Stephane is encyclopedic in his knowledge of all things fishy!

https://www.facebook.com/Gannet.fishmongers

Stephane provides us with the absolute freshest, premium locally caught fish which helps us to design our wedding catering menu’s with the season’s in mind.

Sometimes our wedding catering couples opt for a “catch of the day” for their menu.  This is a lovely way to provide their guests with the absolute freshest, most seasonal fish for their wedding catering menu.  It’s a lovely surprise on the big day also as you never quite know what mother nature will offer up!  We can make educated guesses of course but due to circumstances like the lovely Irish weather, we just never know what we are going to get!

Our suppliers are of utmost importance to us.  For us to work with other passionate food producers allows us to create amazing wedding catering menu’s with fantastic raw ingredients.  We will be featuring more of our fantastic passionate suppliers here in our wedding catering blog.  We look forward to introducing you to some of the best food producers who assist us in creating innovative, creative and memorable wedding catering menus!

The post Fabulous locally caught fish for wedding catering! appeared first on Green Olive Catering.

Here’s a picture on one of our waiting staff getting herself in the zone before service!

The wedding was in Cloghan castle, not far from our base here in Galway.

http://www.cloghancastle.com/

The bride wore the most amazing mask I have ever seen, she was stunning.

The wedding catering Dublin couple opted for one of our hand carved oak sharing platters as their starter for their wedding catering.  The had Rossaveal langoustines, McGeoghs of Connemara air dried Lamb, Carrigaline garlic and herb cheese, Sheridan’s brown bread crackers, fresh figs and roasted Mediterranean vegetables with caraway seeds!

http://www.sheridanscheesemongers.com/

http://carrigalinecheese.com/

http://www.ireland.com/destinations/republic-of-ireland/galway/rossaveal/

Our sharing platters have become by far the most popular wedding catering Dublin starter option.  Couples love the idea of their guests striking up conversation over their wedding feast.  The platters also provide our wedding catering couples with the opportunity to share their favourite foods with their guests!

What better way for your guests to make their introductions, than over the delicious selection of artisan delights on their sharing platter!  We very often ask a couple to allow us to incorporate an element form their locality in their menu, just another little nod to the happy couple on their big day!

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We will work with you to create the wedding catering menu of your dreams…..

We design our menu’s around the seasons, using only local suppliers.  This ensures our raw ingredients are the most optimum in season.

All of our suppliers are local, artisan, small producers.  One of our most popular canapé’s is our McGeough’s of Connemara black pudding, Cahills porter cheese and red onion marmalade filo.  Quite a mouthful!  It’s the first canapé to disappear from our platters.  The way the ingredients work together is a delight to the senses, perfect from your wedding caterers Dublin.

http://www.connemarafinefoods.ie/

http://www.cahillscheese.ie/our-cheeses/porter-cheese/

Check out our full list of delicious canapé’s by clicking on the link below….

http://www.greenolivecatering.ie/menus/canapes_event_catering_galway/

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We will work with you to create the menu of your dreams!

Our bespoke wedding catering Dublin service provides you with fantastic control over your menu choices, we love incorporating your favourite local artisan delights into your menu.  Why shouldn’t your guests sample your favourite foods on this the most important day of your life?

We like to listen carefully to what our wedding catering Dublin clients love about food, and we always do our best to create menus that inspire and delight our couples!

We have created a decadent Cashel blue and chocolate ganache for a client who worked for the fabulous cheese company; a limoncello sorbet for a bride whose idea of heaven is sipping the Italian delight on a sunny courtyard in Sorrento; a wild boar and red onion relish hot dog for a groom who always dreamed of the wild boar sausage he tasted at Electric picnic one year!

http://www.electricpicnic.ie/

http://www.cashelblue.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limoncello

So, call us today to discuss the wedding of your dreams!

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Tomorrow is pancake Tuesday and here at Green Olive Catering Galway, we love nothing more than the aroma of delicious buttery crepes filling our kitchen with smells that bring us back to our childhood!

