Tag: coffee

Elf

Elf

A film by Jon Favreau, Elf has become a holiday staple in American households. I have to be honest– I was not initially a fan (I’m a bit of a Christmas movie snob). But I’m now happy to say that I’m no longer a cotton 

Uncle Buck

Uncle Buck

Uncle Buck was a childhood fave of mine. Is it the best movie in the world? Maybe not. But it’s god damn funny, and it’s got a lot of food in it that I’ve always wanted to make. Namely, really enormous pancakes.  The plot itself 

Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park

While the initial intention was to time this Jurassic Park menu to the release of the sixth (and dear god we hope) final movie in the Jurassic Park/World franchise, I’ve also realized that I’m slowly making my way through the Steven Spielberg “top five”. If you have to ask what the others are, read my previous and upcoming posts. Or read this article. But no arguing.

Released in 1993, Jurassic Park is actually based on a book (you know, those box shaped things filled with paper sheets covered in writing) by celebrated sci fi author Michael Crichton. Described by the New York Times as “a true movie milestone, presenting awe- and fear-inspiring sights never before seen on the screen”, the film took huge steps forward with regard to animatronics (the T-Rex weighed about 12,000lbs and would malfunction/come alive in the rain eep) and cgi. But let’s not stop with the visuals– although SOME critics felt that the character development needed work, I always felt that the priority was, as it should have been, the “science”.

For those who might not have seen the OG Jurassic Park, the plot follows cranky paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and his gf Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), who are persuaded by bajillionaire John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) to vet his almost opened theme park featuring real life cloned dinosaurs. They are joined by Hammond’s grandchildren, a bloodsucking lawyer, and the sexy mathmetician Dr. Ian Malcom (Jeff Goldblum), who together all end up fleeing from the dinosaurs that (of course) escape their habitats and do what they do best at the top of the food chain.

I won’t go into more detail about the plot here, because really, you should have seen this movie by now. What I will say is that Jurassic Park always leaves me with a very palpable feeling of humility, and frustration with the human race’s overwhelming arrogance which is fundamentally at odds with nature. If you want to know what I mean, just listen to any of Jeff Goldblum/Dr. Malcom’s eloquent and uniquely cadenced speeches. It’s worth noting that, like Indiana Jones with archaeology, Jurassic Park generated so much interest in the science and history of dinosaurs that the study of paleontology had a record increase in students in the year of its premiere. Let’s hope some of those students are out in the world helping mitigate human egotism and NOT working for Elon Musk.

Ok, must go faster, must go faster. The Food: I’ve made a menu that features actual foods from the movie (human AND dinosaur foods), with a few creative twists. It’s a big menu for a big movie, so give yourself a little time– to those of you who ask, “Anna, how’d you do this?”, my response is (in a dramatic whisper):

I'll Show You (Jurassic Park) | Reaction GIFs

Hold on to your butts!

 

The Movie

 

The Menu

jurassic park cocktail

Dino DNA

Yield: 2 Cocktails
Cook Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 5 minutes

Based on a quintessential amber colored tiki cocktail called the Jungle Bird (get it? cause of the similarities between dinosaurs and birds?), this cocktail also features syringes filled with dark aged rum. Because BINGO: Dino DNA! Drink enough and your genetic makeup might be irreversibly altered...

Ingredients

  • 3 oz Dark Rum
  • 1/2 oz Campari
  • 3 oz Pineapple Juice
  • 1 oz Lime Juice
  • 1/2 oz Agave or Simple Syrup
  • Extra rum in plastic syringes for extra fun

Instructions

Mix up all of your ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake until chilled. Pour over ice of your preferred shape (I prefer round like Hammond's amber cane topper), garnish with a few pineapple spikes, the aforementioned rum filled syringes, and keep your eyes out for impact tremors.

jurassic park dinosaur eggs

Hard Boiled Raptor Eggs

Yield: 4 Eggs
Prep Time: 2 hours
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours 30 minutes

Life will not be contained! Life finds a way!

Unless... you hard boil it. But that's preferable to having an actual raptor pop out, amiright?

