Almost forgotten Great Irish dishes

Euskadi

Hello All,
I've just finihed an absolutely delicious typical Dublin coddle from a recipe my granny gave me over 20 years ago,it tasted great. There really are some great traditional irish dishes out there,when I say traditional I MEAN traditional and not something new with a "traditonal irish" tag assigned to it which is the case on countless restaurant menus.
Another one that comes to mind is tripe boiled in milk with onions,like coddle it doesn't look like much,but its delicious and what about crubeens,or boiled pigs feet as they are to us Dubs

any more?,well,lets wait and see

Thanks for listening.

Kimia

Bacon and cabbage!

the beer revolu

Proper Irish Stew.

And by proper, I mean:

Lamb or, preferably mutton.
It should be almost clear and unthickened.
It should have onions, carrots and potatoes.
Flavoured with thyme, salt and pepper.

I deviate from this by:
I often add celery, leek, turnip, pearl barley.
A little lovage is really good in it to.
I recently did one with a light golden ale - twas fantastic, if not proper!:eek:
I sometimes very slightly brown the meat giving a golden broth rather than clear.
I like to serve it with flat leaf parsley.

Let the debate begin.

Dinkie

Bacon stew - similar to above but with bacon (and no thyme). And potatoes are put into the stew to cook as it naturally thickens the gravy (my gran used to make it!)

Potato cakes

The Sweeper

Soda bread e.g. the round loaf with the cross cut in the top:

280g white flour
280g wholemeal flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
A handful of porridge oats
One egg
About 400mls buttermilk

Mix all of the dry ingredients (flours, oats, salt and bicarb) and make a well in the centre. Whisk the egg into about 300mls of buttermilk and start to add slowly to the mixture, stirring to incorporate. Continue to add buttermilk until you have a dough that you can pick up and shape without it being too dry or too sticky. Don't overwork it too much. You'll almost certainly need more moisture than 300mls plus the egg, hence 400mls in the recipe, but you may find you need more again, or a little less. It will depend on your flour.

Shape into a round and cut a deep cross in the top.

Pre-heat your oven as high as it will go, and slide the bread onto a baking tray, then cook for 15 minutes on the highest temperature, followed by about 30-40 minutes on 180 degrees centigrade. I actually do mine on a pizza stone in a non-fan oven, comes out very well.

You'll get variations in the result depending on your flour and how much moisture you need to use; the egg adds a richness but it can be left out and simply use buttermilk. The buttermilk reacts with the soda to create a raising agent.

Minder

We call that soda bread, but I remember a white loaf - same shape with a cross cut in the top, made with white flour and old fashioned buttermilk. The crumb was anything from white to butter yellow. That was called soda bread. The wholemeal version was brown bread or brown soda bread.

This is a Gaelteacht memory, so a bit hazy....

the beer revolu

Or the strange things we used to call some things.

For instance we always called brown soda bread 'brown cake'.

And we always, and still do, call what is essentially an apple pie 'apple tart'.
(a tart should have no top crust but these 'apple tarts' do have a top crust).

Black Dog

Please, don't make me feel so old. Soda bread, brown bread are still made in my house, regularly by myself and other times by my wife. Likewise, scones are still home made.

Some oldies now rarely now seen: stuffed heart - cow's heart with a breadcrumb/onion/sage stuffing.

Fried liver is now rarely seen. Likewise with kidneys, something I never liked.

Kid - always a spare kid when the goat had young and it was a delicious meal. I read in a weekend paper that it is now becoming a fashionable health food again - less calories than chicken, less fat, less polyunsaturates etc etc.

Goose is less common but was regular when I was a child.

Boiled chicken - now, there's one for you. An old hen, gone beyond her laying days, was consigned to the pot. Because of her old age she would be too tough to roast so a slow boil or used in a stew was the only way.

Crubeens (pig's feet): still seen occasionally but not as often as before.

Half head: a half pig's head, slowly boiled - add boiled potatoes and cabbage.

Rabbit: a regular when I was a child - catch your own, cheap!

Tripe, as mentioned above, and cod cooked in a similar way - simmered in milk with onions.

My wife mentions a Waterford regular: skirt and loin bones: basically an offal stew. She can still identify the smell when passing some houses here in Waterford. It certainly is not appetising.

dh0661

Kimia wrote: »

Bacon and cabbage!

