No. 43 - Congo (again) - Killing Two Congo's with Two Quail (Twice)

You can tell that Sesame Street were responsible for my alphabet skills.  I still need to learn which letter comes after which without, at the age of twenty four, having to sing my ABC's. Next time won't you sing with me, for real. 

                               

This must be why (and I know I'm only on C) I've gone and (spatch)cocked it up and cooked Congo twice! I suppose that means I've subsequently cheated twice by combining the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo to make less work for myself.  Now I'm unsure if I've half cooked four countries (the two Congo's twice) or just cooked two countries adequately (the two Congo's once). 

I am willing to conveniently accept the latter - in this case two wrongs do make a right. Either way, I need to get a move on... 

Congo Spatchcocked Quail with Fried Potato, Chickpeas and Spinach                         8/10                                                     

(The Quail represents the Democratic Republic of and the potato dish the Republic of Congo)

I'm glad I didn't google what quails look like, not like chickens, like little birdies...

Before four ended up dead, plucked, with their insides still inside them and consequently their blood on my hands (and everywhere else) ...

Despite the gore, I had never tasted quail before so I was really looking forward to it. They're really good, like giant chicken wings but much better (you absolutely have to pick them up). The potato dish was also really good, better than I thought and much better than just a 'side' dish. I'll definitely cook it again. It was like a Spanish tapas dish.

For the Quail

4 quail
3 cloves of garlic
2 chillies
knob of ginger
1 tablespoon of oil
1/2 a red onion

Spatchcock your quail by putting it breast side down on your chopping board and cutting out its backbone with a scissors. I shouldn't be too difficult at all. If there are any internal organs pull (like me) or cut them out too. Rinse under a cold tap and carefully dab dry.

In a pestle and mortar, combine the garlic, chili, ginger, onion and oil. Toss the quail in the marinade the leave for an hour or as long as possible.

Grill or barbecue on a medium hot heat until cooked through. I put mine on for nearly half an hour but my grill is temperamental and likes to set off the fire alarm. Let them rest for a few minutes before serving.

For the potato dish

4 large potatoes, cooked and cooled.
1 red and green pepper, chopped

1 onion, chopped

1 tin of chickpeas, drained

a couple of big handfuls of spinach

oil for frying

Peel and cube your potatoes, fry in hot oil until crispy and golden. Soften the onion and pepper in a pan, add the chickpeas and spinach and stir until the spinach is wilted. Stir in the crispy fried potatoes and season with plenty of salt and pepper. Serve with your hot birds.

No. 40 - Chile and Easter Islands – Curanto - I'm a Chilian Whiner

Normally I would suggest that for a recipe like Curanto, vegetarians should look away, but this time a thief has saved them bother, as the photographs were stolen along with my iphone. Here is where I feel an uncontrollable urge to whine about what is essentially an incredibly first world problem. So I won't. I know that those of you who have or have already lost one understand and feel my pain. Those of you who don’t, rightly so, don’t give a shit.  

Whoever stole my phone, I’m sending you a great big Culinisation FUCK YOU!

Curanto                                                                                                                         8/10

Curanto is shellfish layered with meat layered with more meat and then more meat and then shellfish.  Traditionally clams would be used but they’re so expensive I opted for mussels instead. Basically you can use whatever meat and shellfish you like or have hanging around. Essentially this is a classic stew, with the added benefit of having ample juice from the shellfish and consisting almost entirely of meat. Throwing in half bottle of wine doesn’t hurt either. Neither does the remaining half.

Serves 4

1 red pepper, chopped

1 onion, chopped

1 kilo of mussels

1 clove of garlic, chopped

1 large smoked garlic sausage, sliced into chunks

2 rashers, chopped

4 chicken thighs

a few new potatoes, halfed

half a bottle of white wine

In a large pot, fry the onions, garlic and chopped pepper in a little oil until soft. Then proceed to layer the smoked sausage, chicken, chopped rashers, potatoes and finally the mussels. Pour over the wine. Cover, bring to a simmer and leave to cook for about 45 minutes or until the potatoes and meat are cooked. Eat with warm bread and lashings of butter.

Note: Normally I would never recommend cooking mussels for 45 minutes and I was reluctant to do so here, but I did and they tasted delicious.

No. 37 - Cayman Islands - Better than OK Man!

