For those of us from outside Dublin, Donnybrook Fair may be familiar to you only as the expensive-looking shop front you pass on the Sunday bus trip back to Dublin. Even lesser known is its cookery school located just above the store. In fact, it’s been open for seven years, the majority of which have been spent under the purview of head chef, Niall Murphy.
The Cookery School runs a variety of classes including Breadmaking, Midweek Meals in Minutes, The Great Donnybrook Fair Bake-Off, Cooking for One, Learn How to Make Sushi and Pasta Workshops, all run by Murphy. For the first time, the Cookery School is publishing a cookbook based on these classes. Speaking to The University Times, Murphy sheds light upon his unexpected career path and this new publication.
When meeting Murphy at the cookery school, I am struck by the feeling that I am talking to a friendly uncle, with years of experience in the industry. However, Murphy’s journey to his present role is not what one would expect. He left secondary school behind him in a cloud of dust, convinced that formal education was not for him. He later followed his father into the motor industry, travelling the world for 27 years. Then one morning, during the height of recession in Ireland, Murphy realised he had to get out.
Without dependents, and failure meaning that “the only life I was going to screw up was my own”, Murphy made the drastic decision to completely change career path. He enrolled in a Fáilte Ireland cookery course and things snowballed from there. Then in 2011, while shopping in Donnybrook Fair for food to cater his cousin’s 50th birthday party, Murphy met the managing director of the store, Joe Doyle. He was intrigued by Murphy’s story and a few months later rang unexpectedly, offering Murphy a job. Fast forward a couple of years, with more experience and food-related degrees than you can shake a stick at, Murphy has his name on a cookbook under a very well-respected Irish brand.
The book itself is a visual masterpiece. The photography is rich, and the definition so crisp it is enjoyable simply to flick through. The thick, luxurious paper and recurring steely-blue background of the photos combine to produce a simple but thoughtful collection of recipes. The book is split into 20 different sections, including “The Art of Bread Making”, “Sensational Salads”, “Cooking Meat to Perfection”, ‘One-Pot Wonders’, “Curry Nights”, “Sushi” (my mother raised an eyebrow at that one), “The Great DF Bake Off” and “Chocolate Heaven”. A major aspect of Murphy’s classes, and something he was keen to convey in the book, is that the recipes are simple but based on high quality ingredients. The audience for the cookbook, like the cookery school, is the amateur chef. Aside from chicken thighs, I already had all the ingredients needed to make the chicken pilaf. This was true for many of the recipes I sampled.
An aspect of the cookbook I was initially less keen on was the prevalence of cream and butter in many of the recipes. At a time when buzzwords such as “gluten-free”, “raw” and “superfood” are the plat du jour, Murphy seemed to go against these trends. Indeed, Murphy sighed when I bring up the topic of clean eating and Instagram. Referring to many of the recipes in the book he says, “these aren’t things we eat every single day. But they are necessary within our diet. It is all about control, it’s all about balance at the end of the day. We don’t do this every day of the week, and you should never do this every day of the week”.
As someone who loves to cook but generally lacks time and money, I found the recipes in “One-Pot Wonders” and “Curry Nights” especially useful. Many can be frozen, and the sauces can be used as a base with whatever protein found in the fridge. Murphy also emphasises the “Art of Organisation”, whereby “if you buy correctly, if you plan correctly, you’ll be surprised at how fast you can turn this food out”. The strength of this cookbook lies in how it breaks down a wide variety of cooking techniques and cuisines into simple dishes that can be easily mastered.