Corned beef & cabbage - My Dad's from Cork originally and it's his specialty any time he has to cook dinner.

Mellor

Coddle, Bacon and cabbage, corned beef, soda bread, and stew ffs, all irish but they are hardly almost forgotten, i'd say they are some of the most popular

The Hill Billy

Black Dog - Sounds like you ate the same as me as a kid.

My school pals used to think that my family were crazy eating boiling fowl, coddle, stuffed ox heart, oxtail stew, fried kidneys, ox tongue, ox cheeks, trotters and liver, bacon & stuffing casserole. Thanks to coming from generations of cattlemen & butchers I have a great appreciation & love of the flesh from all parts of the beast.

Another favourite dish of mine is a variation on Irish Stew, but made with mutton knuckles. I find that the bones & cartilage give a 'bigger' flavour than in traditional Irish Stew.

foodaholic

As a child we used to have these dishes regulary:

Rabbit stew
Roast Stuffed cows heart
Coddle
Stew
liver and onions
Bacon ribs and cabbage

we never had tripe though

jpb1974

The Shnack Box - 3 pieces of Southern Fried Chicken & Chips

The Pink Shack

The Yella Shack

Little Alex

Euskadi wrote: »

Hello All,
I've just finihed an absolutely delicious typical Dublin coddle from a recipe my granny gave me over 20 years ago,it tasted great.

Sounds interesting. Oddly enough I'm from Dublin but have never had coddle. Any chance of sharing the recipe?

jpb1974 wrote: »

The Pink Shnack

The Yella Shnack

You forgot De Purpil Shnack. Sounds like that episode of Anonymous.

Sparks

Black Dog wrote: »

Boiled chicken - now, there's one for you. An old hen, gone beyond her laying days, was consigned to the pot. Because of her old age she would be too tough to roast so a slow boil or used in a stew was the only way.

That's why I hate traditional Irish cooking. Same ingredients here as in France, but here we boil the chicken until you've got a soup (at best - far more likely to be flavourless wet chicken meat); there you get coq au vin. And it's endemic to traditional Irish cooking - even the phrase reflects it, it's never "traditional Irish cuisine" - at best it's "cooking". And the reason you don't hear much about Irish cuisine is probably that we don't have one.

What do we have?

Bacon and cabbage (must be boiled to within spitting distance of soup, and if the house doesn't stink to high heaven as you serve, you didn't cook it right).

Irish stew (fantastic if you cook it differently to the standard recipe and add things that aren't in the standard recipe, and well, basically cook a different dish entirely).

Boxty (actually not bad if you ignore the traditional version and ... again, cook a different dish entirely).

Bacon. Well, we do cut the rashers from the right part of the pig at least (crazy americans), but it's hardly cuisine.

And about pork - if it's anything other than rashers, it must be cooked until it's as white as paper, and tougher than shoe leather, "just in case". No-one's quite sure of what we're worried about, exactly, but we're overcooking pork until it's a building material to avoid it.

Colcannon. Well, actually, that's not Irish so much as Northern Irish and Scottish, and ironically, it's pretty much okay no matter where you eat it. Same for leek and potato soup and quite a few other dishes.

And that's basically it. Everything else is borrowed or stolen from abroad and badly cooked. The stuff I was raised on was appalling. I won't let it be cooked in my kitchen anymore in fact. Spag bol - or more accurately, the Irish version of spag bol (which is the bol surrounded by mashed potatoes in a ring); chicken breasts + sauce from a jar + mashed potatoes; lasagne (very italian because it had a whole pinch of oregano in it for about six pounds of mince); apple pie (which put me off apples until I learnt to make the dish properly in my 20s); the "hang sanwich and cupatae" (and the tea! Always over-sweetened tea made from the sweepings from the floor of the factory after a run of packing proper tea for people who actually know what infusion is); and chips. I think we eat more chips than the scottish, but they're only behind because they eat fish with their chips and Ireland, an island nation, basically eats no fish at all. Or shellfish. Or indeed any meat other than steak or chicken. So we eat more chips to make up the volume.