Caribbean curry chicken (bet you read it chicken curry) is Savage, with a capital S. Like a glorified unbelievablely delicious ‘3 in 1’ (chips, rice and curry sauce), except the chips (cubed pa-tay-tas) are already in the curry. Why didn’t we think of that? Good anytime; on the couch watching Geordie Shore (not a great destiment to my character I’ll admit) and not just after the pub. Those Cay men and women have it sussed. If you’re in a really uncultured mood, grate nasty plastic cheddar cheese on top. Mmhmm.

In the Cayman Islands they would serve curry chicken with rice and peas. For those of you who don’t  already now ‘rice and peas’ are actually rice and kidney beans. And the ‘what constitutes a pea’ and ‘what constitutes a bean’ conundrum continues.

Curry Chicken

I used a Caribbean curry powder; coriander, tumeric, cumin, chilli, fenugreek, salt, garlic, fennel, pepper and ginger. I don’t know what makes it particularly Caribbean and quite frankly I don’t care, and neither should you. Just do it.

Serves 1                                                                                                                 10/10

1 chicken breast, cut into bitsized pieces

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

½ small onion, chopped

a small sprig of thyme

1 chili, chopped

1 ½ tbsp Caribbean hot curry powder

salt and pepper

1 tbsp olive oil

1 potato, diced

Combine the onion, farlic, thyme, chili, curry powder, salt and pepper in a bowl. Add the chicken and coat in the paste. Leave to chill in the fridge for two hours.

In a pan, heat up some oil and seal the chicken on all sides. Throw in the diced potato. Just about cover the potato and chicken with water. Leave to simmer until the chicken is cooked, the potato is soft and the sauce has thickened. Serve with rice and beans.

No. 31 - Burkina Faso Sleep!

Riz gras I can hardly remember, due to college related sleep deprivation, and cider induced, (lets call it) tipsiness. Not only did I have to worry about not poisoning myself but six others, including the guests of honor, Claire Gillan and Mark Conway (for some reason I feel full names are necessary here). And for their welcome home feast from lands far far away, they were presented with none other than the showstopper riz gras, a.k.a chicken and rice. A humble side dish maybe, but I simply did not have the cognitive skills to achieve anything more accomplished. Even still, I left out a vital ingredient and lost and my camera in the spices drawer.

I remember better, the next day having riz gras for breakfast, lunch and dinner asian style, dashed with soya and sweet chili sauce. The perfect hangover food. Trice.

Serves 6                                                                                     Rating: ⁵/₁₀

6 chicken breasts, cut into cubes

500g rice

1 vegetable stock cube

5 cloves of garlic, chopped

3 hot chilies

1 onion, chopped

4 tomatoes, chopped

4tbsp tomato puree (I forgot this)

salt, pepper and oil for frying

The following is how I think it went.

Chop up the chilies, garlic, tomatoes and onion until very fine. Fry in a large pan for a few minutes. Add the chicken, a little water and continue to simmer until the chicken is cooked through.

Stir in the tomato puree and stock cube. Add the rice, one litre of recently boiled water and simmer until the rice is tender and the water is absorbed.

Serve immediately with finely sliced red onion.

No. 29 - Back with a Brunei Bang!

I’m back with Brunei bang as I am sure the anticipation has been killing you!

I’m going to try really hard to get a good few countries Culinised over the next few weeks. Still being on B is depressing. However now that I’m settled into the new flat and college, I should to have more time to get a few more in. Yeah right.

Things are just about to kick off in college so I better Culinise my ass off before I fall into the dark abyss that is my architecture thesis. Alas, don’t worry, I am as determined as ever to culinise the world, one country at a time and one letter at a time. Slow but steady wins the race. Neither the cooking, nor indeed the eating is what is time consuming - it’s all this blogging. But then again, cooking my way around the world and not photographing the dishes seems wrong, like going on holidays and not taking a camera.

Mee Goreng (Spicy “Fried” Noodles)

This is a supposedly a dry noodle recipe although mine didn’t turn out that way because, like most of my cooking endeavors, I didn’t follow the recipe. This is usually because I either a) I don’t like something, b) like something else better, c) just plain can’t afford it d) cut it out for ease. This means that it usually turns out to be, not the same but similar to the original - and in my opinion, often better. I don’t have a wok because I don’t have gas and it turns out in this instance that a wok cannot or rather, should not be substituted with a heavy pot.  This of course I knew already. The pot didn’t cook the chicken fast enough and everything kept sticking etc. so I had to keep adding water. Not exactly a stir-fry master class this, is it?  Still though it was a satisfactory Sunday night dinner – good, sticky, spicy, sweet Chinese, he hem, Brunei.

