Saturday Night

On our way to dinner at Green 19.  Look for a full report soon!

round eye

Let us begin with a little tour.  This is our new Japanese inspired home in Rathmines.  Most every rental comes furnished in Dublin, which I think makes so much sense, but we got really lucky with this one.  Cause let's face it, you are paying for the owner's taste in decor as well as the space.

Maria bringing her amazing-ness to dinner.

Needless to say, it was only fitting to make our first dinner party an Asian one. So we invited our friends Maria and Dave over last Thursday, as our first guests ever, and cooked up one of the best Chinese meals I have ever had.  No joke.  I think it bodes well for our success in our new kitchen and well...in life too.  Here is the menu:

• chicken and veg pan fried potstickers 
• egg drop soup
• fried rice
• stir fry veggies and tofu
• sesame chicken (recipe below)

Key ingredient for stir fry: fish sauce.
Don't leave home without it.

I may have already mentioned that we have very little counter space in our kitchen.  I love of good challenge, feels like I am on a cooking show.  Níall on the other hand....

Another thing I do to feel like I am on a cooking show, is prepare all the ingredients ahead and put them in little bowls on the counter.  Makes me feel organised and efficient.

Garlic, ginger, onion, bok choy (or as they call it at Dunnes, bak choi), peppers, snap peas, baby corn, aubergine (eggplant), you name it and I chopped it up and put it in teeny tiny little bowls.

Níall took care of the chicken, which he always does so well.  See below for the recipe.

Turns out sake is a lot harder to find in Dublin than we thought.  Maria and Dave called all around town to no avail.  Even The Oriental Emporium didn't have any.  We did enjoy some tasty prosecco pre dinner courtesy of our guests though.  However if you are making Chinese at home and happen to like it spicy go for the sweeter wines to compliment the heat.

I'm running out of interesting things to write about so here ya go...

Highlight: Maria and I beat the guys at euchre
Bummer: 3 sets of chopsticks for 4 people
Mood: Kill Bill and Django (because Níall deleted my ENTIRE music library)
Gem: our new S&P shakers (see below)
Overall:  a tasty success!

Sesame Chicken Recipe 

allrecipes.com

Batter
2 T all-purpose flour
2 T cornstarch
1/4 t baking soda
1/4 t baking powder
2 T soy sauce
1 cup dry sherry (a teaspoon for the batter the rest is to drink)
2 T water
1 t veg oil
1 dash sesame oil
1 lb skinless boneless chicken breast - cubed

* This is a key ingredient, so don't confuse the two.
Chili paste is NOT chili sauce.  

Sauce
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup white sugar
2 T white vinegar
2 T dark soy sauce
2 T sesame oil
1 t chile paste*
1 clove of garlic - minced
1/4 cornstarch
1/2 cup of water

1 qt of veg oil (or preferred oil for frying)
sesame seeds for garnish

Sift flour, cornstarch, baking soda and powder into a bowl.  Pour soy sauce, dry sherry (remember: only a tablespoon, the rest is to enjoy while cooking :-), water, veg oil, and dash od sesame oil; stir until smooth.  Stir in chicken until coated with the batter, then cover and refrigerate for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, to make the sauce bring chicken broth, sugar, vinegar, dark soy sauce, sesame oil, chile paste, and garlic to a boil in a saucepan over high heat.  Dissolve cornstarch into 1/2 cup of water and stir into boiling sauce.  Simmer until sauce thickens and turns clear, about 2 minutes.  Reduce heat to low to keep sauce warm.

Heat fry oil in large sauce pan to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C)

Drop in battered chicken pieces, a few at a time, and fry until they are golden brown and float to the top, about 3 to 4 minutes.  Drain on a paper toweled plate.  Toss cooked chicken in a serving bowl with the sauce and garnish with sesame seeds.

Our new S&P shakers, courtesy of Maria and Dave.
Thanks guys! 

bejeweled

I have my own clothing line now.
  j/k

I want to write about everything. I want to write about our new electric tea kettle, about the tomato sauce we made the other night, and the amazing tea shop down the street and how I played bejeweled and euchre on the ipad the other night for three hours straight because I let the hard-times get the best of me. I have to come to terms with the fact that I am not going to write an amazing post every time I blog. I need to just let go and write or nothing will ever get done. And hopefully I will get lucky every once in a while.