We *do* have nice soda bread though, that's very true. And *modern* Irish chefs are making nice things. But that's not cuisine, that's a few modern Irish chefs doing nice things they've learnt abroad.

kylith

Sparks wrote: »

That's why I hate traditional Irish cooking. Same ingredients here as in France, but here we boil the chicken until you've got a soup (at best - far more likely to be flavourless wet chicken meat); there you get coq au vin. And it's endemic to traditional Irish cooking - even the phrase reflects it, it's never "traditional Irish cuisine" - at best it's "cooking". And the reason you don't hear much about Irish cuisine is probably that we don't have one.

What do we have?

Bacon and cabbage (must be boiled to within spitting distance of soup, and if the house doesn't stink to high heaven as you serve, you didn't cook it right).

Irish stew (fantastic if you cook it differently to the standard recipe and add things that aren't in the standard recipe, and well, basically cook a different dish entirely).

Boxty (actually not bad if you ignore the traditional version and ... again, cook a different dish entirely).

Bacon. Well, we do cut the rashers from the right part of the pig at least (crazy americans), but it's hardly cuisine.

And about pork - if it's anything other than rashers, it must be cooked until it's as white as paper, and tougher than shoe leather, "just in case". No-one's quite sure of what we're worried about, exactly, but we're overcooking pork until it's a building material to avoid it.

Colcannon. Well, actually, that's not Irish so much as Northern Irish and Scottish, and ironically, it's pretty much okay no matter where you eat it. Same for leek and potato soup and quite a few other dishes.
We *do* have nice soda bread though, that's very true. And *modern* Irish chefs are making nice things. But that's not cuisine, that's a few modern Irish chefs doing nice things they've learnt abroad.

Reminds me of a Denis Leary sketch where he said that he saw a cookbook called Irish Cuisine and he laughed his balls off ("We take everything and boil the s**t out of it for four and a half hours until you can drink it through a straw. It's not cuisine, it's penance").

My Nanny's friend mentioned that her husband was suffering from pains in his stomach. Nanny declared that she was feeding him undercooked cabbage and recommended that she boil the cabbage for at least half an hour. I shudder to think what she'd say of my habit of eating steamed cabbage. Mind you, her brown bread was a wonder to behold.

I wonder sometimes is our lack of cuisine a hangover for not having any fecking food for years. It's hard to come up with interesting things to do with chicken or beef when all you can afford to eat is potatoes.

Sparks

kylith wrote: »

Reminds me of a Denis Leary sketch where he said that he saw a cookbook called Irish Cuisine and he laughed his balls off ("We take everything and boil the s**t out of it for four and a half hours until you can drink it through a straw. It's not cuisine, it's penance").

+1

I wonder sometimes is our lack of cuisine a hangover for not having any fecking food for years. It's hard to come up with interesting things to do with chicken or beef when all you can afford to eat is potatoes.

Pfft. What about rabbit? All over the place here for the last few hundred years, and up until the end of the first world war, it was eaten by everyone else in the US and Europe in the same quantities that we eat chicken breast meat today.

And there's a lot of fish and shellfish out there that we just don't bother to eat, except in one or two places - there's just no tradition of eating it in Ireland for some reason. Which is damn odd for an island nation.

And given that the bulk of what we eat today at home is made up from the four "mainstream meats" (chicken, beef, lamb, pork), you'd think we'd learn to at least cook them right. Why the hell do most Irish home cooks think that "well done" means "you cooked that correctly"? I was at college before I learnt that pork is actually still softer than styrofoam when cooked, that beef was tastier when pink ("what's medium rare?" is not a question you should leave your kids to ask in a restaurant ffs), that chicken isn't unsafe if it's still juicy; not to mention that there are other things you can eat like duck and goose and tuna and sea bass and sole and halibut and prawns (okay, I don't like them, but at least I know they exist now) and lobster and ....

Well, you get the idea. Truth is, as a nation, we suck at cooking food once you get outside the few who do it professionally or as a hobby. How the hell that's possible when we had an entire generation where home economics was a de facto mandatory subject for half the population, I don't know.

Minder

Sparks wrote: »

Same ingredients here as in France, but here we boil the chicken until you've got a soup (at best - far more likely to be flavourless wet chicken meat); there you get coq au vin.

Coq-au-Porter is disgusting..... trust me.:D

mathepac

Sparks wrote: »

That's why I hate traditional Irish cooking...

You were obviously badly traumatised early in life by your Mammy's / Grannies' lousy cooking as detailed above, which is sad but thankfully not representative of everyone elses experience.