Serves 2 with leftovers

200g noodles (or what ever your equilivent of two servings is.)

3 tbsp sweet chili sauce

1 tbsp dark soy sauce


3 tbsp oyster sauce


3 tbsp tomato ketchup

tabasco, to taste


2 tbsp oil

2 eggs


5 cloves of garlic, minced

1 handful of bean sprouts

1 handful cabbage, shredded

1 carrot, sliced finely

2 chicken breasts, cut into bite sized pieces

3 scallions, sliced


Note: This method is not what I did, it’s what I should have done.

Cook your noodles in plenty of salted boiling water until just under done. Rinse with cold water to stop them cooking and cool them down.

In a bowl combine your sweet chili sauce, soy sauce, oyster sauce, tabasco and tomato ketchup.

In a wok, add the oil, garlic and chicken and fry until cooked. Then crack in your two eggs and lightly scramble until just set. Then add the noodles, bean sprouts, cabbage, carrots and continue to stir-fry for a few minutes. You may need to add a little water. When everything is cooked stir in the chili sauce. Serve in bowls with the sliced shallots to garnish.  

No. 27 - Botswana lick the plate!

Botswana, another country that’s fun to say in a Sligo accent.

Another day, another stew. This time potjiekos, which is a Botswanian stew, cooked on a three-legged cast iron pot over an outdoor fire. Literally translated ‘pojiekos’ means ‘pot food’ and is pronounced poy-key-cos. Luckily enough, there happened to be one of these pots lying around the house that my Granny P. picked up somewhere. It’s rarely used and so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to get back to our African roots, light a fire and cook some good old-fashioned ‘pot food’.

I can imagine the women in Botswana, hunched and sweating over their potjiekos, the sun blazing down on their backs. Being in Ireland, it was of course raining. Being Irish, we didn’t let a little rain stop us and got a little turf fire lit (not very African) and the potjiekos on the go. The African Gods were obviously impressed by our potjiekos making perseverance because the rain stopped, and low and behold - the perfect African sunset.

Groundnut Potjiekos

I’m getting the feeling they have a thing for peanuts in Africa, which is fine by me because I love peanut butter. This stew quite obviously tastes of peanuts if you know they’re in there. If not, you might not be able to put your finger on it or wouldn’t know unless someone told you - and then after you’d be kicking yourself for not figuring it out.

The first mutterings over the dinner table were proclamations that it was “unusual”, which we all know is generally a bad sign. However everyone agreed that it improved with every mouthful and in the end it was so incredibly moreish, it was difficult to stop and we nearly licked the plates.

Serves 4 – 6

6 chicken legs

a little oil for frying

1 red pepper, diced

3 cups of water

2/3 jar of peanut butter

a piece of ginger, grated

2 tbsp brown sugar

120g tomato puree

1 tsp cayenne pepper

(Get a fire started outside. Anything will do, coal, wood, turf, whatever)

Prepare the sauce first. Whisk together the peanut butter, tomato puree, ginger, brown sugar, cayenne pepper and the water. Set aside.

 

Put your pot above the fire, heat your oil and fry the peppers and onion for a few minutes. Then add the chicken and brown on all sides. Cover with the peanut sauce and let simmer for roughly an hour. Serve with rice balls and some hot sauce (this time hot sauce is legitimate because the particular one we used was from South Africa (not that we ever need an excuse). Rice balls are just mashed rice rolled into balls. Careful not to burn your hands, although I can’t really see any way around it.

No. 16 - Bahrain and the Night of the Chicken Machboos!

Another home-house rendition of Culinisation. This time Bahrain brought together my family and the so-called WAG’s, who made the journey to Sligo last weekend for Buckfest 2011. On the night of the Chicken Machboos, the wine was certainly flowing. There was wine, emergency wine and then, emergency wine and beer for the emergency wine. Somewhere into the emergency wine for the emergency wine, as we sat huddled under blankets outside my house, we spotted a UFO (an unidentified fixed object). It was down by the water and it glowed with a grey/whitish light that suddenly went out. After some squeals and hand grasping, we noticed that the silhouette could still be seen, jutting up into the horizon. It’s difficult to say how much time passed before we plucked up the courage to, armed with our t-light lanterns, take a closer look.

