Irish Potato Bread (Farls)

It would be incorrect of me to say that this is a recipe, it isn't really, it's more of a suggestion. If you happen to have some mashed potatoes left over and you're wondering what to do with them then this is my suggestion. Why not make a traditional Irish recipe that is quick and easy to make and just happens to be absolutely delicious! 

Guinness Bread

This bread is a quick bread, no rising or kneading required. The Guinness imparts a subtle yeast flavour to the bread, making it perfect to be slathered with real butter and topped with dressed prawns, smoked salmon or a sharp mature cheese.

The Guinness, well I think it would be fair to say that Guinness is our national drink. That distinctive ebony body, the creamy top and each glass gilded with golden harp, it is synonymous with all things Irish.

Mussel and Bacon Stew

We recently received a lovely gift of mussels and crab legs, fresh from the Atlantic ocean from my brother-in-law. My children were fascinated by the mussels and my son thought the crab legs were the coolest thing ever! All this excitement lead to many questions so now having done some research, I'm passing what I learnt on to you.
Rope-grown farmed mussels are available all year, sold in supermarket chiller cabinets, ready-shelled. But wild mussels come into season when there's an "R" in the month. The most common European mussels have shiny shells and tender, juicy flesh. Fresh mussels should smell of the sea and be tightly closed, those fresh from the sea will have seaweed and barnacles attached to their shells, where as rope grown mussels will have clean shells. Some mussels will open as you wash them, if you are unsure if they are alive or dead, gently tap the shell, it should close within 20 seconds. They need to be thoroughly cleaned and eaten on the day you buy them as they are very perishable.

Serves 4

Ingredients
3kg Mussels
600g Small salad potatoes (I used peeled and cubed roosters instead)
200g Bacon, finely diced or lardons
3tbsp Butter
2 Onions, chopped
150g Carrots,peeled and finely chopped
1 Bunch spring onions, finely chopped
700ml Chicken stock
1 Bay leaf
Parsley, chopped
Seasoning

Method
Sort the mussels and discard any that are broken or open. Rinse them thoroughly in running water, this will reduce the amount of sand in your cooking pot.



Scrub the mussels under running water and pull (or cut) away beards.





Cook the potatoes in a large pan of boiling, salted water for 25 - 30 minutes or until tender.




Drain and set aside. Fry the bacon in a dry, non-stick pan until crispy. Set aside. Melt the butter in a very large saucepan and fry the onions until translucent. Add the carrots and spring onions and sweat with the lid on until just tender.





Stir in the chicken stock. Season and bring to the boil. Add the mussels to the pan, cover and cook over and high heat for 8 minutes, shaking the pan every so often, until the mussels have opened and cooked (discard any that do not open). Add the potatoes, bacon and some chopped parsley. Ladle into bowls and serve with bread to soak up the juices.

Related Reading

• BBC Food: Article by Vanessa Kendell, mussels buyers guide, preparation and recipes. 
• Irish Seafood Board: General tips, recipes and where to buy.
• Bord Bia: General information about fish and shell food.  

Rhubarb and Ginger Jam

My parents visited recently and my father proudly presented me with his own organic, freshly cut rhubarb and a recipe for Rhubarb and Ginger jam from his beloved Real Irish Cookery by Mary Caherty. So after they left I got to work and this is the result, it is really quick to make and according to my father much better value than shop bought. I have a very large saucepan that my mother-in-law gave me when we married first (perhaps she thought that I was going to be feeding a very large family!) that has come in very handy for large jobs like this, so in this case the bigger the better, as jam gets very very hot and bubbly. This is just divine Brown Soda Bread and when I'm feeling really indulgent some Easy Homemade Butter!

To sterilise jars, either put them through a cycle in your dishwasher, boil them for 5 minutes in  pan of water or place in an over preheated to 150C/ 300F/Gas 2 for 10 minutes. 

Recipe adapted from  Real Irish Cookery, Mary Caherty

Yield 5-6 x 454g Jars

Ingredients

1.4kg Rhubarb, washed and diced

1.6kg Sugar

Lemon, rind and juice

100g Crystallised ginger (1 tbsp fresh grated ginger or 1tsp ground ginger)

Method

Pour the sugar over the rhubarb and leave for one hour.

Add the crystallised ginger,fresh ginger or ground ginger, cut into slivers. (I chopped the rind and ginger very finely)

Place in preserving pan (large saucepan) with lemon juice and grated rind and bring slowly to the boil.

Boil rapidly for 10 minutes.

Test for set - pour a little onto a cold saucer (from the freezer), if the edges wrinkle slightly when tipped, the jam is ready. (This was wrinkling, I promise). If it won't wrinkle then boil for another 5 minutes and test again.