While my early epicurian experiences were based around the ingredients you mention above, their preparation and the resultant meals were at the other end of the spectrum to what you describe. Maybe I was just lucky in that my mother, my aunts (in general ) and both my grandmothers were gifted cooks, bakers and confectioners. I mention the ladies in the family in the context of food preparation because that was the way things were done back then; many of us men proved adept with roasting dish or cake-tin later, butb as a kid the women shone.

So you had lousy cooks in your family and poor food experiences as a kid - get over it, it hasn't proven fatal.

Sparks wrote: »

... And it's endemic to traditional Irish cooking - even the phrase reflects it, it's never "traditional Irish cuisine" - at best it's "cooking". And the reason you don't hear much about Irish cuisine is probably that we don't have one...

I'm not sure why anyone would want to use a French word to decribe our traditional cooking. Unless someone is very much up themselves, there is rarely any need to use French words when there are Irish or heavens above, even English words to describe the same thing. (cuisine = cooking, food preparation, kitchen, culinary practice, culinary art, etc. - it's all the same thing really, unless you want to move into the realms of haute or grande cuisine, which is not the preserve of mere mortals such as me).

WhodahWoodah

Haha whenever I cook a roast for my parents I have to cut the joint in half and put their half in the oven at least an hour before the rest goes in! They're so worried about food poisoning. And if my mum does a roast there's no way in a blindfold test you could distinguish between beef, lamb and pork! That's an accomplishment! So what I do usually is minimise the meat on my plate and instead fill up on her killer roast potatoes and yummy Yorkshire puds! I know those are more English than Irish, but then so is my mum!

Sparks

mathepac wrote: »

You were obviously badly traumatised early in life by your Mammy's / Grannies' lousy cooking as detailed above

True, but it's not as easy as "your mammy can't cook, so your point is worthless". Alas.

I'm not sure why anyone would want to use a French word to decribe our traditional cooking.

Because everyone uses French words to describe all cooking, because the French basicly own cooking, having invented about a third to a half of modern cooking.

there is rarely any need to use French words when there are Irish or heavens above, even English words to describe the same thing

Wait. Seriously. Just a little bit. I just need you to wait long enough for me to get the camcorder before you say that to a professional chef of any calibre (and I don't just mean Michelin star level, I mean everything above Little Chef).

Nevyn

Bubble and squeak and beef and guiness pie.

Little Alex wrote: »

Sounds interesting. Oddly enough I'm from Dublin but have never had coddle. Any chance of sharing the recipe?

1lb of good sausages
1lb of bacon pieces.
1 large white onion
2 bay leaves
3 whole peppercorns
Bundle of rosemary and thyme
3 large carrots
8 large potatoes
1 heap tbls of cornflour to thicken
Water
optional a Hand full of soupmix (the barely lentils mix.)

You need a large heavy pot cos it's all going to go in.

Start by sautéing finely chopped the onion in a bit of butter then add in the bacon, before it browns half fill the pot with water which you've let come to the boil. Then add in the herbs and carrots (peeled and sliced into rounds) and two of the potatoes which have been cubed. As it comes to simmer then add in the sausages and soup mix if your adding it. When it starts to bubble add in the rest of the potatoes which have been peeled and quartered and then top the pot off with water. Leave to simmer until the sausages are cooked and the large potatoes can be peicered with a knife. Take out the bay leaves and the bundle of herbs, add the cornflower to thicken.

This can be left to go cold and reheated by adding more water or left to simmer and more water added if you get delayed. Serve in a deep bowl dish with some brown bread.

WhodahWoodah

WOW I had never heard of coddle before I saw this thread but fecking hell it sounds yum! Sausage and rasher stew sort of from what I can gather unless the bacon bits are supposed to be from bacon and cabbage type bacon, also sounds yum! Might have to give it a go. Can someone tell me which type of bacon to use so I can get to the good coddle on the first go?

Nevyn

Ask any butcher for bacon pieces for coddle and they will sort you out.

WhodahWoodah

Thanks Thaedydal but still is it rasher bits or boiling bacon bits or some sort of other bacon entirely??

Nevyn

Cubed chunks the same size roughly as stewing beef.
Make sure it's bacon and not ham.