Ingredients

  • 1 cup low sodium soy sauce
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1 large avocado halved, pitted, and peeled
  • 1 1/2 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro leaves
  • 1 1/2 tbsp chopped fresh chives
  • 2 tsp freshly squeezed lime juice, plus more to taste
  • 1/4 tsp garlic powder
  • Salt to taste
  • Chili crunch, Momofuku preferred or chili oil and sesame if you don't have access/patience
  • Fresh chopped herbs and micro greens for garnish

Instructions

Begin with your not yet hatched baby dinosaurs-- bring a medium pot of salted water to a boil, and add eggs. Cook for 10 minutes and drain, running the eggs (shells still on!) under cold water. Once cooled to room temp, roll lightly on a hard surface until small cracks appear, but not enough for bits of the shell to fall off. Add to a ziploc together with your soy sauce and seal, turning to coat. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to overnight.

When ready, gather your other ingredients:

jurassic park dinosaur egg ingredients

Remove the eggs from the soy sauce marinade and peel away the shells-- the result of the soaking process should be veiny brown lines where the soy sauce "dyed" the egg whites. Using a sharp knife, cut into the top of the egg at a zig zag-- remove the egg tops and and the hardened egg yolks with a small spoon.

jurassic park dinosaur egg cut

Add the yolks to a small blender together with the ingredients 3 through 7, pureeing until smooth (you can add a LITTLE splash of water to help the texture along). Pipe or spoon your dinosaur-y green filling back into your hollowed out egg whites. Top with a drizzle of chili crunch for a firey kick and bone crackly texture and serve on a plate of green stuff. So yummy you'll need two for yourself.

jurassic park dinosaur eggs

Just don't let them sit for too long OR ELSE.

jurassic park baby raptor

chilean sea bass

Chilean Sea Bass (I spared some expense)

Yield: 4-6 small plates
Cook Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

One of the first real food scenes in the movie (excluding human followed by cow a la raptor) features Jurassic Park's renowned Chef Alejandro's signature dish-- Chilean Sea Bass. But do you know how much this stuff is per lb? And do you know how much super high quality free range steak we're making later? A lot, that's how much.

So I decided to scale this larger dish down to littlesaurus size-- makes for a lovely appetizer plate. If, however, your happen to be a veggiesaurus like Lex, feel free to spare no expense and multiply the below recipe by a bunch.

Ingredients

  • 1 Small Sweet Potato
  • 1 1/2 tbsp Corn Starch
  • 2 cups Vegetable/Canola Oil, plus 1 tbsp
  • 1/2 lb filet Chilean Sea Bass
  • 2 tbsp Minced Shallot
  • 2 tbsp Salted Butter
  • 1/4 cup White Wine
  • 1/4 cup Chicken Broth
  • 1 tsp Minced Parsley
  • Squeeze Fresh Lemon Juice
  • 3/4 cup Green Beans, sliced in half at an angle
  • Salt & Pepper

Instructions

Using a mandolin or a spiralizer (check out my post for Ferris Bueller's Day Off for a product recommendation!), get your sweet potato to look like this:

sweet potatoes 1

The appropriate blade size for the mandolin is 3mm, fyi. Toss your potato match sticks with corn starch and allow to sit for a moment while you heat up your oil in a medium skillet. When the oil pops with a drop of water, your ready to fry your potatoes! Shake off excess cornstarch and toss your potatoes into the hot oil in batches, keeping the pieces as separated as possible to prevent sticking. Drain on a paper towel and sprinkle immediately with salt.

sweet potatoes fried

Next, pat your fish filet dry and assemble the rest of your ingredients.

sea bass ingredients

In the same skillet (sans old potato oil), heat 1 tbsp of new oil over medium high heat. Add your fish skin down to the pan, cooking for roughly five minutes to allow the skin to crips up. Flip, and cook for another 5 minutes or so until the fish is cooked through. Remove from the pan and set aside in a warm place.

