Heads or Tails?

Fancy Crispy Pigs Ears or Braised Ox Tail ? Experience True Nose To Tail Dining at Cava Spanish Restaurant and Tapas Bar Galway.


Jp McMahon, head chef and owner of Cava Restaurant has launched an initiative to reintroduce nose to tail dining. Ox tail, trotters and liver may conjure up images of old however there are many more possibilities for delicious contemporary dishes from lesser known cuts.

Jp explains “The Spanish tend to cook with more off cuts and offal then we, the Irish, do. Offal is much more economical then the popular cuts and, prepared properly, can be even more delicious. Once we can overcome our squeamish preconceptions tongue, heart, ham hock, pigs cheeks and ears can all become as everyday as our steak and chicken breasts.”

Each week Cava Spanish Restaurant and Tapas Bar will feature daily specials that highlight nose to tail eating. Prepare to chose from braised ox tongue in spicy chorizo sauce, braised pig's terrine with piquillo pepper sauce, ham hock and black pudding broth, free range chicken livers with chili jam, or crispy pigs ears with garlic mayonnaise.

Using off-cuts generally takes a bit more preparation and cooking time. The chefs in Cava confit pork belly for 10 hours, so as to make it mouth watering tender. The pig cheeks are cooked for 3 to 4 hours. Some cuts however, like liver and kidneys, can be cooked quite quickly—pan-fired in a knob of foaming butter and seasoned with salt and pepper. Offal goes superbly with Cava’s own piquillo pepper sauce, which can be purchased in the restaurant.

When purchasing offal from your local butcher Jp recommends looking using a local specialty butcher who will be able to explain to you the best way to use certain cuts. Also, look for Fergus Henderson’s book Nose to Tail Eating or The Fifth Quarter: An Offal Cookbook by Anissa Helou.


For more details, menus and recipes see http://www.cavarestaurant.ie/.