And co-host with Gary O'Hanlon of the podcast Dishing It Out at Chill In The Air.

It is, it's definitely getting cooler, Pat.

And do you know, I was thinking about these couple of recipes.

I was going to do them a few weeks ago and I don't know why I didn't, but they're kind of old school classics and they're a throwback to, well, the 70s is a bit before my time, but 70s and the 80s is when, and I would have learned these recipes really early on in my career.

They're old fashioned, but they're really delicious.

So I'm going to do a beef stroganoff and a classic chicken a la King.

So I'll start off with the beef stroganoff.

It's not a stroganoff without the gherkins.

is something that we cook at home all the time which is spag bol spaghetti bolognese which has obviously the carbs in the pasta and the protein in the meat

in the sauce exactly so what you're going to need is 300 grams of spaghetti 100 grams of parmesan cheese and then we need a tablespoon of olive oil one thing with the sports athletes they generally just eat olive oil wherever they go they stay away from the vegetable oils and the sunflower oils you need a couple of onions that you're going to finely dice a couple of carrots finely diced a couple of Sticks of celery, again, finely diced, and which the Italians call that a sofrito, so that's going in the base of the flavour.

Couple of cloves of garlic, two to three sprigs of rosemary, 500 grams of good quality lean beef mince, and 300 grams of lean pork mince.

Two... tins of plum tomatoes, some freshly chopped basil, some dried oregano, some bay leaves, two good tablespoons, and I mean heap tablespoons of tomato puree, and a couple of stock cubes, or when we were the sports teams, we make fresh stock.

So what are you going to do? You need a medium-sized, heavy-based pan, and put it on and get it really hot.

Throw in your olive oil, and then put your beef mince in, and don't touch it.

Pretend you're cooking a big burger.

Okay, another thing I'm very fond of, chicken fajitas.

And we are going Italian, Gareth.

We are.

And I love Italian food.

I think I don't know anybody that doesn't.

Exactly.

But there's a few little tips and tricks when you're making Italian food at home that will really make a big difference to your cookery.

And the first one, you hear me saying it time and time again, it's ingredient selection.

It's penne with basil pesto.

It's back to school and you want to make it easy for the chef in the house to put something on the table.

Yeah, exactly.

I thought I'd do a couple of family-friendly recipes, and we might do them over the next few weekends just to give people a few more dishes for the repertoire.

So the first one I'll do is probably a real family favourite.

It's a shepherd's pie with a champ match crust.

So a shepherd's pie, what you're going to need ingredients-wise, you need about 800 grams, a kilo of lean lamb mince.

Sometimes people are surprised to hear me say that.

Yeah, and

So we're using all the bits.

All the bits.

A bigger chicken.

Uh, and I would say if you're going out to the butcher or the supermarket, pick a bigger chicken for this.

And then if you're not comfortable to do this, a butcher will do it for...

We call it chicken for saute.

So you basically break the chicken up into the legs and thighs, the wings.

Okay.

Kids also love banana bread.

Yeah, and I think it's...

We all have bananas that go a little bit funny in colour.

And that's actually when you want to use them for...

Because the sugar is nice and high in them, so it'll make it a little bit sweeter.

So, banana bread.

I'm sure I've shared this recipe with you before, but we'll do it again.

I mean, you have done these many little carrot and walnut cakes, but you can do a big slab as well.

Conversation that counts.

I heard that this morning when I was listening.

It's kind of every chef's nightmare to hear that because we pride ourselves on working clean.

But it's an Eton mess, which is that famous dessert from Eton College, I think.

And the story goes is that they made a meringue that was poiled with berries and cream.

And on the way into the dining room, he tripped and fell.

And it fell on the floor and made a mess.

Yeah,

Okay

...

it off as one piece.

Um, and then if you think about, if you look, look at the palm of your hand, the s- uh, is the shape of the sole.

About a half an inch all around the sole is a skirt, and you just take a scissor, start at the bottom, and cut up along the side and remove the skirt, and you're left with the four fillets on the top and the bottom.

And then it's ready to go.

Your fishmonger will do that for you, but if not, uh, you can do it quite easily.

Mm-hmm.

Gareth Mullins, Executive Chef at Anantara the Marker and at Forbes Street Restaurant and co-host with Gary O'Hallon of the Dishing It Out podcast is with me to talk lemons.