I managed, against the girl’s better judgment, to wade through the sand, sludge and stones to discover what was, of course, a tree. This still doesn’t explain the light though. Da troot is still out there.

Chicken Machboos

Chicken Machboos (chicken and rice) has all the ingredients of a curry (every spice under the sun and some), yet its flavors are far more subtle. You can taste all of the spices because there is little or no heat to overpower them. I shouldn’t even call it a curry of course. If it’s a curry that you want, this is not it. If you crave fire, extinguished with an ice-cold beer, wait couple of days until Bangladesh. If you are sick of ordering curry’s that make you sweat buckets, eyes water and you can’t understand why anyone would ever endure such a burning pain for every mouthful, go with the Machboos.

Machboos is really simple to make and is essentially a heatless curry that has rice cooked in it, kind of like a biryani. Like with all of these eastern countries, you need a stocked spice rack, but if you don’t already have one, I would recommend going out and buy one of everything. You may think, what is the point in buying a certain spice when a recipe only requires a tiny amount? Trust me, if you buy them, you’ll use them for everything. Another perk is you’ll be able to make a variety of dishes in the future without having to buy many ingredients. All I needed to buy for this was chicken and some coriander. Not bad. You’ve got to love a one pot wonder too.

Another ingredient this recipe requires is buharat spice mix, which is unique to Bahrain. Turns out I went through the mix, and the ingredients in a buharat spice mix are spice for spice the exact same as your good old curry powder. This is one spice I wouldn’t bother buying especially for this dish.

Serves 5

5 chicken legs, cut into drumsticks and thighs

3 onions, finely chopped

enough curry powder to marinade the chicken

1 chilli, deseeded and chopped

a chunk of ginger, chopped

1 tsp. cumin

½ tsp. cinnamon

2 cardamon pods, whole

1 ½ tsp. turmeric

2 ½  cups of long grain rice

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

salt

5 cups of water or chicken stock. (I just threw in a stock cube)

juice of ½ lemon

oil for frying

lemon wedges to serve

coriander leaves to serve

In a large bowl, cover the chicken pieces with curry powder. Fry the chicken in a deep saucepan until browned on all sides and set aside. Fry the onion, ginger and chili in the remaining oil with all of the additional spices for a couple of minutes. Return the chicken to the pan with a tin of chopped tomatoes and a cup of the chicken stock or water. Simmer for 45 minutes over a low heat until the chicken is cooked.

Add the rice and remaining chicken stock or water to the pan and simmer until the rice is cooked. Stir in the juice of half a lemon. Serve with coriander, lemon wedges and chutney. Yum.

No. 5 - Angola paint the kitchen red!

Muamba de Galinha

This is one of the dishes that I was worried about (I know it seems as if I’m worried about them all!) due to the fact that it contains a huge amount of oil and not only any oil but palm oil – this is a bright orange, semisolid oil that smells a bit like candle wax. It comes from the fruit of palm trees and is used all over Africa as a cooking oil.  It turns out that it really is just like any other cooking oil so if you can’t find it or just don’t fancy the idea, you can substitute it with olive oil or sunflower oil with a couple teaspoons of paprika for colour. Beware the palm oil has a tendency to spit hot orange everywhere so protect your clothing, your kitchen and your face by having a lid at hand - I ended up dancing around the kitchen yelping!

Locating and buying this palm oil turned out to be an experience - I wandered into an African shop in Moore Street Market not really knowing what I was looking for and sure enough I came across a carton labeled ‘palm oil’. I was then approached by a jolly African woman who laughed at the prospect of me cooking with such a thing. The following is a summary of our conversation (You’ll have to imagine the African accent yourself)…

African Woman                 “You eat African food? Ah he ha ha ha ha, ha ho ho ”

Me                                       “No eh, not really, but I would like to try”

African Woman                 “What you buying this for? What you do with it? Ha ha ha, he he he”

Me                                       “Eh, I’m going to cook it with some eh, chicken..?”