We tend to lean more in the direction of crepes over pancakes, the difference being that melted butter (only the best quality, none of that low fat stuff) is added to the recipe.  This gives the mixture an added layer of richness, taste and most importantly, it makes them light as a feather!  One of our favourite recipes is by Nigella Lawson, please see the link below….

http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/CREPES-5303

Like the good lady, we at green olive catering Galway, like our crepes unadulterated as such, simply dressed with lemon and sugar!  There are a myriad of fillings for those of you who like to experiment, one of our favourites is spinach, feta cheese and some nice chilli glazed gammon. Yum!

We, at green olive catering Galway, always find that the pan needs to be well seasoned, so generally the first pancake is a sacrificial offering in order to prep your frying pan for the rest to follow.  We only ever use high quality real Irish butter, never oil.  The butter will burn of course, so, as with most cooking on the hob, its all about controlling the heat.  Don’t be afraid to whip the pan off the flame to allow it to drop temperature.  In our house, the crepes barely make it on to a plate, as there are always little mouths circulating the cooker!

We like to chop up loads of delicious fruit for our crepes here at Green Olive catering Galway.  A little chocolate sauce for those of you with an extra sweet tooth is always a nice treat.

We wish you all a very happy pancake Tuesday tomorrow, happy cooking!

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Beat the January blues with a magical Irish castle wedding to kick start the new year….

Sarah and Dave chose us to be their wedding catering company in Galway, a more lovely couple you could not meet!

We got straight into the action this January with wedding catering for the elegant Sarah and her delightful husband Dave!

After the busy Christmas  season, we were straight back to work catering wedding!

On the menu was our handmade oak sharing platters.  The lovely couple chose their favourite sharing delights from our artisan selection.  They chose

• Selection of Irish artisan farmhouse cheeses,
• Connemara air dried lamb,
• coriander scented hummous,
• poached  Rossaveal crevettes,
• spiced onion marmalade,
• quince paste,
• Sheridan’s Irish brown bread crackers

The guests then feasted on 28 day dry aged prime roasted Ardrahan sirloin, melt in the mouth.  Green Olive wedding catering Head Chef Valentine prepared his jus by first roasting beef bones with blackened Spanish onions, he then reduces the bones with red wine, water and port.  This sauce will be reduced from 60 litres to just 2 litres, extracting all of the flavourful marrow from the bone and intensifying the flavour all the while.  What you have now is a powerful red wine and beef jus to serve with the tender slow cooked local beef for your wedding catering menu!

The lovely couple themselves provided a bountiful sweet table for their guests to nibble on throughout the evening, breath taking bon bon’s galore, their happy guests were transported back to their childhood with the array of delights on offer!

All in all it was a delightful way for Green olive wedding catering to start the year, here’s to a busy year ahead, watch this space for more Green Olive wedding catering news…..

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We designed this delicious seafood starter for our wedding catering menu!

The couple in question wanted us to showcase the best of Irish seafood.

Sarah and Julien had their wedding in September this year and most of their guests were visiting Ireland for the first time.  They wanted us to come us with something fromour wedding catering menu to wow their guests’ taste buds!

We had a chat to our local fishmonger to decide what would be optimum in September.  Presented on a slate, we had Organic Kinvarra smoked salmon and cream cheese roulade, Rossaveal langoustine, Pickled mackerel and celeriac remulade.  The combination of flavours and textures worked beautifully.  The creamy smoked salmon, the sharpness of the mackerel and the succulence of the fresher than fresh langoustine was imply divine.

We feel passionately about sourcing our ingredients locally.  The guests at Sarah and Julien’s wedding were extremely complimentary about the food and really delighted in their wedding catering menu!  See below links to some of our local seafood suppliers who are also passionate foodies….

http://www.kinvarasmokedsalmon.com/

https://www.facebook.com/GreenOliveEventCatering/photos/pcb.376138829178009/376138542511371/?type=1&theater

http://www.fishmongers.ie/galway-shops-fish/item/gannet-fishmongers

We love being given a challenge in terms of a favourite food or theme.  Val our Head chef thrives on “flexing his creative muscles” and gets bored easily!  Watch this space for more of our innovative wedding catering creations….

The post Wedding catering for seafood lovers! appeared first on Green Olive Catering.

We love experimenting with flavours and textures to create imaginative dishes!

