Category: Smoked Chicken

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Smoked Chicken Drumstick Day

Last Thursday, September 8th, Ummera took part in a superb Good Food Ireland showcase at the British Ambassador’s Summer Party in Glencairn Sandyford, Dublin. Some 40 members of Good Food Ireland presented the very best of Irish food to over 1,200 guests. The event was a spectacular success and the full list of participants and the “menu” can be viewed at Good Food Ireland

Ummera’s offering was Smoked Chicken Drumsticks as our contribution:

Having spoilt some of Dublin’s citizens with our smoked drumsticks, we felt it was only fair that we should let our locals try them as well.

So today, Saturday, September 10th., you may find – if you are early enough – the following locations offering you the chance of  tasting something rather special!

Pure Sushi Stall at Midleton Fair

Seaview Cafe, Kinsale

Rohu’s Market Shop, Innishannon

Urru Culinary Store, Bandon

The Quay Food Shop, Kinsale

Make it Smoked Chicken Drumstick Day!!

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Smoked Chicken and Tea?

Wanting to help a customer last week,  I asked if there was anything we could do to increase his sales.

He promptly replied:  “Yes, you could herd a few thousand people into our half deserted center…….!”

So in the continuing spirit of goodwill, I asked him how he used our smoked chicken – and back came the reply:

We use Ummera smoked chicken for sandwiches and for a salad. We make it with iceberg lettuce, the chicken and a few pieces of Italian semi-sundried tomatoes (marinated in olive oil, garlic and herbs). This way no other ingredient is distracting from the fine smoked chicken flavour.

This is by far our bestseller. We get proper first class breads from a french producer to make sure the whole package is on the same quality level (baguette, ciabatta, sour dough bread which we daily bake on the premise).

In the salad we just use iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers, garnished with the same sundried tomatoes and we use the very aromatic olive oil from the tomatoes as dressing. Another dressing option is our own jasmine tea dressing but this works better with normal green salads.

Smoked chicken goes well with almost any tea. Especially finer black teas, e.g. Darjeelings, Chinese black teas (have a sweet-smoky flavour), Chinese green teas (not so much Japanese green teas) and above all fine Oolongs (between a green and a black tea with distinctive peachy notes).

And so wrote Martin Mehner of The House of Tea in the CHQ Building at the IFSC Center in Dublin 1

Check out the House of Tea website to learn more about Martin’s teas and do drop by and enjoy one of his amazing Smoked Chicken Sandwiches!

Ummera Smoked Chciken

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The Butler’s Pantry Artisan Harvest

This Saturday, September 19th., we are taking part in celebrating the Artisan Harvest at two of the renowned Butler’s Pantry shops in Dublin.

I will be at their Monkstown shop at 1a Montpellier Place, Temple Hill, Blackrock from 11.30 to 2.00pm and then at the Sandycove shop (19 Sandycove Road, Sandycove) from 2.30pm to 4.30pm. There will also be tastings of our Award winning Smoked Salmon and our Smoked Chicken, not just at these two shops, but at all the Butler’s Pantry shops all day on Saturday.

Do call by and say hello!

If you can’t make it,  Butler’s Pantry have a lovely recipe for Ummera Organic Smoked Salmon with Orange Dressing and Avocado Pate . Try it!

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What is it about September!

It seems that every food event in Ireland takes place in September – and it is impossible to do them all!
There was the fantastically successful weekend in Waterford with

The National Organic Food Conference organised by Bord Bia on the Thursday, September 4th.

Slow Food Ireland‘s Terra Madre workshop day on the Friday was followed by a stupendous banquet and an impassioned speech by Carlo Petrini, the President of Slow Food International. A special post will be made shortly as soon as I have come down to earth!

Now we have tomorrow, September 13th,  the Midleton Food Festival with lots of  actitivities for all the family; we will be lingering around Kate O’Donovan’s stand for a while! Hot Dogs and Ummera Smoked Chicken!

Ireland’s National Organic Week begins on Monday 15th

The Taste of West Cork Festival starts on Tuesday and we will be there at the open-air Food and Craft Market on Sunday September 21st.  Full details at A Taste of West Cork.

For music/opera lovers,  there is a special evening of opera at Burren House in aid of the RNLI on Saturday the 20th. Details and tickets from the Burren House website or from the Cork Opera House. 

On Sunday September 28th, Slow Food’s Cork City Convivium is hosting a farm trip to Paul Johnson’s Dexter Cow Farm near Dunmanway. Click here for details

Next a visit to the Good Food Ireland Awards dinner at the Shelbourne Hotel in the heart of Dublin.

And to conclude September, a visit to Shop 2008 at the RDS.

And you expect us to smoke salmon during September!

Then we must prepare for Slow Food‘s Salone del Gusto and Terra Madre in Turin, Italy from the 23rd to 27th October.

Phew!

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What a week but ending in Gold!

Back from 40 degrees in Spain on Monday afternoon to be welcomed by 36 hours continuous rain!

Busy catching up on all that happened after ten days out of contact with the world; it’s an experience doing without all the mod cons of today’s world, but is a great relief to know that emails, mobiles, blogs, and newspapers are not essential to life!

Good news came through the mail with results from the Great Taste Awards in the UK; and I was pipped to the post in blogging this news by Ivan McCutcheon on his blog Food Culture West Cork and he had a photo taken at the recent Taste of Cork Festival!

I have just returned from a delivery to Scally’s Supervalu in Clonakility where I grabbed a copy of the current edition of the West Cork People, from Jean Farrelly, Joint Editor, as she was making a delivery there.