Pour into sterilised jars and seal.

Rachel Allen's Irish Beef Stew

The beautiful aromas that filled the house while this was cooking, was mouthwatering, it drew everyone to the kitchen with enquiring looks!
Rachel Allen was one of the first chef cookbooks that I bought to start me off on my culinary journey, I have always found her recipes uncomplicated and most importantly tested. Untested cook books are a bug bear of mine, because in the past I have paid good money for cookbooks, where the recipes don't work or are written incorrectly, so that you are left with unused ingredients!
This is another fine example of Rachel's expertise's in the kitchen and it is well worth the effort. I, as usual took some shortcuts, I bought lardons and ready chopped vegetables and steak, saves time and effort!

Recipe compliments of BBC Food Website

Serves 4-6

Ingredients
1½kg/3lb 5oz Stewing beef, cut into cubes
175g/6oz Streaky bacon
3 tbsp Olive oil
12 Baby onions, peeled
18 Button mushrooms, left whole
3 Carrots, cut into quarters or 12 baby carrots, scrubbed and left whole
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp Chopped thyme
2 tbsp Chopped parsley
10 Cloves of garlic, crushed and grated
425ml/15fl oz Red wine
425ml/15fl oz Chicken or beef stock

For the roux
50g/2oz Butter
50g/1¾oz Flour
Champ, to serve


Method
Brown the beef and bacon in the olive oil in a hot casserole or heavy saucepan.

I use the lid of my casserole dish to rest the beef (saves washing!)

Remove the meat and toss in the onions, mushrooms and carrots, one ingredient at a time, seasoning each time.

Place the beef back in the casserole, along with the herbs and garlic.

Cover with red wine and stock and simmer for one hour (I left it to cook for two hours) or until the meat and vegetables are cooked. To make the roux, in a separate pan melt the butter, add the flour and cook for two minutes.  When the stew is cooked, remove the meat and vegetables. Bring the remaining liquid to the boil and add one tbsp of roux. Whisk the mixture until the roux is broken up and the juices have thickened, allowing to boil. Replace the meat and vegetables, and taste for seasoning. (I sometimes thicken the stew with 1 heaped tablespoon of cornflour mixed with 1 tablespoon of cold water, pour into the stew, stir continually until it has thickened)

Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve with champ.

Minced Beef Pie

This is an old fashioned Irish recipe that I got from an 1980's cookbook that was only sold abroad, titled Traditional Irish Recipes. My father is the owner of the copy I've been using and he guards it closely, I got it on loan on condition that I return it pretty sharpish because my mother got this copy in Haiti!
It is full of old recipes like Yellowman (honeycomb) and homemade buttermilk. I decided that this recipe was the most appealing and made it, but without the stout, it was a great success here and well worth the effort. My Pyrex dish is fairly large so I could have easily fed six adults and I've made a second pie and frozen it, I think I'll defrost it and then reheat it in the oven.

Serves 4-6

Ingredients
500g - 750g Minced Beef
2tbsp Oil
1 Onion, chopped
1tbsp Tomato puree
1 ½ tbsp Plain flour
75g Mushrooms, chopped (Optional)
250ml Stout or Beef stock
Dash of Worcestershire sauce
250g - 350g Ready rolled shortcrust pastry or Step- by- step handmade shortcrust pastry.

Method
Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6. Grease and flour an ovenproof pie dish. My glass Pyrex dish is 22cm across and 4cm deep so it took all 750g of the beef to fill the dish, if your dish isn't as deep then 500g should be enough. I greased and floured the dish in order to slip the pie out of the dish to serve.
Heat the oil in a large deep frying pan over a medium heat and fry the onion until soft. Add the beef and cook for 6-7 minutes until completely browned. Stir in the tomato puree and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Stir in the flour, add the stock and a couple of dashes of Worcestershire sauce, stirring all the time. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat to cool.

Meanwhile roll out two thirds of the pastry fairly thinly and larger that your pie dish.

Gently drape the pastry over the dish and press into the edges.

Trim the edges with a sharp knife, pour the slightly cooled minced beef into the pie dish. Brush around the edges of the dish with the beaten egg.

Roll out the remaining pastry and lay on top, trim with a knife, press down firmly with a fork until the lid is sealed.

Cut a X to let out the steam, brush with the beaten egg and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown.

Traditional Irish Soda Farls

I was scanning through my tweets while relaxing in front of a roaring fire in the sitting room, when I came across this tweet.

@KatieBe_NC .@IrishFoodies Looking for type of flat Irish bread made on top of stove in cast-iron skillet. Can any foodies help?