While designing our wedding catering menu’s, we are focused on many different elements to create the menu of your dreams.  Firstly, there’s the provenance of the food on your plate.  With the abundance of ingredients available to us in our local environment, we try to utilise as much locally available ingredients in our menus.

Secondly, its the combination of flavours on the the plate, what compliments a fillet of a certain fish for example, what enhances it while allowing the natural flavour to sing?

Thirdly, our wedding catering menu’s are all about the art of the plate.  Having studied at Art college in Mexico many years ago, our Head Chef Val likes to use food as his meduium these days!

Here we have four simple ingredients, organic peppermint from our vegetable plot, feta cheese, cucumber and kalamata olives.  The flavours and textures work so well together and look pretty funky too.

Guests at your wedding will enjoy the opportunity to try something new and different, perhaps something they wouldn’t necessarily order out in a restaurant?!! Lots of our couples are concerned about older relatives who may have a more traditional palate and worry about presenting them with food which is a little “left of field”.  We have found that guests relish the chance to try a new food, its your big day after all, your stamp should be on the menu!

Check out our wedding catering menu’s to get an idea of what you can expect on your big day…

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Its all about black currants for me right now…..

With the glut of currants that I have got this year with the good weather; I’m thinking about other things that I could do to this wonderful fruit use them in my wedding catering menus?

My first memory of blackcurrants was when I was a child, spending time with my grandparents in  Tubber, 8 miles outside Gort, Co Clare.   

They were simpler times where we spent carefree days out in the open country side. It was 30 years ago so you can only imagine a tiny house on a sleepy little road where you could hear a car from miles away before it would pass the house!

My Gran would go out and pick the black currants.  She would make a sweet yet tarte black currant jam that would double up as a drink before you would buy mi-wadi in the shops.

When I first started to grow black currants I was obsessed with making that jam, it would evoke memories of my childhood and would share it with the rest of my kin so that they would remember, like having a food time capsule that transport you back to simpler times.

With the abundance of currants in my garden I poached them with sugar and just enough water to cover the fruit.  I put a layer of cling film on one of the drawers in the dehydrator.

I poured the black currant through a chinois on to the cling film and left it overnight at 95 degree C. What was left was flexible black currant leather, with a very intense flavour of berries.  No preservative just real taste from my garden! What I will do with this? Cut them into disks?  Dry it out even more so it can turn into a hard candy? I really don’t know!  I’m thinking it would be a fantastic injection of flavour on one of our wedding catering desserts. The possibilities for me are endless!

Talk soon,

Val the Chef

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We’ve just been designing  new catering  recipes that will incorporate some of the vinegars/ compotes/ marinades/ pickles  we have been concocting here at the Green Olive kitchen over the summer.  With the good weather came  bumper crop’s .  I had a massive yield in organic gooseberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants and raspberries over the past few months.  I’ve been chasing my tail trying to harvest them before the birds get to them, but being a wild life lover, I don’t really mind sharing my produce with our feathered friends.

The first of my fruits that appeared this season was gooseberries, at the same time as our beautiful aromatic indigenous elderflower.  I made an Elderflower syrup which scented the gooseberries into a compote.  You have to be careful not to overcook the gooseberries, so I sit them into the hot elderflower syrup to retain their structure and to give piquance to the compote.  I use the compote in my sharing platters in our wedding catering menu’s.  It marries well with cheeses and cured meats. 

We are at the height of the season for foraging at the moment here in Ireland.  Wild herbs and fruit are at their best just now and it’s important to harvest and extend their longevity through processes such as pickling, dehydrating, salting, curing, fermenting to name a few. 

Having been working for over twenty years in hot sweaty kitchens, I grab any opportunity I can to get out and about in the fresh air.  My Dad always said that if you work indoors you should find an outdoor hobby.  My great passion is cycling, but a close second is hunting and foraging for ingredients in my local area and tending to my organic herb and fruit beds.  I think there’s nothing better than using the local flora and fauna in my recipes.

 I love to experiment in the kitchen and play with food.  Lots of experiments don’t work first time, but I learn from them.  My next blog will tell you all about my flavoured vinegars, I’ve had great fun with them…

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