(I couldn't remember the name Muamba de Galinha, but even if I had remembered it, I wouldn't have been able to pronounce  it.)   

African Woman                 (Patting me on the back) “Ha ha hee hee….”

Me                                       “and, eh, make a, eh, stew…?”

African Woman                 (walking away) “Ah ha he ha ha ha ha ha …….”

I can only hope that I will run into her again soon!

Her reaction was another reason I was nervous about the palm oil but I can report that Muamba de Galinha was another successful dinner. So if you’re bored of your regular spag bol and fancy something a little more adventurous take a trip down to your local African market and give it  go!

Serves 2

4 chicken thighs

Juice of ½ lemon

125 ml palm oil

2 onions, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, minced

2 tomatoes, quartered

2 birds eye chili’s, seeds in, chopped

½ squash, peeled, cored, cut into bite-sized pieces

10 okra, sliced into disks.

A tbsp of paprika

A tbsp of cumin

Salt and Pepper

Marinade the chicken thighs with the lemon juice for about an hour. Struggle to add the palm oil to the pan and brown the chicken on all sides. The oil is seriously splattery and seriously orange – expect the chicken to orange not brown! To the chicken, add the onion, garlic, chili and tomato and cook for about half an hour. 

Throw in the squash and cook for another 15 minutes until nearly soft.

Throw in the okra and the additional paprika and cumin – this is where canned palm soup base is required but I couldn’t find it anywhere. Paprika and cumin are probably nothing like it but they give it an extra kick of flavor. Simmer for a few minutes or until the okra is tender.  Season with salt and pepper and serve with rice. Then marvel over how you’ve cooked something authentically Angolan.

No. 1 - Afghanistan has been tried and tasted!

Last Thursday, despite the gorgeous weather and a hangover, I somehow managed to feed a hungry 12 friends, without getting too pissed (beforehand) or dropping anything on my feet. A massive thank you to Luke, Teresa, Gretta, Maeve, Andrea, Katie, Micheal, Kirwan (for photographing the night), Noel, Eoghan, Egle, Donagh - all that came to show their support! I’m already looking forward to the next rendition of Culinisation – Party No. 2!

As for the food, I think we were all surprised at how good it tasted - who knew that Afghanistan rocked such a mean cuisine? Thursdays dastarkhan consisted of a few national and traditional Afghan dishes that were devoured by everyone (no fussy eaters then). I had a few aubergine convertists and we all admitted that the raisins actually made the savory rice! I’ll say it again – who knew!

Qabili Pilau

Qabili Pilau is the national dish of Afghanistan. It is served at all dastarkhan (a floor spread central to Afghan culture) and is a sort of beef and rice dish, topped with fried raisins and carrots. It contains all sorts of spices but is not spicy nor is it an extremely exciting or attractive dish. I wouldn’t recommend eating it on its own but was tasty with the rest of the food - not the star of the show but a necessary addition.

Serves 10 (as a side not a main dish)

Ingredients

500g basmati rice

vegetable oil, for frying

1 onion, diced

750g stewing beef, diced

2 carrots, cut into match stick sized pieces

100g raisins

1 tsp cumin, ground

1tsp cardamon, ground

1 tsp cinnamon, ground

Pinch of Safron

tsp sugar

salt and pepper

boiling water

First thing to do is fry the diced onion in the oil until fairly dark. Then add the diced beef and brown lightly. When the meat is sealed add about a pint of water, salt to taste, and the teaspoons of cinnamon, cumin and cardamom. Cover and let simmer until the meat is tender. I bought the cheapest cut of beef because I’m broke and it took me a good 3 hours for the meat to tenderise, but it depends on what part you buy. When the meat pulls apart easily in you fingers, remove from juice and set aside.

To get on with the topping, cut the carrots into matchstick sized pieces – I found this a pain in the ass. Fry them in some oil and add a teaspoon of sugar. Cook until they’re browned. Remove the carrots and throw in the raisins. You are supposed to cook them until they absorb all the oil and swell up. I refrained from adding yet more oil and they burned. To be honest you could just skip frying them at all and just throw them on as they are.