WhodahWoodah

Cool. I'm going to try it the day after tomorrow. Will post whether or not it lived up to my expectations! Actually, I'm just thinking maybe I should invite my parents over. It should be right up their street!

brownacid

You can use normal rashers in it either, just get thick ones for more of a bite, the auld dear puts in barley aswell, leaves out the bayleafs and the corn flour, occasionally a bit of gammon gets thrown in aswell.


It tastes better the next day reheated as does stew.



I've also heard of some people putting a bit of chicken in the coddle too, I haven't tried it but I'd be a bit sketchy about it.

Little Alex

Thanks for that, Thaedydal.

Just one thing... what sort of colour is it? It sounds like it would be quite pale, no?

mathepac

Sparks wrote: »

... Because everyone uses French words to describe all cooking, because the French basicly own cooking, having invented about a third to a half of modern cooking. ...

I know a number of Italian, Chinese, and Indian people, cooks and consumers alike, who have no need to resort to words outside their own languages to descibe the dishes they prepare, the ingredients or the methods they use. Their food does not seem to have suffered any adverse consequences from this lack of 'Frenchification'. I'm also fairly sure the French did not create the likes of the tandoor or the wok or the dishes that come from them, for example

Escoffier & Co might have done much for codifying and standardising training and preparation methods and organising commercial kitchens, but I'm not sure his influence ever stretched into kitchens that prepared any of the 'Almost forgotten Great Irish dishes' of the thread title and I'm certain it would not have been appropriate.

Sparks wrote: »

... Wait. Seriously. Just a little bit. I just need you to wait long enough for me to get the camcorder before you say that to a professional chef of any calibre (and I don't just mean Michelin star level, I mean everything above Little Chef).

I wasn't aware that the thread was solely for the odd professional chef (that's a French word too BTW) in our midst; had I known I wouldn't have contributed. I thought the thread topic was 'Almost forgotten Great Irish dishes' as prepared in ordinary kitchens in ordinary homes up and down the country, but there you go I live and learn.

Given your unfortunate and traumatising food experiences as a child, I take it you won't be contributing any recipes for 'Almost forgotten Great Irish dishes'; I'll try to help by digging out a couple over the next few days and posting them here.

Mellor

Little Alex wrote: »

Sounds interesting. Oddly enough I'm from Dublin but have never had coddle. Any chance of sharing the recipe?

I'd hazard a guess that even though you are from dublin, your parents or family might not be. I ate coddle all the time, but few of my friends did (whose parents were all from outside dublin originally)

mathepac wrote: »

there is rarely any need to use French words when there are Irish or heavens above, even English words to describe the same thing. (cuisine = cooking, food preparation, kitchen, culinary practice, culinary art, etc. - it's all the same thing really, unless you want to move into the realms of haute or grande cuisine, which is not the preserve of mere mortals such as me).

I'm sorry but this is nonsense.
food and cooking aside, english developed from other languages, including french and a number of english words are either based on french words or directly taken over.

Just because its a cooking term its suddenly a bad thing because the french think they are better at it. FFS
I suppose we should only say cul-de-sac if we are driving a peugeot or renault. :rolleyes:

mathepac wrote: »

I know a number of Italian, Chinese, and Indian people, cooks and consumers alike, who have no need to resort to words outside their own languages to descibe the dishes they prepare, the ingredients or the methods they use. Their food does not seem to have suffered any adverse consequences from this lack of 'Frenchification'. I'm also fairly sure the French did not create the likes of the tandoor or the wok or the dishes that come from them, for example[/B]

Maybe because cuisine is an english word, not an italian, chinese word etc etc

If you use a wok at home, is it suddenly a roundy frying pan?



On the other hand, i agree with you on Sparks' childhood trauma with food. Most of what he describes is alien to me and my house (i am a bit younger so that might have an effect)


Are you originally from dublin Sparks? I find the way you describe food typical of central ireland, when I was in collage, all my friends were bacon and cabbage men and they all over cooked everything.
Same for the fish, you said we (the irish) don't eat much fish. I'd disagree, seafood was always a big part of irish "cuisine" ( ) for may years, but obviously it was only in certain areas that had access to ports and the sea, Galway and Dublin would be perfect examples of this.
Galway Bay Oysters
Dublin Bay Prawns.
It makes perfect sense, that people living in central ireland wouldn't eat a lot of fish out of availability. So when these people or thier families moved to dublin, it also makes sense that they stick with the bacon and cabbage diet.