That's how it all started, an innocent plea for help from Katie Bension from North Carolina over the days of Christmas. What was this bread she was talking about, her father remembered his mother making it and he called it "Pan Bread", it was cooked on top of a cooker in a skillet (frying pan). I offered my Potato Bread recipe, but pan bread was thicker so I offered an alternative, my Brown Soda Bread recipe but it is cooked in a oven, so no use. More information was needed, Katie offered this, her grandmother was from Monaghan originally, well it did help because my husband is also from Monaghan so the riddle was solved. It was griddle bread also known as soda farls. My parents then explained that they too remembered their mother's making it and that it was a white soda bread recipe that was cooked in a shallow 3 legged covered pot over an open fire. My father remembers his mother placing hot coals on the lid to cook both top and bottom at the same time. Unfortunately Granny Heffernan's 3 legged pot finished out it's days feeding chickens in the chicken coop. I found this recipe on an Northern Ireland recipe website and this is their history of the elusive bread.

Soda Farls, in Northern Ireland, are likely to be eaten as part of an Ulster Fry. They are usually fried and mixed with potato bread, sausages, bacon, eggs, black pudding and tomatoes when eaten as part of this breakfast favourite. When making the Soda Farls, the dough is rolled out and flattened into a circle about eight inches in diameter and cut into four pieces (farls) as if slicing a cake. They are called farls because this is the term given to a triangular piece of baking. After the soda bread dough is cut into farls, it is usually baked in a dry frying pan or on a griddle. Traditionally this was the quickest and easiest way to make a light snack for unexpected friends and family who dropped in for a bit of craic (good fun). You can also eat them fresh with butter and jam. They are washed down well with a good mug of tea. The recipe, below, for farls can also be used to make soda bread or cake as well, which is more commonly eaten in Southern Ireland.

Makes: 4 Soda Farls

Ingredients
450g Plain flour (All-Purpose flour)
1 teaspoon Sugar
1 teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon Bicarbonate of soda
300-320ml Buttermilk

Method
‬Preheat heavy based flat griddle, skillet or frying pan on medium to low heat. ‬Place the flour and salt in a large mixing bowl and sprinkle in baking soda. Make a well shape in the centre, and pour in enough buttermilk to bring the dough together.

Quickly mix the dough together and knead very lightly on a well floured bench.



Make into a flattened circle, about 1/2 inch thick and cut into quarters (farls) with a floured knife.



‬Sprinkle some flour over the base of the hot pan and cook the farls for 6 to 8 minutes on each side or until golden brown. If you undercook they will be soggy.

Very tasty with real butter and jam.

Irish Potato Bread

I always have left over mash and this is a quick way to use it up. These potato cakes are also known as potato scones and are best served with a greasy fry or with the more modest poached egg. Just perfect for hungry children and grown ups after school!

Makes 8

Ingredients
450g Potatoes, cold
100g Self-raising flour
50g Butter, softened
½ tsp Salt

Method
Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl into a stiff mixture.





Knead lightly on a floured surface.



Roll out into a 22cm circle and cut into 8 triangles.







Heat a large frying pan on a high heat, lightly greased and cook each potato cake each side for 3-4 minutes.



Serve immediately.

Irish Brown Soda Bread

I found this recipe in an old cook book and I've been using it ever since. It contains buttermilk which is available beside the milk in the larger supermarkets. I get three loaves per carton of buttermilk so I freeze the remaining two loaves. If you're baking and washing up you might as well get three loaves for your trouble!

Makes 1 loaf

Ingredients

200g Plain flour
200g Plain wholemeal flour
50g rolled oats
2tsp bicarbonate of soda
1tsp salt
300mls buttermilk
Extra flour for sprinkling
                             
Method
Preheat oven to 200C/ 350F or Gas Mark 5. Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl. Flour your work surface and tip the wet sticky dough out.

Place the dough into a oiled and floured 1lb tin and slash with a knife or if you don't have a loaf tin, with floured hands shape the dough into a round and use the handle of your wooden spoon to make a deep cross. Transfer to a floured baking sheet and bake for 35-40 minutes or until risen and golden.

Your brown bread should make a hollow sound when tapped underneath and most importantly wrap the bread in a clean tea towel and cool upside down (it's much easier to slice it later if you let it cool like this).

Beautiful served with Homemade Butter and Rhubarb and Ginger Jam.

Recipe Tip: For non ROI readers Saint Ivel Cultured Buttermilk 284ml is available at www.tesco.co.uk for less than 60p. If needed top up the St. Ivel with full fat milk. Alternatively mix half plain yogurt with half full fat milk. I usually make two loaves at a time and freeze one.