Last Minute Easter Sunday Lunch
With Good Food Ireland®
Who’s been tasked with cooking the lunch this Easter Sunday, then? If you got landed with being up to your elbows in veg peelings while everyone else scoffs chocolate and watches the telly, don’t worry. We’re coming.
First, you need to breathe. Then you need to listen very carefully. Imagine yourself cooking a superb lunch, cool as a breeze, and being elevated to Kitchen Genius in the process. Imagine this and it will happen. Psychologists call it ‘positive visualisation’. It applies to all things in life. And you didn’t even need to pay for the psychologist’s couch to hear that. How good are we all ready?
Now you’re in the right frame of mind. Next, we are going to walk you through, step by step, a three-course Sunday lunch that will wow the folks and have you breathing on your fingers and rubbing the lapel of your chef’s whites in an ‘I got this’s kinda way. The reason we’re so confident you’ll be doing this is that we have help for you, in the form of some easy recipes from our collection. We’ve chosen easy to follow dishes that look impressive and will certainly taste impressive. Are you ready? Here goes.
TO BEGIN WITH
First up we’ve chosen a lovely recipe, Pancakes with Burren Smoked Organic Salmon from The Burren Smoked House & Visitor Center.  This is not a difficult recipe. All the ingredients are easy to get. All you need to do is plan. Get the best and freshest salmon you can get your hands on, which probably means buying organic and getting it from your fishmonger.
THE MAIN EVENT
New-season lamb is the meat of Easter and we can’t think of the best way to serve it than this Lamb Shanks with Rosemary and Vegetables.
Serve this up with the ever favourite roast potatoes and veggies, or go different. The gorgeous warm Roast Cauliflower Salad sings with zesty flavours and the crunch and texture of seeds. A few greens won’t go amiss either.
We’ve spotted beautiful new season baby spinach lately, so you can serve this just wilted in butter and seasoned with nutmeg, sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, or enrich it with a dash of cream. For spuds, try out Ed Cooney’s Champ Mash, served at The Merrion Hotel.  We’ve even given you a video of him making it so you can’t go wrong! Ed is in the kitchen with you all the way!
Lowland lamb will be ready for the Easter Feast. Lamb from the higher ground like our Achill Mountain lamb won’t be ready till July, because the ewes lamb later after the cold of the winter is gone. So keep that in mind for when you want to repeat this feat in the summer months – maybe with a few summery salads and a potato salad instead of the hot veggies.
View our member Calvey’s Achill Mountain Lamb!
THE PUDDING
Partner it with The Kitchen @ Gorey’s Belgian Chocolate and Chilli Panna Cotta with Raspberry Curd. You probably won’t find Wexford raspberries quite yet, it’s too early in the season, but you can use frozen berries and defrost them gently beforehand. Other than that, this recipe is plain sailing! It will win you brownie points. Enough not to have to cook another family lunch till, well, till Christmas, probably…