The Sweeper

My mother cooks bacon and cabbage.

She takes a piece of brined bacon and boils it, then boils a shredded york cabbage in the bacon water. Each leaf of cabbage destalked and stacked, then rolled before the strips are cut off it - it goes into the bacon water and is cooked for about five minutes. It still has a crunch to it.

She then boils floury potatoes and mashes them with real butter and a splash of cream. She makes a white sauce and adds fresh chopped parsley. The bacon is served in slices, with just-crunchy cabbage spiced with black pepper, plus spoons of creamy mash and a pouring over of fresh parsley sauce.

There is absolutely nothing whatsoever, at all, in any way, remotely unappetizing, inelegant or in any way wrong with that meal.

CJhaughey

Mellor wrote: »

Same for the fish, you said we (the irish) don't eat much fish. I'd disagree, seafood was always a big part of irish "cuisine" ( ) for may years, but obviously it was only in certain areas that had access to ports and the sea, Galway and Dublin would be perfect examples of this.
Galway Bay Oysters
Dublin Bay Prawns.
It makes perfect sense, that people living in central ireland wouldn't eat a lot of fish out of availability. So when these people or thier families moved to dublin, it also makes sense that they stick with the bacon and cabbage diet.

I respectfully disagree, the Irish eat very very little seafood given that we are an Island nation.
I was told by people that Mullet will poison you, same for mackerel. That fish would be the first to poison you.
All manner of old wives tales about fish and seafood in general.
There is no real traditional dishes involving seafood, either which is very strange. Can you think of many traditional Irish cooked seafoods?
Apart from Coddle which traditionally used Cod roe as part of the ingredient list.
Dublin Bay prawns are a relatively recent phenomenon, with Prawns and Monkfish being discarded up to 30 years ago.
Skate in Dublin would be traditional but given the Irish Sea is largely suitable for the catching of Ray species then it is not surprising.
Even these days finding a good seafood restaurant is not easy, even good fish and chips is hard to find.
It is changing but slowly.

Sparks

Mellor wrote: »

Are you originally from dublin Sparks? I find the way you describe food typical of central ireland, when I was in collage, all my friends were bacon and cabbage men and they all over cooked everything.
Same for the fish, you said we (the irish) don't eat much fish. I'd disagree, seafood was always a big part of irish "cuisine" ( ) for may years, but obviously it was only in certain areas that had access to ports and the sea, Galway and Dublin would be perfect examples of this.
Galway Bay Oysters
Dublin Bay Prawns.
It makes perfect sense, that people living in central ireland wouldn't eat a lot of fish out of availability. So when these people or thier families moved to dublin, it also makes sense that they stick with the bacon and cabbage diet.

It's a nice theory; but I'm from Tralee originally, only a stone's throw from the water and the focal point for anyone coming from any of the small local ports like Fenit; and it wasn't just my mother's cooking I ate growing up, and all of it matched the descriptions I gave, it wasn't just that my mother was extraordinarily bad at cooking.

Nevyn

Little Alex wrote: »

Thanks for that, Thaedydal.

Just one thing... what sort of colour is it? It sounds like it would be quite pale, no?

Yes it's a creamy colour with the 'soup' looking like onion soup.

Nevyn

CJhaughey wrote: »

I respectfully disagree, the Irish eat very very little seafood given that we are an Island nation.
I was told by people that Mullet will poison you, same for mackerel. That fish would be the first to give you poison you.
All manner of old wives tales about fish and seafood in general.

Because only poor people ate fish, given the pasture land and the reverence for the cow in Ireland as the standard unit of value (brehon law speaks of people being worth 3 cows or having to pay a fine of good to the value of half a cow) was a cow, only the islanders who couldn't rear or keep cows or pigs due to space or the poorest of the poor ate fish regularly.

And then there was the catholic prohibition on eating meat on Wednesdays and Fridays and all manner of holy days so that eating fish became a punishment and not something you enjoyed or did willing when you didn't have to.

It's changing slowly but surely but it will take a long time, I reckon.

CJhaughey

Thaedydal wrote: »

It's changing slowly but surely but it will take a long time, I reckon.