Returning to your skillet, add butter and shallot and reduce heat to low. Caramelized for roughly 7 minutes until the shallots are softened, then add your wine and broth. Simmer for about 10 minutes until the sauce is reduced by half-- mix in minced parsley and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice.

Now, time for assembly-- in small appetizer plates (or one bigger plate if you prefer), spoon a layer of white wine butter sauce. Add a few green bean slivers at a spiky angle, followed by a heft chunk of Chilean sea bass. Top with some fried sweet potatoes for additional crunch and voila! Alessandro would approve. Despite the lack of purely superflous cherry tomatoes.

jurassic park chilean seabass assembly

Notes

If you have some extra time, I highly recommend soaking your fish in a salted water for 30 minutes or so. Helps mitigate some of the fishiness you might taste from store bought fish.

jurassic park steak and salad

Coffee Rubbed Cow with Dinosaur Kale and Gigante Beans

Yield: Big. Large. A Lot.
Cook Time: 1 hour
Total Time: 1 hour

Well, a couldn't find goat, so I made some gargantuan Costa Rican coffee-rubbed ribeye steaks with the bones frenched for easy pick up and utensil-free gnawing. Remember how I said this part of the meal would be pricey? Well, it will be WORTH IT! Don't get cheap on me Dodgson.

For those brachiosaurus types out there, I've accompanied this hunk of medium rare beef with a dinosaur kale and gigante bean salad. It's way simpler to figure out than a Unix system, and hearty enough for an entree if you're inclined to avoid raptor food.

Ingredients

  • 1/2 tbsp ground coffee
  • 1/2 tbsp fennel seeds
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 tsp cumin
  • 1/4 tsp ground cardomom
  • 3/4 tsp garlic powder
  • 3/4 tsp onion powder
  • 3/4 tsp mustard powder
  • 3/4 tsp paprika
  • 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/2 tbsp sea salt
  • 3 1/2 lbs worth of bone-in ribeye (two healthy sized steaks, roughly 2 inches thick)
  • 1 cup cooked gigante beans (see note)
  • 2 cups dinosaur kale, stemmed and leaves finely chopped (1/4 inch thick slivers)
  • 1/3 cup olive oil
  • 1 tbsp honey
  • 1 1/2 tbsp lime juice
  • 1/4 tsp cumin
  • Salt & Pepper to taste
  • 2 tbsp Vegetable/Canola Oil

Instructions

Guys, did I say this steak was good? Because it might be the best cow I've ever eaten. And it's mostly due to the Costa Rican inspired coffee spice rub:

jurassic park steak spices

Pulse the coffee and fennel seed in a spice grinder until fine. Mix with the rest of your seasonings and set aside.

Unwrap your steaks and cut away the meat at the angled botton of the bone. This is what makes your steak a mini-tomahawk or cowboy steak-- you're creating a little handle! Continue to trim meat and fat away from the bone until your handle is clean. VERY IMPORTANT: Don't throw away your meat trimmings (SEE NOTE)!

meat

Rub a little more that 3/4 of the spice mix into the meat (SEE NOTE AGAIN), including the sides. Set the steak aside, uncoverd, for another 35-40 minutes, allowing it to come to room temperature and the rub to crust on the outside of the steak.

While your steak is hanging out, assemble your super simple side salad. This photo was taken BEFORE I slivered the kale because, whoops, editorial error.

jurassic park dinosaur kale salad

Whisk your olive oil, honey, cumin, and lime juice until emulsified, seasoning to taste with salt and pepper. Toss with slivered kale and beans, rubbing the dressing into the kale a bit with your fingers to help it soften. Set aside to further marinate at room temperature while you preheat your oven to 450.