Darkest window at the
bottom is ours.

Yesterday we finally took the time to stock our kitchen and now it looks as though someone actually lives here. We happen to live within walking distance of over a dozen different markets (yep, a dozen) super and otherwise. However, for this excursion we ventured simply to six.

In order of journey not preference.

Tesco - distance from house 500 m
This is your Safeway, Publix, or Ralphs of Ireland. Except it is not Irish, it's English. When we asked the store manager which brand of pork sausages he preferred he told us he would never eat Tesco sausages (full sausage brand to brand comparison coming soon). We figured we would get the most bang for our buck here and at this point that is what counts. While listening to 3rd Eye Blind over the store speakers we picked up sausages, puddings, rashers, milk and eggs. All of which we will be grabbing at our local butcher from here on out. We stocked our spice and baker cabinets as well as out Cadbury pantry :-) (told myself I wouldn't use smiley faces, damn). We also discovered you cannot buy more than one over the counter drug at a time. Not sure what they are afraid of there. Pro: large clear pyrex bowls for only 6€. Con: product navigation gets a F for no f-ing thought process taken

Best of Italy - 1.2 km
What? We are how far from Naples? 2 hours and 35 minutes as the jet flies.  Google-ing plane tickets now.  This market not only has amazing imported wines, cheeses and meat, but it also has high quality produce and homemade pastries and cakes. The staff was ever so friendly and knowledgeable. They recommended their favorite tinned tomatoes for sauces and flaky sea salt for cooking. We picked up a few bags of dried pasta, jarred pesto and a bottle of amaro (thanks to Lupa in NY Níall now has an obsession with amaros). We left our full basket with them as we popped over to Morton's for a few things and when we returned they had everything bagged and rung up. They even gave us a can of tomato passata on the house when we realised we forgot to add it to the mix. We will most definitely be back.

Mortons - 1.3 km
This is THE market. As soon as we reach our official Dublin yuppie status this will be our regular market, but for now the prices keep us at bay. We knew if we came here first we would blow our budget in one shot. This mini Whole Foods/Trader Joe's is situated on a street next to a home design shop, a beauty salon, a hardware store and the shop, Best of Italy. We only went here to take inventory for comparison purposes and for the Newman's Own salad dressing, Caesar. This is the market to hit before a dinner party to pick up some cheese and wine. I can't wait for our first dinner party!

Níall carrying groceries in Ikea bags through our awesome
secret back alley. 

Chinese Market -  450 m
We have been on the search for two things since we arrived in Dublin, and surprisingly neither of these things has to do with a pint. Saracha and chili garlic sauce. Both of which were, of course, available at our local Chinese market right around the corner. In addition to lemon grass, fish sauce and udon noodles we also found 1kg (2.2 lb) of frozen prawns for only 9€. It was here that we grabbed a bag of oh-so essential frozen potstickers, a staple in our kitchen, as it should be in everyone's. We told the shop owner Crystal that we just moved to town and will be regulars and then we both decided that that probably wasn't her real name. Bonus: we get to take the back alley way to get there which is always fun.

Tesco Off License - 500 m
For those of you who do not know, an off license is a liquor store.  You didn't think we would stock our kitchen without stocking our bar did you?  Cheap wine here is so much better than cheap wine in The States.  Your 5€ bottle of Bordeaux tastes like a $15 bottle back home.  So we bought a couple bottles of red to put in our handy dandy wine bottle shelf that came with the house.  And then we thought, what good Irish home doesn't have a bottle of whiskey in their press (cupboard)?  That's when Tesco scotch whiskey and gin caught our eye.  We are hoping for a hidden gem, kind of like Costco vodka.  I'll have to let you know how that turns out.

The big gold key is our flat key, it's called a chub key.

