IRISH chef Clodagh McKenna is setting taste buds alight in Britain this month.
The culinary queen, who splits her time between Dublin, London and New York, is bringing a series of summer suppers to the English capital from August 25-27.
Taking place in her Highbury coach house, each evening will start with a fig leaf gin soda aperitif and seasonal bites in the garden.
There Clodagh, who celebrates 20 years in cooking next year having started her career at Co. Cork's Ballymaloe House, will demonstrate how to make her Clodagh Bread - a rosemary-infused wholemeal loaf.
Guests will then head to the dining room, over-looking Highbury Fields, where Clodagh will cook four courses using summer vegetables, wild fish, foraged foods and some of her favourite Irish artisan produce.
Think Courgette Flowers filled with Toonsbridge farm ricotta cheese and wild Irish honey and wild Cornish slip sole with dillisk seaweed potato dumplings and heirloom tomatoes.
For more details about summer suppers click here
But if you fancy making Clodagh's rosemary bread at home, take a look at the recipe below:
Makes: 1 loaf
Ingredients:
550g wholemeal flour
350g white flour
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon of fresh rosemary, finely chopped
400ml milk
350ml natural yogurt
For brushing
50ml milk and yogurt mix (for brushing)
Method:
1. Pre-heat your oven to 220°C, 425°F, Gas Mark 7.
2. Sieve the white flour and bicarbonate of soda and salt into a large mixing bowl, and stir in the wholemeal flour. Using clean hands mix the flours, bread soda and finely chopped fresh rosemary together. Make a well in the centre of the bowl.
3. Whisk together the yogurt and milk and slowly pour into the well of dried ingredients. Using your free hand to mix the flour into the buttermilk, try and spread your fingers far apart so it resembles a trough. Make sure that there are no dry patches and that the dough is completely wet.
4. Pat your hands with flour and shape the dough into one round. Place on a floured baking tray. Flour a large knife and cut the shape of a cross into the top of the dough about two-thirds of the way through.
5. Brush the round of bread with the milk and yogurt mixture using a pastry brush, this will give a lovely golden colour to the bread once baked.
6. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 220°C, 425°F, Gas Mark 7 for about 40 minutes, then turn the bread over for a further 5 minutes. To test whether the loaf is cooked, tap the back with your knuckles; it should sound hollow. Leave to cool on a cooling rack.
