The Brendan O'Connor Show on Auti, Radio one with all care pharmacy discover a team that's always here to support you at all care, taking care of communities across Ireland.

Let's go to food now. And before we give you something for the weekend, have a listen to this clip from four states on Thursday night. Right. So this is what happened when Kieran from Dublin and Carla from Northern Ireland had a clash of culture, not about Tasers, but about spice.

I'm not sure it's all even smorgasbords. I suppose she was displaced by those like it is. No. You met him, was a spy spy. Wow. Are you from Law and Order?

Yeah. And, you know, suppose, I guess a spy spy, that's what do you get it to cook at home?

Spies in the in the Oxford Dictionary like a spy visiting. I see. That's a cultural issue. The good news for Carla is that you actually can make your own space bag at home and we will be telling you how in just a minute. Aaron Copland is founder of Green Saffron and author of Fresh Spice. And he's a, I think, a general authority on all things spicy. Good afternoon, Aaron. Hey, how are you doing now, Aaron?

Before we get to you're going to give us a few spicy recipes, breast bag being one of them before we get to that.

I didn't know this. You have this fascinating back story that you were essentially were a major player on the acid house scene in London in the late 80s and early 90s.

You're very tired. Let's not overstate your friend, but. Yeah, no, no, certainly I was involved in that. I was really fortunate to be in the right place at the right time, enjoying partying and then getting involved with on the big, big firms down there involved in yezid parties and putting them on. Yeah, fantastic times.

So I know you're understating this because I have details here. So did you start a record label? You're clearly trying to put your dishonourable past behind you, but let's do it for a minute here. Did you start a dance record label when you were 18? Yeah, yeah.

When I was 18, I formed for my first ever company. It was a set out on the it was called Funky Piece Productions as a sort of love and peace. Yeah.

And it was like I can just see at the time average of 18 year olds going funky production. I mean, you know, I was really fortunate. I've met a few guys with a couple of recording studios. When I went down there, I was working in a restaurant, which is a really kind of cool and popular restaurant. And London in the sort of early nineties, mid nineties was a real sort of cultural mixing bowl of excellence and deliciousness.

And yeah, and I fell into the right place and. Yeah, kind of got involved with that scene there. Dancing. Yeah.

Brilliant. And then you also then went off to a beat and got involved in setting up. Yeah.

There were I don't know, there's a phrase back in the that I don't know show my age but in the mid 90s. So having it so. Yeah. So we're having it in a booth or infinite state stateside. We doing various compilation albums. Yeah we did a few nights and Pasha there and we enjoyed ourselves. Brendan Certainly.

Yeah. Yeah I bet. And you were also involved kind of early on with the careers of people like All Saints and Sugar Babies and stuff. Yeah you can.

Right place. Right time. We by that stage I was with a whole bunch of sort of entrepreneurial guys in London running various bands and I was cutting my teeth learning from them. And yeah, I was lucky enough to be there. And the girls came up to me and people would just come up to you and you would listen to stuff. And we were really fortunate with some of the acts that we found. And those were two of them, certainly.

Yeah.

God, isn't it funny that we talk about this now? It seems so modern and everything at the time, but it feels like we're talking about the swinging 60s or something, not just friends.

And you're absolutely bang on. I've been doing the same recently with what would lock down. You kind of reminisce and flip. Most people these days haven't even heard of the sugar people's names.

But yeah, you're right. It's it's bizarre looking back on it. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. So I presume that kind of thing has a limited lifespan then. And yeah, there's a certain point at which a young man needs to get out of that scene and head off to Ballymaloe.

There you go. Couldn't have said it better. I needed to see the light, shall we say. Yeah. No, look, yeah, it was, it was it was in the background that was from, you know, this world loving liberal upbringing I have with my my dad, my my English mum sort of thing. So it was yeah, you're right for me, the time that came in my time to write, I'd like to think.

Yeah, yeah.

OK. And why why Ballymaloe?

Well, you know, a friend had done it about sort of four or five years ago. And when I finish in, the music industry had to sign a contract so I wouldn't go back in for a couple of years. So I was kind of twiddling my thumbs, almost trying to work out what to do. But because I'd worked in restaurants, because I was fortunate enough to know a whole bunch of people in the food scene in London, one of my friends sort of said, oh, I'm going to the parliament.

Of course, if you're into cooking, you should go there anyway long the short of it. That's how I ended up in Ireland.

Yeah, OK, I listen, I love that you have to sign a non compete form. And clearly it sounds like you were you were clearly a more valuable commodity than you're letting on. And then ultimately you stayed down in this car and kind of sat there. Did you how did that come?