When it's time to return to your steak, heat vegetable oil in a large oven proof skillet on high. add steaks to the pan, reducing heat to medium high. Sear, undisturbed, for 5 minutes. Flip the steaks and finish off in the preheated oven, for another 4 minutes (internal temp should be at about 115 for medium rare)-- steaks will have developed a crispy brown spicy crust!

searing steak

Remove from the pan and tent with aluminum foil, allowing the meat to rest for 10 minutes. Using a sharp knife, slice thickly from the end opposite the bone handle. Seriously, look at that:

sliced cow beef ribeye

Serve with dinosaur kale and gigante bean salad for them extra nutrients and dinosaur vibes.

jurassic park steak and salad

Notes

If you only have access to dried gigante beans, no worries! You just soak in water for 6-8 hours/overnight (or quick soak them), and then add to a small pot with chicken broth, a bay leave, and whatever else you wanna throw in (old carrots, celery stems, herbs, anything savory). Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and cover-- simmer like that for about 40 minutes, or until softened to the degree you prefer.

AND, regarding those leftover pieces of meat + spice rub: the day after you make this Jurassic Park meal, I highly recommend slicing your steak bits up, tossing them in the remaining spices, and making steak tacos with pickled onions and guac.

Jurassic Park fossil cookies passionfruit and ice cream

Passionfruit Ice Cream w/Fossil Biscuits

Yield: 4 Small, 2 Big Servings
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Additional Time: 6 hours
Total Time: 1 day 18 hours

Yeah, yeah, everyone probably expected Barbasol whipped cream on a cherry pie or that god damn green jell-o. But instead I paid homage to that one scene where John Hammond passionately (see what I did there?) talks about his first flea circus over a big tub of melty ice cream. It's sad and sweet and looks delicious. Plus, bonus points for the fun activity of uncovering shortbread fossils under a layer of shortbread biscuit (or cookie for us non-Brits) dust.

Note: since I forgot to store my ice cream maker bowl in the fridge, I figured this was as good a time as any to try a no churn ice cream recipe. If you're curious about the difference, see more deets here. The concept gets a bad rep, which I think is accurate in some cases-- but when it comes to this recipe, the acid of the passionfruit cuts through the sweetness of the condensed milk in a way that proves cheating the natural order of things sometimes pays off.

Ingredients

  • 7 oz sweet condensed milk
  • 1 cup heavy cream, very cold
  • pinch of ginger
  • Pinch of salt
  • Innards of 3 passionfruits, with any long stringies broken up a bit
  • 7 tbsp salted butter, room temperature
  • 1/4 cup confectioners' sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 tbsp brown sugar

Instructions

Start by whipping up your cream with a stand or hand mixer in a medium bowl. You should end up with some stiff peaks.

Add your salt and some powdered ginger (as Jurassic Park's own Chef Alejandro would wish it) to your condensed milk. Fold one third of the whipped cream into the condensed milk mixture to lighten it a bit, then fold the lightened milk back into the fresh whipped cream-- very gently with a rubber spatula-- until blended. You don't want to be heavy handed with this, or your ice cream will be a creamy ice cube.

Pour into a pie tin or small metal loaf pan and smooth. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and freeze for about two hours.

ice cream pre freeze

After the first round of freezing, your ice cream should be about the consistency of soft serve. At this point you can add the passionfruit and lightly stir until incorporated. Continue to freeze, covered, until solid and scoopable, for at least four hours.

Now for your biscuits! I feel British already...

Using the same stand/hand mixer, beat 5 tbsps of butter and vanilla on high until light and fluffy. Add confectioners sugar and beat on medium speed until mixed.

Scrape the sides of the bowl down, and add flour-- continue to beat on low, scraping as you go, until fulled combined.

On a cutting board, shape the dough into a cylindar a little over 4 inches long. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate until more firm, between 30 minutes and an hour. While you wait, preheat your oven to 350F.

cookie dough

Using a sharp knife, cut the dough into roughly 1/2 inch thick slices (they don't have to be perfectly round, we're going for a natural, stoney look). Using artistic skill (or in my case, very cheap dinosaur toys) cut/press whatever fossil shapes you choose into your cookies. It's all good if some of the impressions aren't perfect here either-- you're going to crumble 3 or 4 of the least attractive cookies into dust. FUN.

jurassic park cookie imprints

Place cookies, spaced at least an inch apart, onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for about 10 minutes. Transfer to a wire sheet to cool, and pick out your least desirable ones-- these you're going to CRUSH. In a small skillet, melt remaining 2 tbsp of butter and add the brown sugar, strring until melted. Add your cookie dust and stir until fully coated in butter. Continue to stir until cookie dust is golden brown and toasty-- set aside to cool.