Boil the meat juice up and throw in the rice, salt to taste, pinch of saffron and enough boiling water to come up to, say, 5 cm over the rice. You’ll probably need to add more later. Cook until rice is just under done. Mix back in the meat to the rice. Scatter with the carrots and raisins, cover and bake in a moderate oven (my oven is crazy but I’m guessing at about 180 degrees) for about an hour. Make sure it is covered tightly with tin foil to stop any steam escaping when it’s in the oven. This way when you take the lid off there’s a gush of steam. Traditionally you serve it on a large communal platter, but it looks great from the pot and saves on the washing up.

Bouranee Baunjan (Baked Eggplant With Yogurt)


This was the clear favorite of the night and as I mentioned earlier, some of my friends were not only converted, but raving about aubergines. However, although it had all of the carnivores more excited about veggies than meat, the aubergines were pretty much deep-fried and this may contribute to some of its deliciousness. I would recommend this recipe to anyone – at all. This recipe is dedicated to Eoghan.

Serves 6 – 8 as a main

Ingredients

6 aubergines, sliced length ways

lots of salt

vegetable oil for frying

2 bell peppers, I used red, sliced thinly

2 punnets of cherry tomatoes, chopped

water

jar of tomato sauce (the usual pasta sauce)

½ tsp coriander

½ tsp tumeric

tsp freshly ground pepper

fresh coriander

250g tub of greek yogurt (or lebene if you can get it)

Cut the stems from the aubergine and slice them length ways into 1cm thickness. You can peel them but the skin is in my opinion the essence of the aubergine. Spead the slices out and sprinkle liberally with salt. Leave for 30 minutes and dab off the water with kitchen paper. Turn them over and repeat with the other side. This process makes this dish quite tedious but salting them means that they will brown in the pan later.

Next you need to fry the auberines – they absorb the oil in the pan like nothing I’ve ever seen. Cover the base of the pan in oil and fry until lightly browned. You’ll need to add more oil when you turn them. I did mine in batches in two separate pans. Set aside on a plate. In the same pan, fry up the onions and peppers in yet more oil, until the onions are soft.

Now its time to start assembly – it’s a bit like lasagna. Get yourself an ovenproof dish and start with a layer of aubergine, then a layer of onion and peppers, then sprinkle on some chopped tomatoes. Repeat until you’ve ran out of ingredients. It doesn’t matter which ingredient ends up on top. Heat the jar of tomato sauce with the ground coriander in the pan you cooked the peppers and onion, and spread over the top. Bang it in the oven for about 30 minutes at around 180 degrees.

Once again, this dish is supposed to be served on a platter, where you spread a layer of yogurt on the platter, carefully transfer the aubergine on top of that and then top with more yogurt. I however am to lazy for that (and do not yet even own a platter) and so served it straight from the oven, with the yogurt dolloped on top and sprinkled with coriander leaves. Delicious with pita bread for moping up the juices.

Kebab e Murgh (Yogurt Marinated Chicken Kebab)

This is a really simple recipe. It just involves throwing everything into a bowl together, leaving it over night and grilling it. As long as you have a decent grill (which I don’t) this should be a walk in the park. For handiness sake, because I was cooking for a large number of people I put the chicken on skewers but this isn’t totally authentic. You can just turn them individually under the grill.

Serves 6 -8

Ingredients

500g  tub of natural yogurt

7 cloves of garlic, minced

2 tsp ground coriander

2 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp salt

1 tsp ground black pepper

dash of garlic powder

8 large chicken breasts, cut into large chunks

Throw everything into a bowl and mix together with your hands to get everything totally incorporated and covered. Leave over night in the fridge. Take them out of the fridge 30 minutes before grilling them. Take off as much of the yogurt marinade as possible (my method was messy and not very effective, just squeezing and squelching it off with my fingers, let me know if you come up with a better solution). Throw the chicken under a really hot grill for about 7 minutes aside (it really depends on how hot your grill is) until slightly charred. Serve hot or cold.

Salata (Salad)

Make this salad, it goes with everything – including Albenia.

Serves 8 – 12

Ingredients

2 punnets of cherry tomatoes, chopped.

3 cucumbers, peeled, core removed and diced.

1 small red onion, diced

bunch of roughly chopped coriander.

Juice of 1 lemon

1 tsp. salt

½ tsp. ground black pepper

Combine all of the ingredients and enjoy the party!

Thanks again to everyone who came, especially  Eoin Kirwan for his photo expertise. Cheers!