Yeah, I just fell in love with the whole place and my calling to ask my wife not what my now wife, Olive Ireland is such a what for me, it's been such a beautiful place to be in terms of the nurturing spirit and the whole adventurous spirit and just the whole camaraderie that I experience to something that I wasn't finding in London anymore. Certainly towards the end of my career within the music industry, you know, the dog eat dog world, which I know exists over here, too.

But in general, that whole I just fell in love with the place and just felt so comfortable in Ireland. And I'm very, very fortunate with with progress here in Ireland. It's brilliant.

Yeah. And then you built this. His business kind of out of when you were working in Maturino, listen, Irish people in general, I would imagine we're always open to kind of robust food and spicy food and new things, are we not?

Absolutely. I started this business with kind of no money. That was the reason for coming over here to start again and to see if I could do it. And when I started on the market stalls selling like two or three sachets a week, initially people will be saying, is it strong? Is it strong? Now, first of all, I didn't quite fully understand, is it strong mint? But yeah, you're right. When it started back in 2006, six, seven, it was more about mild and introducing sort of exotic sort of flavour spices, Indian food.

But now you're absolutely right. There's been a whole over the last 10, 15 years sort of shift towards wanting to find something hotter and with more flavour. And to me, that's really encouraging. It's becoming more diverse of a palate over here in Ireland, you know.

Yeah. And listen, you've given us four really good recipes today, and we put them all up on an opportunity for Brendan, but we probably won't get through the forward. You know what you've you've basically done China, India, Mexico and Thailand. But I think we start as promised with. Yes. Your version of a spice bag. And there's a lot in it.

But can you talk us through maybe the key things that people need to know?

You're right. And in essence, what is the spice? That clip, by the way, was so cool hearing that it's a I was introduced to spice bags when I first came to Ireland version down here in Cork. I understand each region has our own version. In essence, it's it's chicken and chips. So fried chicken and chips. And because it probably has a Chinese bent originally from a Chinese restaurant, it has a Chinese seasoning, a Chinese spicing in general, but also then maybe some peppers mix through it as well.

So what I've done with my recipe is to just go a little bit, look, and you can do these things wholeheartedly or you can just take little bits from the recipe. But in essence, I've given the chicken a bit of a buttermilk bath just to sort of tenderise it. Then you sort of putting it into a spiced crumb and deep frying it, you know, just for a few matter of moments, just so you get a beautiful tender bite, then the chips you can either buy from you from your local chip shop or indeed, you know, make chips, as it would do normally.

And I've gone over the top a little bit by taking pineapple because I love pineapple and sort of savoury situations. So with pineapple grilling, that's you get a bit of a sort of a of harmonisation.

Yeah. Yeah. Friends and in other words, very good.

And Yeah. And peppers and then using the seasoning, it's a seasoned seasoning to me that is all important. So seasoning that I've created for it, I'm suggesting, you know, black pepper, coriander seeds, fennel that has that lovely sort of liquorice and Easthope type flavour and Chinese five spice, which is quite a sort of common blend you can find in most supermarkets and shops, mixing that all around with a little bit of cayenne pepper to get a nice little poke and a bit of salt.

And that's your seasoning. So once you've created your fried chicken, your peppers, your pineapple and your beautiful chips, sprinkle that seasoning over and Bob's your uncle spice back, OK?

Or maybe maybe even if you can get a paper bag at home, put it into it and shake it all around, OK? Yes. I mean, look, we're talking about this is being at Chinese cuisine. We should probably point out that I doubt anyone actually has ever heard of a spice fried. But yeah, I see no Irish or whatever you might want.

Well, it's funny you say that because I've actually just started to work with a brewery. You may have heard of St Mel's Smells Brewery. Yeah. Yeah. So we're doing something with them on for for a spice bag, working on ideas at the moment. So yeah. It's an Irish beer in Chinese dish.

Exactly. And listen, OK, we've got one minute for four chicken burritos and roast chilli salsa. Can you talk us with the recipe will go up on down forest brown.

No, just anything particular we need to know there.

We see what's quite cool. I thought with this one is that we're doing a bit of a twist on salsa. So rather than just your usual coriander, avocados and red onions, what I'm doing here is suggesting that you scorch them either in the oven or indeed just over an open flame when you get hot. So you scorching the tomatoes and the chillies and the garlic. And again, that brings that lovely contrast of bitter notes into the salsa. And then with the chicken, it's essentially a few spices that are typical of Mexico.

You're frying the chicken in that dirty, shallow frying and gently frying, or indeed, you could bake them for healthier, popping it into into a flower tortilla and then just grilling that, sort it out again, a bit of crunch. So it's a really delicious and healthy meal. Excellent.

All right, listen, Aaryn, thanks a million. And listen, sorry for sorry for dragging you through your past there. I knew you weren't expecting that, but I think people will have enjoyed our thanks a million US are in Canada. Thanks so much. Thanks.