Irish

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are from A Baker's Odyssey by Greg Patent. I am indebted to Irish food expert and cookbook author Noreen Kinney, for sharing her family's Irish soda bread recipe. This bread is meant to be eaten plain with meals, or with cheese or with butter and jam, or used to sop up gravy. According to Noreen: Strictly speaking, there is no white Irish soda bread with raisins. Traditional Irish soda bread is brown, with a coarse texture and no fruit. It can also contain seeds and flax and bran, depending on the baker's desires. That is the reason I was shocked to see the white item passed off as Irish soda bread when I arrived in the States. However, in Ireland there is a famous old bread that was very popular with the poorer people in times past, and considered quite a treat for a special occasion or on Sundays. It is still popular today. Depending on which part of the country one is in, it is known as spotted dick or spotted dog. Basically it is derived from Irish soda bread, but it uses white flour in place of the traditional flours and other ingredients that go into the true Irish soda bread. To enrich the recipe, people added raisins when they became available, and they might add a full egg beaten into the milk, plus some white sugar. So it is the old Irish spotted dick that folks here call Irish Soda Bread. Everyone who makes Irish soda bread adds her or his own personal touches to the bread. To the mixture of whole wheat flour and white flour, Noreen, on any given day, might add wheat bran, oat bran, wheat germ, oats, sunflower seeds, flaxseeds, or poppy seeds. She varies proportions and grains depending on how she wants the bread to turn out. Think of the following proportions as guidelines, and feel free to vary the grain additions according to your tastes, adding from 4 to 5 ounces total by weight for each loaf. The bread's crust is coarse and firm, while the inside is rather dense but moist. A cross indented (not cut) on top of the bread allows the bread to be easily separated into quarters. Oddly, the sunflower seeds change color during baking, flecking the bread with an emerald green. The unexpected appearance of flecks of green in the bread the first time I made it surprised me. I could tell the color came from the sunflower seeds, but why did this happen? Food chemist Shirley Corriher, author of the classic Cookwise, had the answer. "Sunflower seeds are chock-full of good-for-you things," Shirley said, and by that she meant they're loaded with antioxidants. Among these are flavonoids, which turn yellow when they come into contact with an alkali (baking soda in the recipe). Other antioxidants, anthocyanins, react by turning blue. Put blue and yellow together, and you get green. Nifty.

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are from A Year at Ballymaloe Cookery School, by Darina Allen. My brother, Rory O'Connell, introduced me to this fantastic combination, which then fired my imagination, and many experiments have followed. We have been having fun ringing the changes with this recipe. Bread and Butter Pudding is also delicious with apple and cinnamon or even mixed spices. I can't wait to try gooseberry and elderflower as soon as they come back into season. Don't cut down on the cream in this recipe and don't use too much bread.

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are from A Year at Ballymaloe Cookery School, by Darina Allen. To read more about the book, Ballymaloe, and Allen, see the related Daily Dish. We can sometimes get lovely fat pink trout about 2 years old, which have a wonderful taste — much better than the smaller ones. This is a horrendously rich-sounding sauce, but it's delicious and the flavor is sublime.

Editor's note: This recipe is adapted from chef Paul Flynn of The Tannery in Dungarvan, Ireland. Once widely eaten, game lost its popularity in Ireland in modern times, as palates became unaccustomed to its distinct flavors. But smart breeders of venison are now creating meat with a milder and more mainstream taste without losing any of the noble game's intrinsic qualities. Irish chefs are happy to pay their tribute. At The Tannery, the garlic used in this recipe is wild, gathered from nearby hedgerows. Irish butter, with its high fat content, will add a particularly rich flavor, but regular American butter can be substituted.

Editor's note: This recipe is adapted from chef Paul Flynn of The Tannery in Dungarvan, Ireland. Wild salmon, once so plentiful in Ireland that domestic servants could stipulate in their contracts that they should not have to eat it more than three times per week, has now become a luxury item on both sides of the Atlantic. However, when top-notch fish is available, this simple preparation is a great way to showcase it. The compound butter, with its use of raisins, harks back to the dried fruits popular in the Middle Ages, and the capers show the fondness of contemporary Irish cooks for Mediterranean flavors. Irish butter, with its high fat content, will add a particularly rich flavor, but regular American butter can be substituted.

Editor's Note: This recipe is adapted from chef Paul Flynn of The Tannery in Dungarvan, Ireland. In Ireland, boiled bacon and cabbage is a domestic staple. The bacon is usually a "collar" or shoulder, a moderately marbled cut with less fat than American bacon but a bit more than Canadian. The ingredients are boiled together and served with potatoes and a parsley cream sauce. Among contemporary Irish chefs, it's become popular to reinvent this hearty, homey recipe in the more rarefied form of bacon and cabbage terrine. Flynn's version, however, stays closer to dish's comforting roots, while adding a touch of elegance.

Irish stouts produce a thick head when poured, so chill the can or bottle well before measuring to reduce the foam.

Editor's note: This recipe was developed by Shane Philip Coffey, the chef at Alias restaurant on New York City's Lower East Side. This rich and luscious dessert came about because I needed a special dessert for a St. Patrick's Day tasting menu. I was on a mission to use my favorite beer, Guinness, something I consider to be one of Ireland's gifts to the world. As the 17th of March drew closer, I looked for inspiration at my favorite Irish pub in Manhattan. As I savored my pint, I saw a Guinness poster that said, "My Goodness, My Guinness!" It was like an angel sang in my ear: "What if you combined a dark chocolate pudding and Guinness, topped it with whipped cream lightly flavored with Guinness, and then put it in a glass to make it look just like a pint of the black?" After a few failed attempts, I got it just right. Make the effort to find a good dark chocolate (about 70 to 72 percent cacao). The better the chocolate, the creamier the dessert. And, unless you have an Irish pub next door where you can pull it straight from the tap, a 14.9-ounce can of Guinness Draught works best.

This sandwich includes the main components of a traditional Irish all-day breakfast — bacon, eggs, and sausage.

Be sure to use fresh spring peas for this classic side dish. Save the frozen ones for something else.

Named for a county in Ireland, this cocktail is made with Irish whisky and emerald-green herbal Chartreuse liqueur.

Apple cakes are among the most popular Irish sweets. In this version, a sour cream cake flavored with cinnamon, ginger and allspice is baked atop caramelized apples and then turned out like a tarte Tatin. Serve this with vanilla ice cream.

Here's the traditional Irish soda bread—just flour, baking soda, salt, buttermilk, and optional caraway seeds. For traditional brown soda bread, substitute whole-wheat flour for part, or all, of the all-purpose flour called for in the recipe.

Tangy Irish cheddar or Cashel, an Irish blue cheese, is ideal for this typical main-course pub salad; you can substitute English cheddar or French Roquefort. Thick slices of buttered soda bread and some raisin tarts could round out the menu.

Serve with Garlic Mashed Potatoes. You don't know where the fish ends and the potatoes begin in this beautiful and satisfying dish Chef Desmond, of Island Cottage on Hare Island in Ireland, uses turbot that comes from the waters off nearby Clear Island. We call for halibut, which is more readily available here.

Colcannon (Mashed Potatoes with Kale ) and steamed asparagus tossed with lemon juice strike the right note alongside this braised beef dish. Rhubarb pie from the bakery is our choice for dessert.

This lovely treat is usually filled with simple whipped cream and presented at teatime. Inspired by a dessert from Ballymaloe Cookery School, this one is dressed up with luscious coffee-whiskey cream and coffee-flavored meringues.