IrelandXO Cook Club - Irish Soul Food

Irish Soda Bread

Soda bread – the staple of the people in rural Ireland especially (where yeast was hard to come by) is still a top favourite on this island today. 

Irish Soda Bread was also known as Soda Cake in some parts and was referred to as "a cake of bread" rather than a loaf.

As yeast was not so readily available, the rising agent used was bread soda (aka bicarbonate of soda or baking soda) combined with buttermilk (or any fermented sour milk). Flour and a pinch of salt are all else that's needed. (Eggs, sour cream and a little sugar were only added for festive occasions long ago). 

Baked in a bastable (pot oven) over an open turf fire, Soda Bread's distinctive feature was the shape of a cross (two insertions made with a knife so that the heat would go through). 

How Irish Soda Bread was baked over a fire ~ brought to you from Muckross Traditional Farm in Killarney Co. Kerry.

How to Make Irish Soda Bread 

INGREDIENTS:  buttermilk*, plain flour, baking soda, salt.

Can't get your hands on buttermilk?  Yoghurt (mixed with milk or water) will do a fine job as a substitute. Alternatively, fresh milk can be soured with lemon juice (grate that rind of the lemon into the mix for a decadent version!)

Can't get your hands on wholewheat flour? Unless your heart is set on brown bread, plain white flour is fine. Or a mix of both. And you don't even need to sift the flour!

METHOD

You don't need a cake tin, a flat baking tray or pan will do. No need to grease it –lightly dust the pan with flour. Job done!

Heat your oven at 180 C (prep time only takes 10 minutes).

• Add the dry ingredients (4 cups of flour, 1 tsp baking soda (bicarbonate of soda), 1 tsp salt) and whisk together
• Add the buttermilk (2 cups, one at a time as you mix).
• Flour your hands and bring the dough together in a round (add flour or more liquid as needed)
• Place the round of dough on your baking tray score the top with a sharp knife (about halfway through)
• Bake for 35-40 mins until golden brown.
• Test if the bread is cooked by knocking on the underside of the cake when you take it out. If the sound is hollow – it's cooked through.
• Cool on a cooling rack. For a softer crust wrap in a clean teatowel.
• Get the butter ready for spreading! (Add smoked salmon and a drizzle of lemon juice on top for even more oohs and ahhs!)

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Colcannon

Colcannon has been a traditional harvest meal in Ireland since the 17th century. It was customary to eat it on Ash Wednesday and especially on "Colcannon Night" (the festival we know today as Halloween). 

The potato became a staple of the Irish diet soon after Sir Walter Raleigh introduced it to Cork in the late 16th century. As newly harvested potatoes or "new potatoes" were still wet, people preferred to eat them in the form of the mash we know today. Back then, simple mashed spuds – with milk, salt and a knob of butter – was known as Colcannon (aka Poundies in Donegal). A little cold cabbage, parsley, was added in some counties. (When spring onions were added it was known in some parts as Champ). Back then colcannon was "a hearty meal" in itself. 

Everyone ate Colcannon for supper on Halloween, rich or poor. Such was its popularity that many a farm labourer would go for a feed of colcannon in lieu of payment. (Many farmers would gift a quart of milk and a pound of butter going home that night for the making of it). 

A bucket of new potatoes would be washed clean and peeled. The peeled potatoes were then put in a bucket of clean water and washed again, before being put in a pot (cauldron) of clean water over the fire. When the potatoes were boiled, they were taken off the fire and drained in a skib (shallow basket). They were then well-pounded with a beetle or pounder. New milk and salt were mixed in.  And cabbage leaves were placed across the mash to keep in the steam. The whole family would sit around the dish (placed upon the skib, in the middle of the floor), with large spoons, and each would make a small well in the mash before them, where a knob of butter would melt. They would then tuck in. People would want to see who could stay eating the longest.  [Source: duchas.ie]

On "Colcannon Night" (October 31st) a ring and a coin were added to predict the future. Finding the ring while eating the colcannon, predicted marriage within a year. The coin foretold of wealth or inheritance.  Another tradition was to peel one potato for the colcannon without breaking the skin. This they would hang up to predict who would marry the eldest girl in the house (the first man to enter the house while it was hanging!)

From the 1880s it was brought to international fame as a "Vegetarian dish".