Yup the new generation that have enjoyed the delights of fresh seafood cooked well, will be the driving force.
It amazes me that we don't treasure our seafood more.
We have lovely fresh Albacore tuna now, caught by Irish boats around Ireland.
But people don't know and still opt for tinned skipjack, incredible.

farmerval

In our rural household, meat was more for substance than fancy, apart from the occasional treat like a leg of lamb. But for visitors or occasions fancy cakes etc were mor ethe norm. In those days people rarely if ever cane for dinner, dinner being in the middle of the day, they came for tea, which was invariably cold meat, salad etc followed by home baked cakes etc.

Sparks

CJhaughey wrote: »

It amazes me that we don't treasure our seafood more.
We have lovely fresh Albacore tuna now, caught by Irish boats around Ireland.
But people don't know and still opt for tinned skipjack, incredible.

Can't find anywhere locally to buy it - and can't shake the notion that you have to be able to trust your fishmonger (which is a bit hard in a nation where fish hasn't been well treated for the last few centuries). Wouldn't mind getting some though - nothing quite as nice as seared tuna loin and sesame seeds...



Only downside is that you really do need a BBQ grill for that one

Nevyn

There are very few fish mongers and the van and stall at the side of the road on a friday never inspired much confidence tbh. There are some but generally it's too far to travel and due to the lack of demand more costly then it should rightly be given we are an Island nation so most people are left looking at the 4 foot counter wedges in beside the butchers counter in the supermarket and that rarely inspires any one.

Which is daft considering how easy fish is to cook, esp in a tin foil packet with some herbs, a bit of butter and maybe a squeeze of a lemon in the oven for a short ammount of time.

john hanrahan

its up to chefs to create the cuisine, our ingredients are very good
we don't appreciate our ingredients here, i am just back from france where the food varies from stunning to horrendous.

but in france they celebrate the quality of there cuisine , on the 'route de fromage' i ate celebrated cheese but i would find better in cork or clare, yet we don't make enough of what we have.

the ingredients are there its up the chefs to create the cuisine and for it to be supported by customers who want better food.

food in ireland is or has been about sustenance not enjoyment

Sparks

Thaedydal wrote: »

There are very few fish mongers and the van and stall at the side of the road on a friday never inspired much confidence tbh. There are some but generally it's too far to travel and due to the lack of demand more costly then it should rightly be given we are an Island nation so most people are left looking at the 4 foot counter wedges in beside the butchers counter in the supermarket and that rarely inspires any one.

Too damn true

mathepac

Mellor wrote: »

... cuisine is an english word ...

Ah well, "C'est la vie" as they say beyond in Tuamgreaney.

These recipes are for scones, pronounced to rhyme with bones. If you want recipes for scones that rhyme with another word, sorry, these ain't it .

White Scone Version

Pre-heat your oven to 220 deg C (temperature and time work with my smallish fan-oven, but you may need to experiment with your own for optimum results)

Dry Ingredients
225 grams of white, self-raising flour
2 tablespoons of white sugar
tiny pinch of salt

Wet Ingredients
1 beaten egg
3 tablespoons of fresh whole milk
50 grams of margerine cut into small cubes

Method
Mix flour and salt in a large mixing bowl, then rub the margerine pieces into the flour, adding the sugar after the last of the margerine is mixed in.

Add the beaten egg gradually, mixing all the time, followed by the milk, again mixing constantly.

This mixing should produce a soft dough, to be kneaded quickly on a lightly floured table / board.

Roll out the dough until it is 1.5cm thick and cut into 5cm circles using a dough-cutter or a small cup / glass

Put the scones on a lightly greased baking tray and bake for 12-15 mins. Remove from the oven and let the scones cool on the tray before finally cooling them on a wire rack / trivet.

IME, these are best eaten cold with butter and jam / cream and jam. I've tried serving them hot but annoyingly they crumble too easily.

This little beauties have excellent green credentials; as the cooking time is so short, prepare them in advance and pop them in the oven after your casserole / roast has finished.


Brown Scone Version

Pre-heat your oven to 230 deg C (temperature and time work with my smallish fan-oven, but you may need to experiment with your own for optimum results)

Dry Ingredients
125 grams of plain flour
125 grams of wholemeal flour
0.75 teaspoon of bread soda
1 dessertspoon of white sugar
tiny pinch of salt

Wet Ingredients
115 mls of buttermilk

Method
Mix dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl, then add the buttermilk, mixing constantly.

