasta being able to aid weight loss might have caught your eye. Pastafarians (and other wheat worshippers) all over the world rejoiced, having heard the wonderful news, delighted that huge guilt-free plates of pasta were back on the menu again. For most it was probably more about assuaging guilt over devouring pasta, rather than a behavioural change that was most important here. No more tears shed over a great big plate of spaghetti or lasagne. Some people were understandably confused, given that every week there seems to be a contradictory new nutrition study. That’s where it comes in handy to have some training in critiquing research. Having your research published in a peer reviewed journal is certainly not a guarantee that your findings are reproducible, or that your research is any good. So without further ado, let’s take a deeper dive into the most recent nutrition study that has h...