Lo and behold we were on the front page!

Jean told me that my Press Release arrived with her at 2.30pm yesterday and the edition was scheduled for printing at 3.00pm!

I think this is the first time that Ummera has been responsible for “Stop the Press”!

The actual Press Release can be downloaded as a pdf file here.

I almost forgot what the Awards were for! Ummera Smoked Chicken and Ummera Organic Gravadlax. This  now means that all our products have received awards at the Great Taste Awards over the last three years!

And Spain was fantastic!!

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Ummera at The Butler’s Pantry Artisan Week

As part of The Butler’s Pantry Artisan Week in Dublin, I will be tasting some of our smoked products at:

Rathgar on Wednesday afternoon from 3.00pm to 7.00pm,

Greystones on Thursday morning from 11.00am to 2.00pm,

Mount Merrion Avenue, Blackrock, Thursday afternoon from 3.30pm to 7.00pm.

Come and say hello!

Full details of locations at http://www.thebutlerspantry.ie/Contact_Us.aspx

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Clodagh Mckenna’s Ummera Smoked Chicken Paella

The Sunday World Magazine yesterday had some great coverage of Clodagh McKenna and the launch of her second series of Fresh from the Farmers Markets which is being screened on RTE 1 at 7.30pm on Wednesdays.

Delighted to see that Clodagh used our Smoked Chicken in one of her two Main Courses in her “Ummera Smoked Chicken Paella”; the original version, which doesn’t include mussels or prawns for those with shellfish allergies, can be found on our Smoked Chicken page .

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Ummera – Just in time for Christmas!

The following mail has been sent around the world:

Our weather is so mild for early November, it is hard to imagine a white Christmas! But think of Christmas we must, and I am hoping that this email will focus your attention on ordering some of your Christmas fare good and early! To order right now, go to Orders

The last year for Ummera has been very exciting with an increasing number of Speciality Food outlets in Ireland and in the UK stocking our products. Please Click here for an up-to-date list.

However, the year has been tempered by the total lack of wild salmon. As you will be aware, Ummera has specialised in smoking the Wild Atlantic Salmon since the early 1970’s but we have, in the last couple of years, taken as pro-active a role as possible in trying to ensure that the stocks are not totally decimated.

In 2006 we made a decision not to buy any more wild salmon until we could be assured that they came from a sustainable fishery. In 2007, the Irish government placed a ban on the commercial drift net fishery and we have confidence that this will greatly improve the salmon stocks in our rivers. It may take four or five years before we see a sustainable harvest again.

We have been offered wild salmon from Scotland, Norway and the Pacific but we smoke Irish salmon in Ireland, and we smoke the best available Irish salmon. Currently the Irish Organic Salmon are the best available to us, so we smoke them for you.

We therefore encourage you to enjoy our Smoked Organic Salmon, not just in the interest of conservation but also for its superb quality. Earlier this year, we introduced an Organic Gravadlax, organic salmon marinated in dill, sugar salt, peppers and a splash of whisky – all organic. Traditionally served with a dill and mustard sauce, but sue very sparingly, if at all, as the flavour of the gravadlax is easily overpowered..

There is a world-wide shortage of eel, and it is under even greater threat than the wild Atlantic salmon. The EU has announced drastic measures that come into force next year and it is very unlikely that we will be smoking Silver Eel for some time to come.

Our Hot Smoked Crown of Chicken has been very successful this year and our Smoked Dry Cured Bacon is assured to make you insist on only Ummera Bacon in the future!

Our last dates for orders is December 10th and our last shipping date is expected to be December 17th (USA & Canada: December 10th).

If you have any questions when on our web site, please email us or skype us (acreswell) or even phone us and William or myself will be very happy to help.

Quick Links:
To Order: Orders
Find Stockists: Outlets
Smoked Organic Salmon: Smoked Organic Salmon
Smoked Chicken: Hot Smoked Crown of Chicken
Smoked Dry Cured Bacon: Smoked Dry Cured Bacon
News/Weblog Page: Ummera News
Main Ummera site: ummera.com

Wishing you a very Happy Christmas from us all at Ummera

 

Anthony Creswell

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Inspiration – Slow but surely!

I’m told that I should be updating this every day!

Problem is that I am always nowhere near my desk when inspiration strikes! For instance this morning, while packing another batch of our Smoked Chickens, great thoughts came to mind, but where was my computer…..? Long for the day when one can think thoughts and up they go for the world to see, but then…..!

Brief coffee break now; our smoked chickens have really taken off this year and we are smoking two and some times three batches a week; yesterday morning, inspiration came after 30 years a pondering, and I think that I have now come up with a solution whereby we can actually smoke two batches in one; this will help us continue our sales growth for the Smoked Chicken without needing any more investment and, most importantly, without the product suffering in any way!

[tags] smoked chicken [/tags]

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December 8th and two new shops opening!

There are two new speciality food shops opening tomorrow in Ireland, and I am delighted that they are both carrying a range of our products!

The first is a newURRU shop in Mallow which will bring to that town some of the excellence that Bandonians have been raving about for the last couple of years. Willie, brother of Ruth in Bandon, will bring his experience as a Graphic Designer and the benefits of a six month course at Ballymaloe to bear on this exciting project.

The second is in Gorey, Co. Wexford where Christian and Heather Pauritsch open the doors at Partridge Lodge, 93 Main Street, Gorey.

And it’s 10% off Day tomorrow in Clonakity!