Dunnes Stores - 270 m
Which I really want to pronounce as doons. And yes, we are already valued members.  This store is just a block away in the Swan Center, a tiny indoor mall complete with a movie theatre and awkward trinket shops selling porcelain easters eggs along side kitchen colanders. We came here for an electric tea kettle (ha! looks like I did end up talking about my tea kettle after all) a coffee grinder, and wine key.  They didn't have the later two, but life is so much better with an electric tea kettle than without one.  First world problems.  Oh, we also grabbed a bag of potatoes because there weren't any in the other five stores we went into. Just kidding. Well, the off license didn't have any.


Six stores, four hours and two pints later we realized in the end we forgot a can opener. No beans tonight.

this was a draft first

Food: RLT (rashers, lettuce, tomato)
Table: Dinning room
Sky: Cloudy
Music: Gotan Project


The first post is always the hardest.  The post that will keep them coming back for more...or not.

Just to clarify, this is not a chicken and waffles scenario.  I do not plan to find the perfect pint to go with my pancakes nor do I hope to find pancakes prepared with pilsner.  It just so happens that I live in Dublin (where many a pints are consumed) and I recently ate the best pancakes of my life (more about those later).  Bam!  A blog is born.

So what does that say about me...

I like food.  A lot.  In fact, I am going to go make breakfast right now before continuing this entry.  brb.

Ok.  That's better.  Now to bring you all up to snuff.

For the past two years my lovely fiancé, Níall (pronounced Neil, not nye-all) and I lived in the one of the most beautiful places in the world where we skied, biked, floated, ate, drank and played with our now lifelong friends.  We made the decision to move to Ireland because life is short and why not do it while you can.  Níall was born in Dublin, where he spent half of his childhood terrorising the Wicklow countryside and the other half basking in Miami sun.  So, lucky for us we have a huge local support from a welcoming Frisby family during our transition here.

Níall will be attending grad school in the fall.  I am on the job hunt.  And we just moved into a beautiful Japanese style home.  But, more on all that later.  Right now all I can think about is our blinking yellow trafic light town back in Teton Valley with our weekend night decision between the burger place or the thai restaurant.  Ha, small town folk moving to the big city.  Well I should say, big city then big town then small village folk moving back to the city.  There is SO much food here!  And good food too.

So far we have enjoyed many-a café, pubs and restaurants, but for now you'll simply hear about my homemade RLT sitting in front of me.  Note: Bacon = Ham, Rashers = Breakfast bacon, Streaky Bacon = American Bacon.  The veg is fresh and flavourful, not having traveled far to get here.  The tomatoes actually taste like tomatoes, the snozberries taste like snozberries   Same with the eggs and dairy products.  The eggs are not in the refrigerated section and the butter is divine.  The meat you pick up at your local butcher around the corner, David Nolan.  The first three reasons I have for anyone to move to Ireland: the butter, the chocolate and the tea.

It just so happens that my favourite thing to drink with a BLT is English Breakfast tea, of which there is plenty here.  As my soon-to-be-mother-in-law told me, no matter where you go in Ireland, whether it be a petrol station or pub, you can always find deliciously rich hot tea.  I like my tea milky and sweet when I am eating savoury, yet I omit the teaspoon of sugar when I have tasty biscuits to dip.  Oh, biscuits = cookies, for the most part.

Why am I writing this blog you may ask?  You mean besides the fact that I like listening to myself talk?  Two reasons really.  One, to stay sane.  They tell me the weather sucks here.  More days without the sun than with.  Wet.  Cold.  So in addition to my other winter blue beaters, drinking Guinness and running (not at the same time), I intend to write.  To write, and eat, and take photos.

Reason two, because I think my family and friends back home might be interested in what an expat is doing eight hours into the future across the pond.  I hope I am not wrong on that one.

So bare with me as I learn the ways of the blogging world.  Send me feedback.  Ask me questions.  Please.

Grammie... I welcome the inevitable grammar corrections you may have for me.  Someone needs to keep me legit.

Oh, and Mom... Happy (Irish) Mother's Day today!  I moved to Ireland so I can officially honour you two days out of the year rather than just one.  Silver lining.