Paula McIntyre’s Hamely Kitchen

Chef and writer Paula McIntyre looks to the past and her own Ulster-Scots heritage to serve up mouth-watering recipes for friends and family, crafted from the finest local ingredients. The Atlantic ocean is on Paula’s doorstep. On clear days she can see the Isles of Mull and Jura, a reminder of the early Scottish settlers who brought ingredients and recipes to these shores and who remain a major influence on her own approach to cooking. Paula makes a Glens of Antrim lamb roast with a caramel and vinegar glaze and elevates the humble turnip by making two side dishes: turnip cake and turnip gratin. This is followed by salt ling, a sustainable fish, roasted and served with boxty, poached leeks, bacon crumb and an elderberry caper butter sauce. The final dish is a brined and braised Denver cut of beef with a nettle and onion crust served with a barley risotto.

Paula cooks on the terrace, serving up locally-caught langoustines on a potato and smoked dulse wafer with pickled carrot. She then makes what she describes as ‘love on a plate’ – a country pie made with locally-bred ham served up with crowdie cheese and pickled smoked beetroot salad. She rounds off with a rhubarb and blackcurrant tray bake with cider custard poured over.

Paula forages for wild garlic which she will incorporate into a roast onion soup, served with savoury cheese and smoked tomato jam biscuits. Paula is a keen sea swimmer and she’ll be serving up this soup to her fellow swimmers on East Strand, Portrush. She also makes the beautifully descriptive Ulster-Scots dish mollygowans and clappydoos, which is an escalope of monkfish and shellfish cooked in cider dressed in brown butter. Paula finishes up the series with a nostalgic trip back to childhood (with an adult twist) by cooking a baked homemade hazelnut liqueur custard, honeycomb crumble wafers, apples and blackberries.