Lough Erne Resort’s Involvement with Northern Ireland’s Year of Food and Drink 2016
2016 will represent a major celebration of Northern Ireland’s food and drink sector, as it will officially be the ‘Year Of Food & Drink’. A series of events and industry development programmes celebrating quality, innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship in the food and drink sector are being planned and I feel Lough Erne has its own special dishes like the Fermanagh 10 mile Breakfast , or the special that we are now running in our Fine Dining 3 Rosette Restaurant.
Here is Some of the Dishes The Lough Erne Resort will be Show casing Each Month.
Breakfast Month
Fermanagh’s 10 Mile Breakfast
Love Local
Chef Noel McMeel’s Signature Dish
“Lough Erne Pork Dish”
Reflecting the Very Best of Local Produce from Pat O’Doherty’s.
Fillet of Pork – Pork Cheek – Ham Hock – Black Pudding Palmier – Pork Belly
Heritage & Traditions
Corn Beef & Cabbage – Traditional Champ – Innis MacSaint Gravy
Brewing Distilling
Mc Ivors Armagh Cider & Bushmills Whiskey Cocktails from the Blaney Bar
Landscape & Places
“Lough Erne Signature Dessert”
Chefs Rhubarb Tart – Rhubarb Carrageen Moss from Rathlin Island – Sugared Rhubarb –Will Taylors Glastry Farm Yellowman Ice Cream
Love Dairy
Celebrate the best of local Northern Irish Artasian Cheese Makers – Toasted Branbrack – Dittys Oatcakes
Seas, Rivers & Loughs
Toomebridge Smoked Eel & Fermanagh’s Fresh Crayfish Salad
NI Meat
Peter Hanans Glenarm Shorthorn Irish Beef with Rosemary & Thyme Butter
Bread & Baking
Afternoon Tea at Lough Erne with a Twist with some of the Freshly Baked Soda, Fruit & Banana Breads
Harvest
Pears Apples & Plums
Legacy & Learn
I hope that every great chef in Northern Ireland will start and glorify their natural ingredients that are on our door steps, hoping they will use them in ways that enhance all of our foods essences, aromas and flavours.
Christmas & Premium Foods
Gifts of our Lough Erne Jams, Chutneys, Cake & Biscuits
Here is just some of their suppliers:
O’Dohertys
Known as one of the Top butchers in Ireland O’Dohertys have been in the forefront of the meat trade for over forty years. During that time there have been many advances in food production but how often have you longed for the taste of Fermanagh. Also a great maker of Boxty. Boxty is a traditional potato dish, celebrated in the rhyme. Boxty on the griddle, Boxty in the pan, If you can’t make Boxty, you’ll never get your man
Maurice Kettyle started Kettyle Irish Foods in 2004, and was a pioneer in the then unheard of ‘dry aging’ process. Since then he has moved from strength to strength, Winning many Gold Stars at the Great Taste Awards, or as he calls it. The Food Oscars. He supplies us with our Lough Erne Lamb taken from all round the Grasslands and Islands of the Lough Erne. He also supplies us with our Fermanagh Chicken, which is sourced from three Free Range Farms over Fermanagh.
John and Eileen Hall from Fermanagh built their first hen house in 2001 and now they have more than 30,00 free-range birds roaming across the local countryside. They know that contented hens lay great quality eggs so they work hard at creating the best possible environment for them. They’re obviously happy hens because they produce a lot of eggs every year.The Great Taste Award judges comment was “A good, golden yolk, well rounded, and a firm clean white – a delicious flavour, creamy and deliciously natural.”
It’s just on the right side of salty and tastes fantastic slathered on crusty bread. It makes mighty fine fudge to. Irwin’s Bakery is Northern Ireland’s largest independent plant bakery and is a family owned and run company based in Portadown, Co Armagh. We have been baking bread for over 100 years so bread making is something we’ve grown up with and are famous for like our Irwin’s Nutty Krust Plain Loaf, Irwin’s Softee and our Muffins and Rolls range. Irwin’s products are based on traditional Northern Irish recipes and baking methods, including original fermentation and slow-baking processes.
Ballyrashane
Since 1896, we have been producing award-winning dairy products from our main site close to the world famous Giant’s Causeway on the North Antrim Coast. This prime location allows us to source our milk supply from farms benefiting from the best natural resources. Our milk comes from cows which have the luxury of grazing in rich verdant pastures in one of Ireland’s best dairy areas and this gives our products their distinctive quality and unmistakeable flavour.
The Keenan family have been in the fish business for three generations since Thomas Keenan and his son Gerald founded T Keenan & Son (Fish Merchants) Ltd back in 1942. The business has prospered over the years and in 1991 was renamed Keenan Seafood Ltd under the ownership of Gerard Keenan. They supply us with all of our Haddock, Cold & Hot Smoked Salmon, and our Beer Battered, North Atlantic Scampi Bites
Owned by Peter and Jim Hannan, They are a pioneering company, having won over 40 coveted Gold Stars at the Great Taste Awards, They supply to many other high end restaurants, Including Mark Hix of Hix Restaurant, London, Fortnum & Masons and Harrods. Here they supply us with our Glenarm Shorthorn Burgers, Locally sourced Pork shoulder, Our Signature Three Sweet Cured Bacon Ribs, and the Unique Himalayan Salt Aged Sirloin & Delmonico steaks.
Located in Limavady is run by Leona & Richard Kane, they are fourth Generation farmers who use cold pressing method of the rapeseed flowers to create our rapeseed Oil. Broighter Gold Rapeseed oil, was discovered by accident one evening in 2006. Leona was preparing the tea and had ran out of olive oil. Richard brought up some of the unfiltered cold pressed rapeseed oil which Leona used to cook their two fillet steaks, and make a salad dressing.
It was the smell of the rapeseed oil, was the first thing that caught Leona’s attention, and the way the steaks didn’t burn in the pan, the taste wasn’t bitter, with no after taste like olive oil, and we joked that it was our “Broighter Gold”
The Taylor family have been farming Dairy Cows in their Kircubbin Farm since 1856, in 2007, through the farm diversification project, Glastry Farm Ice Cream was born and has gone from strength to strength ever since, winning 9 Gold awards at the Great Taste Awards.
And what’s the secret to the Great Tasting Ice Cream? The Pedigree Herd eat solely on the rich green grasses of the Ards Peninsula, which creates a fantastically Creamy Milk to make a fantastically Creamy Ice Cream. The Taylor family have been farming dairy cows and growing grass at Glastry Farm since 1856 with the fifth generation of the family now in charge.
That clover rich grassland and those pedigree cows just keep producing the rich creamy milk that makes their ice-creams so special in taste and texture. Will and his super gifted team (four legged and two legged!) are into innovation in a big way with a constant flow of ideas that turn into award winning products. Coconut, one of this year’s Gold Stars, Irish Stout with its coffee and caramel tones, Belfast Black ice-cream, yes, your eyes are not deceiving you, a black ice-cream with the Whitewater Brewery’s Belfast Black ale.
