As Welsh people around the world prepare to celebrate Dydd Gwyl Dewi (St David’s Day) with music, poetry and song, the team behind the Coginio cookery course is calling for food to become a bigger part of the celebrations in Welsh households.

While most national celebrations place great importance on traditional food and drink, often making food synonymous with heritage and culture, the Welsh need to work harder to make local produce and traditional recipes part of St David’s Day celebrations and day-to-day lifestyle.

Welsh food ambassador, broadcaster and writer, Sian Bassett-Roberts, developed the Coginio cookery course to showcase Welsh produce and recipes now in danger of being lost through neglect. She said: “Welsh produce is coveted around the world, yet we are not very good at celebrating the excellence of our food, drink and traditional recipes at home. Many people think Welsh cookery starts and finishes with laverbread, cawl and Welshcakes, and that could not be further from the truth.

“Traditional recipes, ingredients and Welsh cookery techniques have been handed down from generation to generation, but sadly many are now seldom seen and in danger of disappearing altogether.”

Inspired to produce a truly Welsh cookery course which could be used at home, in the classroom or even in restaurants and cafés, Sian created Coginio, which is the Welsh word for cooking. The campaign started with a bilingual cookery DVD, featuring the hands of Welsh food consultant, Jo Roberts, demonstrating classic recipes. The bilingual commentary, provided by Sian, producer of the DVD, not only described the recipe but also the history of the dish. Sian observed: “Using local recipes and ingredients really anchors the food to Wales, making you realise just how important food and drink are to our heritage.”

That realisation led to the cookery course becoming a demonstration, firstly to local guest house owners and cafés in Mid Wales, when the regional tourism partnership asked Sian to help local tourism businesses understand how to use Welsh produce and recipes to emphasize the unique ‘Welshness’ of a visit to Wales, creating a strong sense of place.

The course was run again for tourism operators in South Wales by the regional tourism partnership, Capital Region Tourism, leading to a second DVD featuring classic regional Welsh recipes, developed and demonstrated by the hands of Welsh television chef and food consultant Nerys Howell.

Coginio is now being developed into a ‘hands on’ cookery course which will tour Wales and take the passion for Welsh cookery and produce to a wider audience. Sian says: “We must celebrate the fabulous meat, dairy, speciality products, vegetables, drink and ingredients we have in Wales and make them far more central to our everyday lives. Welsh cookery is healthy and easy, but it requires a little knowledge of how to choose the right ingredients and combine them to create truly mouthwatering, truly Welsh food.”

To find out more about Coginio and how to cook with Welsh produce, visit www.coginio.com.

To get you started, Coginio have provided Welsh Icons with the following recipes:

Anglesey Eggs

Ingredients:
• 6 small leeks
• 450g hot mashed potato
• 75g butter
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 275ml of hot milk
• 75g Cheddar cheese
• 8 hard boiled eggs
• 2 tbsps fresh breadcrumbs
• grated nutmeg

Preparation: 30 minutes Cooking: 30 minutes
Combine the cooked leeks in a bowl (cooked with a knob of butter for about 10 minutes with the lid on), add the mashed potatoes, half the butter, a little salt, pepper and the grated nutmeg. Mix everything together and place in a buttered ovenproof dish. For the cheese sauce, put most of the remaining butter into a saucepan, (keep 10g to sprinkle over the finished dish), add the flour, the milk and bring to the boil, whisking continuously. Once it starts to thicken, season with some black pepper, add the grated cheese, (keep half for later), and whisk again. Slice the hardboiled eggs in half, arrange them over the leek and potato mixture and cover with the cheese sauce. Sprinkle with the breadcrumbs, the cheese and dot with the remaining butter. Bake in a preheated oven, 180C/350F/gas mark 4 for 15 – 20 minutes.

Brecon Lamb Pie

Ingredients:
• 110g butter
• 225g plain flour
• half tsp salt
• 3 tsps cold water
• 450g Welsh lamb
• 2 onions
• 4 carrots
• 150ml red wine
• 150ml lamb stock
• 2 tbsps fresh mint
• 1 egg yolk

Preparation: 30 minutes Cooking: 2.5 hours
Coat the meat with some seasoned flour in a plastic bag. Put the coated meat into a casserole dish. Add the sliced onions, the chopped carrots and the chopped mint. Pour in the stock, the wine, add some salt and pepper and stir all the ingredients together. Cook in a pre heated oven for approximately 2 hours on 150C/300F/gas mark 2.

For the pastry, put the flour and salt into a bowl and mix together. Add the butter and rub in until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs. Add the 3 tbsps of water, which should be enough to form a dough. Once the meat has cooked, spoon the mixture into a 1 litre pie dish and leave to cool for about 10 minutes. Roll the dough out to fit the top of the lamb pie, to a thickness of about 5 mm. Transfer the pastry to the dish and seal the edges with a fork, glaze with the egg yolk and make some slashes in the centre. Place in a pre heated oven (200C/400F/gas mark 6) and cook for 30 minutes. Sprinkle some chopped parsley on the top to serve.

Monmouth Pudding

Ingredients:
• 65g sugar
• 25g butter
• 1 lemon
• 450ml milk
• 125g breadcrumbs
• 3 eggs, separated
175g fruit
• 1 tbsp of Black Mountain liqueur

Preparation: 20 min Cooking: 30 minutes
Put the milk into a saucepan, add 25g of the sugar, the butter, the lemon zest and stir together. Bring to the boil, add the breadcrumbs, mix together and leave to stand for 10 minutes. Stir in the egg yolks and pour the mixture into a buttered ovenproof dish. Bake at 170C/325F/gas 3 for 20 minutes.

Stir the liqueur into the stewed plums and mix. For the meringue, whisk the egg whites until stiff, and keep whisking while you add the remaining sugar, until the mixture is firm enough to form a peak. Once the pudding is cooked, pour the fruit over the bread mixture, spoon the meringue over the top. Bake for a further 10 minutes at a reduced heat of 150C/300F/gas mark 2

The two Coginio DVDs – ‘Favourite Welsh Recipes’ and ‘Regional Welsh Recipes’ – are available online at www.coginio.com, and at most local Welsh bookshops, Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales giftshops, Cardiff Castle, visitors’ centres at Penderyn Whisky and in the Snowdonia, Pembrokeshire and Brecon Beacons National Parks, the Centre for Alternative Technology in Machynlleth, Fabulous Welsh Cakes, Portmeirion Shops, Blaenavon Cheese, delicatessens (incl Bant a la Cart and Snails) and farm shops (Pughs) priced £8.99.