Myrtle Allen, Connemara Hill lamb, Toons Bridge Dairy, Sheridan Cheesemongers, when it comes to the annual Irish Food Writers’ Guild awards, this small snapshot of previous winners shows just how high the standards are. It’s no mean feat to join the list of producers and organisations celebrated, but last week eight more were welcomed into that hall of fame.

Lifetime achievement

Peter Hannan – a man mentioned many times on the food pages of Irish Country Living – was recognised with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

He might think he is a bit young to be getting a lifetime award but what Peter has achieved in terms of getting the best out of Irish beef since he founded Hannan Meats in 1991 is significant. Determined to age his beef to achieve the very best flavour, he built Himalayan salt chambers on his facility in Moira, Co Down.

Eight thousand hand-cut blocks of Himalayan rock salt made the journey from the Punjab region in Pakistan to Down and the four chambers now hold 6,000 prime cuts.

Not only does he supply some of the best restaurants in Ireland, the UK, France, Holland and Belgium, his ageing process has secured him two Supreme Champion Awards at the Great Taste Awards. Now he has another award to add to his repertoire. If you’re looking for some of this fantastic beef, you’ll find it in James Whelan outlets.

Peter Hannan’s salt-aged Glenarm beef sirloin, salt-baked celeriac, hazelnuts and truffle.

Noteworthy cheeses

Two cheese producers were celebrated – Teampall Gael Cheese and Young Buck. There has been a real gap in the Irish cheese market for that Comté-style flavour and the Hegarty family, fifth generation dairy farmers in north Cork answered that call when in 2015 they started producing Teampall Gael. The diet of their cows is paramount to the flavour, and during the cheese production the cows cannot be fed silage. After a maturation of nine months, the resulting flavour is sweet, nutty, delicate and highly deserved to be celebrated.

Jean Baptiste Enjelvin and Dan Hegarty of Hegarty Cheese.

At the other end of the country is Mike Thomson who is producing a much more powerful cheese, Young Buck. The blue that every cheese lover is talking about at the moment was born out of another gap in the market, the fact that there was no blue cheese made in Northern Ireland. When Mike was working in Arcadia Deli in Belfast, the only blue cheese he could offer was from the south of the country. Instead of complaining, he became proactive and after studying at the School of Artisan Food in Nottinghamshire for a year, he moved back to Northern Ireland and raised £80,000 through crowd funding to start making Young Buck.

Using unpasteurised milk from a single herd of Co Down Holstein-Friesian cows, he has achieved a Stilton-style cheese with a strong, salty flavour and a characteristic knobbly crust. When fully mature, it is rich, creamy and rounded, but with a long, lingering finish and just a touch of Northern Ireland.

Beverages

A very unusual product that readers may wish to look out for is Rare Apple Ice Wine from Killahora Orchards in Co Cork. At the awards, lunch was served at Glover Alley with head chef Andy McFadden creating an innovative menu around the winning products. This unique wine, that is recommended to be served as a dessert wine was paired with sheep’s yoghurt mousse, honey and lime. However, it stands up when served on its own. Killahora Orchards’ estate has more than 130 varieties of apples and has diversified into craft cider and apple port as well as this ice wine. It is made similar to the way ice wine is made in Canada with grapes, by slowly freezing and then thawing pressed apple juice to create a much richer must than you would get from a regular pressing. This is then partially fermented to keep the natural apple sugars intact. Well worth a taste, it has aromas of summer fruits, with toffee apple flavours before the green apple acidity comes through.

Other winners

Other winners include: Dunany Flour for Organic Spelt Berries from Co Louth and 3fe in Co Dublin for their coffee. The environmental award went to Broughgammon Farm in Co Antrim for their kid goat meat while the community food award went to Cork Penny Dinners.

3fe Coffee Crémeux, Jivara Chocolate and Citrus.

3fe Coffee Crémeux with Citrus

Serves four to six

550ml double cream

9g ground 3fe coffee

One vanilla pod, halved lengthways and seeds scraped out

Three and a half gelatine leaves, soaked

100g caster sugar

130g egg yolks (6 or 7 yolks)

One blood orange

One orange

Seeds of 1 pomegranate

Sugar syrup

Zest of 1 lemon

Zest of 1 lime

Cocoa powder, for dusting

  • 1 Infuse the cream with the coffee and half of the vanilla, then strain through a fine chinois. If you don’t have a chinois, any fine strainer or fine sieve will work.
  • 2 Immerse the gelatine in a bowl of cold water until it blooms.
  • 3 Whisk the sugar and egg yolks to the ribbon stage. This means when you lift the whisk, the mixture should fall slowly forming a ribbon that will hold its shape.
  • 4 Fold this mixture into the infused cream, then add the soaked gelatine. Pass through a fine mesh sieve, pour into spherical silicone moulds and freeze for three hours. You’ll find spherical moulds in homeware or kitchen utensils shops but if you don’t have any, you could freeze in cups.
  • 5 Zest the oranges, then cut them into segments, catching the juice (about 50ml) in a bowl. Put the segments in a separate bowl along with the pomegranate seeds.
  • 6 Reduce the juice over a high heat, then stir in a little sugar syrup along with the remaining vanilla and the lemon and lime zest.
  • 7 To serve, spoon the citrus mixture into the centre of each bowl. Remove crémeux (frozen mixture) from the moulds and dust with cocoa powder, then place on top.