When ready to stir, spoon ice cream into cups and stick a fossil cookie in. Spoon a hefty portion of cookie crumble over the fossil cookie and hey presto-- an interactive Jurassic Park themed treat that even cranky Dr. Grant might even appreciate. Probably not, but at least Dr. Sattler would think mmm... that's good.

Jurassic Park fossil cookies passionfruit and ice cream

 

Epilogue

Long ago when I was a youth (ie the Jurassic Period), I had fun creative friends who made really cool shit and I wanted to too. So I started a backyard film project with said friends and we would all make short films themed to movies we’d screen. Here is one I made for Jurassic Park. It is ridiculous. But my friends and I, like Dr. Ian Malcom, can sometimes suffer from a deplorable excess of personality.

 

For more menus, check out my movie directory here!

Waitress

Waitress

So, to be completely 100% all the way honest, I wasn’t a huge fan of Waitress when it was released in 2007. At the time I knew nothing of the broadway musical that would come later that same year, and I had already seen (and 

His Girl Friday

His Girl Friday

His Girl Friday– the film that crushed the 90 word per minute standard for humans with a whopping 240 word per minute average. Per Director Howard Hawks: “we wrote the dialog in a way that made the beginnings and ends of sentences unnecessary; they were 

Grabbers

Grabbers

Happy Day After St. Patrick’s Day (or Tuesday, I don’t know what you’ve been up to tonight)! Time to indulge in hangover food/hair of the dog and the movie Grabbers: an Irish comedy horror mashup of Tremors and Aliens. The film is set in a small island town where local police contend with hostile blood-sucking monsters from outer space (it’s always the quiet places where the mad shit happens), and they realize that getting drunk is the only way to survive. 

Yep, getting drunk is the only way to survive. 

Sound silly? Feck off. Grabbers has great reviews and lots of indie awards. Nerdy monster flick homages abound, and there are legitimately scary moments– and it’s all so well balanced by the clever writing and solid acting (Russell Tovey) that I don’t care about the campy shit. IT’S FUNNY, TRUST ME. Plus the little romance side plot between Garda Ciarán O’Shean and Garda Lisa Nolan– d’aww. I’d drink with all these folks and only run moderately fast to abandon them from alien invaders!

I’m sure everyone knows how to make a corned beef brisket from a store bought package. You might’ve also already made colcannon for St. Patty’s yesterday. But in case you haven’t (or, if you happen to be reading this months after March 17th and are craving Irish food), I’ve included pretty straight forward recipes to get you to where you need to be. Enjoy, get drunk, and keep an eye out for sea monsters. Sláinte!

 

The Movie

 

The Menu

.20 Blood Alcohol *AKA All the Booze

.20 Blood Alcohol *AKA All the Booze

FOR THE CRACK.

No, but seriously, it makes sense. If we taint our blood with booze, we're poisonous to eat. I don't know why it's never occurred to me before.

Instructions

For each of these, just mix and drink. It's that easy. Just. Keep. Drinking.

BLOOD OF AN IRISHMAN COCKTAIL:

1 ounce rye whiskey (or bourbon)
1 ounce Campari
1 ounce sweet vermouth
Ice

BABY GUINNESS

2 fluid ounces coffee flavored liqueur (to help keep you awake)
½ fluid ounce Irish cream liqueur

(Pour in this order-- the cream will float to the top just like foam on a Guinness)

GREEN BEER

Any Lager
Couple Drops of Green Food Coloring

It's so easy. That's why I put it last.

Also feel free to have even more beer. AND TEQUILA!

grabbers fried calamari

Beer Battered Fried Grabbers

Yield: 2-4 Servings
Prep Time: 1 hour
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes

'Tis no feckin' lobster!

It's basically calamari, BUT with a fish and chip style beer batter and malt vinegar/tartar sauce on the side. If you're averse to squid, just remember-- heat + alcohol renders them DEAD and therefore infinitely safe (and delicious) to consume.

Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup mayonnaise
  • 1 tbsp + 1 tsp pickle relish
  • 1 tbsp minced onion
  • 1 tbsp parsley, minced
  • 3/4 tsp Fresh Dill
  • 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
  • 3/4 tsp Dijon Mustard
  • Dash of Hot Sauce
  • Salt and Pepper to taste
  • 1/2 cup All Purpose Flour
  • 1/2 cup Cornstarch
  • 6 oz Can of Beer (Lager Preferred)
  • 1 Small Egg
  • 1/2 tsp Kosher Salt
  • 3/4 lb Calamari
  • 6 cups Canola Oil
  • Malt Vinegar
  • Lemon Slices (optional)

Instructions

Begin with your tartar sauce-- mix the first nine ingredients thoroughly and refrigerate until ready to use.

tartar sauce

About an hour before you want to fry your fried grabber/calamari, soak your squid pieces in milk. This helps get rid of any residual fishiness.

In the meantime, assemble your batter. Whisk together flour, cornstarch, beer, egg, and salt in a medium-sized bowl. It's ok if there are a couple of lumps-- those will crisp in the hot oil as you fry!

Pour oil into a large dutch oven. Heat to a temp of about 350°F-- but be careful! You want to maintain that temperature, so if you have a thermometer that attached get that ish out.

Dry squid with paper towels, and drop each piece into the bowl of batter.

squid

When oil is around 350°F., begin to dredge your squid pieces in the batter. Drop several pieces into the hot oil using a plastic slotted spoon, batches at a time. Continue to ddjust heat to keep temperature at about 350 and cook squid pieces in batches until they are golden brown, two to three minutes per batch.

frying calamari

Drain fried GRABBER on a baking sheet covered with paper towels. Serve with tartar sauce, malt vinegar, and some lemon slices.

grabbers fried calamari

grabbers corned beef nachos

Irish Pub Nachos

Yield: 2-4 Servings
Prep Time: 2 hours
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours 30 minutes

Possibly the most epic drunk food-- nachos, but with an Irish twist. You've got potatoes, you've got corned beef, you've got crisp pickled cabbage, and best of all, you've got Guinness Irish Cheddar to drizzle over it all.

Ingredients

  • 1 Corned Beef Brisket, about 2.5 lbs
  • 1/2 tsp Red Pepper Flakes
  • 3/4 tsp Black Peppercorns
  • 1 Clove, whole
  • 2 Bay Leaves
  • 1/2 Piece Ginger
  • 1/4 tsp Fennel Seed
  • 1 tsp Coriander Seed
  • 1 tsp Mustard Seed
  • 1/2 cup Guinness
  • 6 cups Water
  • 2 tbsp Salt
  • 1 cup Green Cabbage, finely sliced
  • 1/4 cup Red Wine Vinegar
  • 1/2 cup Hot Water
  • 1/2 tbsp Sugar
  • 1/2 tsp Kosher Salt
  • 2 Russet Potatoes
  • 1/2 tsp Garlic Powder
  • 1/2 tsp Table Salt
  • 2 cups Grated Irish Cheddar
  • 1/3 cup Cream Cheese
  • 1/2 tsp Spicy Mustard
  • 1/4 tsp Paprika
  • 3 tbsp Guinness Beer
  • 3 tbsp Scallion Greens, sliced
  • 1 tbsp Parsley, roughly chopped

Instructions

IF you haven't already cooked your corned beef, feel free to use this simple recipe:

Remove corned beef from packaging and place in a 6 qt dutch oven. Assemble your pickling spices (ingredients 2-9).

corned beef prep

Add pickling spices, Guinness and enough water to come halfway up the meat-- braise for 2 hours until juicy and tender. For nachos, shred and set aside in some residual cooking juices to maintain moisture.