VEGETARIAN DINNER AND MEETING – On Saturday afternoon, a public vegetable dinner, illustrative of the cheap and wholesome diet advocated by the Vegetarian Society, was provided in Altham's Cocoa Rooms ... The tables were assiduously attended to exclusively by members of the Nelson Branch, and the bill of fare comprised—lentil and tomato soup, onion and apple pie, vegetable pie, omelette, haricot beans with onion sauce, potatoes a la tomato, colcanon, mash potatoes, macaroni cheese, hominy, cagliari, hominy moulds, fruits, apples and oranges. [Burnley Express 1881]

Cabbage? Curly Kale? Anything goes!

The addition of cabbage and onion (what we call colcannon today) was a more recent development. 

While Curly Kale is considered the traditional greens for colcannon, any variety of green cabbage is acceptable, to include turnip tops!

POTATO COLCANON (Northampton 1915):   Boil some potatoes and greens separately. Spinach is the nicer green, but turnip-tops or any other variety of greenstuffs may be used. (A few spring onions boiled and chopped with the greens greatly improve the flavour of this vegetable preparation). After they are cooked, mash the potatoes. Squeeze the greens very dry, chop them fine, and mix them with the potatoes. Add a little butter and a good seasoning of pepper and salt. Pat the mixture into a well-greased mould and let stand in the oven for a few minutes to get quite hot. 

Onion? Mace? Semolina? Oh my!

Once this popular dish hit the recipe books as a "savoury accompaniment" in teh 20th century, all sorts of small additions were recommended.

COLCANON (Newcastle 1877): The colcanon was designed to show how cold vegetables may be utilised, and only cabbage and potatoes were used In the lesson. The milk soup was compounded of potatoes, onion, and milk, the two former being boiled until they could be beaten up together, a little chopped parsley and semolina added at the last. 

By the 20th Century, Colcanon was "a popular luncheon dish" in Britain. 

POTATO COLCANON (England 1909):Boil the potatoes and greens separately. Mash the potatoes. Squeeze the greens dry and chop them quite thinly; then mix them with the potatoes with a little butter, pepper and salt. Put into a mould, buttering it well first, and let it stand in a hot oven for 10 minutes.

COLCANON (Sunderland 1933):  One large cabbage, 1 pint mashed potatoes, 2oe. cheese, 2 eggs, 1oz. butter, Seasoning. Boil the cabbage (cold cabbage will do), grate the cheese, beat the eggs. Chop up the cabbage and mix with the potatoes, butter, cheese, beaten eggs and seasoning. Press the mixture into a greased mould. Steam or bake till thoroughly heated. Serve with white sauce and wholemeal bread or oatcakes.

Champ 

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Irish Potato Bread

Perfect for using up leftover potatoes and serving up as part of a traditional Irish breakfast.

Ingredients

• 225g potatoes 
• ½ tsp salt
• 25g butter
• 55g self-raising flour

Method

• If you are using leftover cooked potatoes, mash them up with the salt and butter. For raw potatoes, wash, peel and boil until tender, then drain and mash in a large baking bowl. Using the potatoes while still warm will give your bread a lighter texture.
• Use a wooden spoon to work the flour into the mashed potato until it forms a soft dough.
• Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and shape into a round, roughly 1cm thick. Use a sharp knife to cut a cross through the dough, dividing it into 4 equal wedges.
• Heat a griddle or flat, heavy-based frying pan on a medium-high heat.
• Cook the wedges on the hot, dry griddle for 4–5 minutes each side until they develop a toasty giraffe-skin print. They will be quite soft, so handle carefully.
• Allow to cool slightly on a rack then eat while butter-meltingly warm.
• Alternatively, let the potato bread cool completely then enjoy fried or toasted.

 

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Irish Boxty Bread

Boxty was a popular dish in the Northwest of Ireland. 

If Boxty was handed down in your family, the nuances of the recipe or what it was called could help you narrow down your search to a specific county (or part of Donegal, Fermanagh, Leitrim, Cavan, Sligo, Mayo, Roscommon or Longford). In the district of Tyrrelspass in Co. Westmeath Boxty Bread was known as Rasp. 

With grated raw potatoes, flour and salt as its base, it was prepared in three ways: Boxty Dumplings (boiled), Pan Boxty (fried / griddle), and Boxty Bread (baked). Mashed potatoes were included for pan and baked boxty.

Boxty Bread aka Boxty Loaf was baked in a pot oven the same way Soda Bread was. Currants, raisins, and carraway seeds were sometimes added. Prepared the night before, the boxty loaf would be cut into slices the following morning and warmed on the pan (with some lard) for breakfast. 

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Over to you...

What traditional Irish recipes were handed down or are favourites in your family?