I do.

I actually love lemon desserts.

I think it's probably my favourite ingredient to use for desserts because it's just so fresh and zingy.

And I'm going to give you a recipe for arguably probably the simplest dessert there is to make.

And when you taste it, I think it's hard to believe it's only three ingredients.

So it's a lemon posset.

the other recipe, a lemon and blueberry drizzle cake.

Mm

... of course, it's supposed to have anchovies.

So what you need is two heads of baby gem lettuce.

So, um, I'm gonna get you to wash them, plunge them into ice-cold water, leave them sitting in the ice-cold water, take them out, and then spin them in a lettuce spinner and set them to one side.

Six, uh, pieces of streaky bacon that you're gonna cut into lardons.

So that's those little, kind of long, uh, batons of, um, bacon, which you're gonna fry off in a pan in a little bit of oil.

Let all the, uh, fat start to render out of the bacon, and cook them nice and crisp.

Okay.

I love lamb koftas.

Yeah, yeah.

And look, they're easier to make than what you might think.

It's kind of like a lamb sausage, if you like, and we're gonna do that with flatbreads, garlic mayonnaise, and a tomato salad.

So the koftas is 300 grams of lamb mince, a teaspoon of smoked paprika, cumin, and ground coriander, two tablespoons of chopped coriander and mint, a clove of garlic, finely chopped, and a red chili, finely chopped.

And you just put that all into a bowl and mix it really well so you're left with this kind of seasoned mix.

Uh, you need some skewers then that we're gonna barbecue them on.

Oh

But that is the name, effectively, for getting a good crust on something, isn't

it? Yeah, and look, the whole thing with cooking protein, any protein, is all around getting a really hot pan, making sure that if it's meat and it's taken out of the fridge, it's tempered, meaning that it comes up to temperature.

And then you want to cook it really aggressively, so really hard, with something like a Wagyu steak.

There's already a bit of fat in there.

In it, yeah.

So you just need to be careful with the amount of fat that you put in the pan.

And then you're going to cook it really, really hard to get that maillard, to get that caramelization, which is where the flavor is.

you'll find Garrett down at the Taste of Dublin of course which is running from Thursday not just the World Cup kicking off on Thursday Taste of Dublin as well 11th to the 14th and the Sunday the 14th Garrett will be down at Super Value and he's doing some cooking demonstrations down at Super Value 10 so don't miss that okay questions for you Mark says Garrett you're well used to cooking for big groups of people but you also have to make sure that they're fed and happy how do you manage the pressure this is a good question from a chef point of view I mean most people are cooking at home for their family at four but that can be enough of a stress

What, what makes a bang bang in a chicken?

It's the chili part of it, right? So it's just basic...

And it's the slaw.

It's cha-- it's served with a slaw.

This isn't the original recipe, but it's a recipe that I think it's quite achievable for people at home.

So the first thing I need you to do is get the bang bang chicken part ready.

So eight skinless chicken thighs off the bone.

Mm-hmm

This is a Victoria sponge.

It is.

And one of my fondest memories as a child is stopping off in the car with my parents and picking up the strawberries, the Wexford strawberries.

They really are something that I think we should all be proud of and buying a lot of.

And when I get them every year, there's one thing I'm always going to make and it's a Vicky sponge, a Victoria sponge with...

Wexford strawberries and vanilla cream And it's an easy enough thing to make You're basically going to make a sponge You're going to whip some cream And then you're going to make a little bit of jam So what you're going to need is For the sponge you're going to need Four large eggs 200 grams of caster sugar 200 grams of softened butter So if you're making this cake tomorrow Take the butter out of the fridge now And leave it on the counter top 200 grams of self-raising flour and another teaspoon of baking powder.

That's to just give it a little bit more of a lift.

And you

Now, your recipes are contemplating the barbecue this

week.

Do you know, I was earlier in the week, I said to myself, I'll do some desserts this weekend because I hadn't.

And then, like I mean, all anybody is talking about is the heat wave as well as what it's been referred to.

So I said I'd do a few more barbecue recipes.

And as you know well, I really love barbecuing.

So I'm going to start off with a real classic barbecue recipe.

Now, the couple of salads you recommend, one is a straightforward tomato salad and the other, for people who like Caesar, and I like Caesar.