shredded corn beef

Next, let's quick pickle some cabbage! VERY thinly slice your green cabbage and mix Red Wine Vinegar, Hot Water, 1/2 tbsp Sugar and 1/2 tsp Kosher Salt. Allow your cabbage to sit in your vinegar-y liquid while you prepare the rest of your foodstuffs (up to 24 hours if you're making things ahead).

grabbers cabbage

Now for your potato crisp base. Preheat your oven to 425. Using a mandolin, thinly slice your russets in circles and dry on paper towels.

mandolin

Place on parchment lined paper and spray with olive oil. Sprinkle with table salt and garlic powder. Bake for 10-15 minutes until one side is beginning to brown. Flip each soon-to-be potato crisp, and continue to bake for another 10 minute or so. Remove from the oven and set aside in a warm place.

grabbers potato chips

FINALLY-- it's time for the Guinness Irish Cheddar cheese/queso. This stuff is GOOD, and only requires four ingredients:

grabbers Guinness cheese sauce

Melt the cream cheese with the beer in a small sauce pan over medium heat. Add cheddar and mustard and stir until fully melted and drizzle-able. Reduce heat to low, and get ready to assemble your Irish Nachos.

nacho cheese

Feel free to lay a base of cheese, followed by your potatoes. Add corned beef, a handful of pickled cabbage, more drizzles of cheese, a sprinkling of paprika, and top off with your sliced scallion greens and parsley. It'll have you up on the bar dancin' a drunken jig it's so good.

grabbers corned beef nachos

grabbers colcannon egg bombs

Colcannon Egg Bombs

Yield: 2
Prep Time: 1 hour
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

I knew I wanted to do something with carb-y Colcannon, one of the national dishes of Ireland, and I knew I wanted to do something with eggs (because yolky goodness)-- so here is a soft-boiled egg wrapped in a creamy potato mixture and deep fried. Think of it as a version of a Scotch potato, with an Irish twist.

Much better than those feckin' sea monster eggs, though I've never had one of those fried crispy...

Ingredients

  • 2 Soft Boiled Eggs
  • 2-3 Medium Yukon Gold potatoes (about ¾ lbs)
  • Kosher Salt
  • 2 tbs Salted butter
  • 1 1/2 tbsp Scallions, sliced white parts only
  • 1/2 cup Cabbage, finely chopped
  • 1/2 cup Kale, finely chopped
  • 1/3 cup Half & Half
  • Salt & Pepper, to taste
  • 1 Egg, scrambled
  • 2 tbsp All Purpose Flour
  • 1 cup Panko Bread Crumbs
  • 1 qt Canola Oil

Instructions

Peel potatoes and boil in a pot of salted water for 20-25 minutes until fork tender. In the meantime, soft boil two eggs for six and a half minutes ONLY-- no more and no less. Set both aside, and assemble the rest of the ingredients.

colcannon ingredients

Melt your butter over medium heat and add onions, cabbage, kale, and a pinch each of salt and pepper. Saute for about ten minutes until softened.

grabbers colcannon base saute

Add half and half to the pot and bring to a simmer. Turn off heat and add your potatoes. Mash with a potato masher until mostly smooth-- you've just made Irish Colcannon! (albeit a not-so-creamy version since we're frying it up)

colcannon

Using plastic wrap to help you mold the potato mixture, encase each of your eggs in your colcannon, being careful not to squeeze too hard and burst your yolks.

colcannon bombs

Refrigerate for at least an hour, covered, to help the potato mixture set.

In the meantime, ready your breading station-- first flour, then egg, then panko.

breading station

When ready to fry, heat oil to 350 and gently submerge your eggs one at a time. Fry until golden brown-- 1 to 2 minutes-- and allow to drain on paper towels.

Slice in half and watch as all that gooey yellow goodness cascades down the side of creamy fried mash potato...

grabbers colcannon egg bombs

 

Epilogue

I’m pissed go away.

grabbers drinks

 

For more menus, check out my movie directory here!

The Family Stone

The Family Stone

The Family Stone is one of those movies that I have to watch every year– usually late at night with no one around to see me ugly cry. It’s tradition. At the outset of my first viewing experience, I honestly didn’t have high expectations. Yet