Knead the dough to an elastic consistency on a lightly floured table / board.

Roll out the dough until it is 1 cm thick and cut into 5cm circles using a dough-cutter or a small cup / glass

Put the scones on a lightly greased baking tray and bake for 15 - 17 mins.

IME, these are best eaten warm with butter. Unlike the white scones, they tend not to crumble (coarser flours, buttermilk, no fat??)

Mellor

CJhaughey wrote: »

There is no real traditional dishes involving seafood, either which is very strange. .

There are, put they are typically "Irish", and not only found here. But the first two I thought of was Fish pie and Cockles and Mussels.

At the end of it all, i can't really comment or know how much fish other ate or are eating. I was roughly a once a week thing in my house. The strange part:

As a child, I loved going fishing (and eating our catch) with my Dad and Uncle, a small trout can feed a family in the eyes of a child.

When I was a teen, I wasn't crazy on fish (except batter smoked cod obviously), never tasted prawns until I was 21.

Since I've move halfway around the world, I'm buying fish every week, and coming up with all sorts. Tonight is prawns with garlic and herbs, tossed with lettuce and mandarin served with a cottage cheese dip. Defo not Irish.


So, back on track and more recipes please

Nevyn

Little Alex wrote: »

Something inside me desperately wants to fry the sausages beforehand to brown them up a bit...

My mam is actually from (County) Dublin. I must ask her how come it was never made.

Blasphemy!
I remember a disparaging remark about one of the neighbours from my granny which had all her cronies shaking their heads and tutting and it was.
"That one, she frys the sausages for the coddle.". She was a Mayo woman who lived off Dorest street when she first moved to Dublin.

Where as my other grandmother my Nana would never cook coddle, her was brought up in Irishtown by the sea and never cooked "tenement dishes".

Coddle is a inner city Dublin dish, would have been a staple around the docks and tenements and the red light district.

Coddle can be kept as a perpetual pot as long as the water is added the next day and more meat/veg added to the basic stock, it was something which could be taken off the heat and put back on with out spoiling, made the morning for later at night or made the night before.

So on certain streets in Dublin there would always be a pot of coddle on the go.

thirtythirty

LoL the "Irish cuisine" people keep talking about.

That would imply there is some sort of culinary art to the abominations of food creations.

Seriously, Irish "cuisine", or "smush" as I like to call it, was not created out of curiosity and experimental food design, but by grabbing whatever was sticking out of the ground, smushing it together whatever dead animal was available, and sometimes adding water to dilute the disgusting taste!

olaola

My two cents on the fish scenario - we don't have a market culture. We go to the large chain supermarket once a week to do a 'shop' and that doesn't lend to getting fresh fish. Other countries where people eat fish more often will pop around to their LOCAL market and get the fish at a decent price, without feeling ripped off.

The Sweeper

spottyelephant wrote: »

LoL the "Irish cuisine" people keep talking about.

That would imply there is some sort of culinary art to the abominations of food creations.

Seriously, Irish "cuisine", or "smush" as I like to call it, was not created out of curiosity and experimental food design, but by grabbing whatever was sticking out of the ground, smushing it together whatever dead animal was available, and sometimes adding water to dilute the disgusting taste!

I don't get how people feel so strongly about something that simply isn't accurate.

If you had shit food at home when you were little, that's because your ma, or your granny, or whoever was rearing you, couldn't cook.

If your memory of bacon and cabbage is slop, that's because you've been eating bacon and cabbage cooked by someone who can't cook bacon and cabbage.

If you've had Irish stew that was slop, that's because you've been eating Irish stew cooked by someone who can't cook Irish stew.

What fabulousness are you hankering for?

A slice of fresh, still-warm soda bread, with real Irish creamery butter, some melted into it and some rich and yellow on top, with a fresh, free-range egg from a chicken that hasn't been tortured in a cage? How good is that?

Native fish, caught and cooked on a pan in a knob of butter? It can be hard to get when you're used to supermarket shopping, but I've had it, I've enjoyed it, it's a memory of my childhood.

The history of Irish food is complicated. Yes, it's peasant food, because we were colonised and some things were denied to us. Something I learned from Darina Allen's books - and love her or hate her, the woman most certainly did her research - include the following:

The population of Ireland was eight million people before the famine. Bolstered by the extremely rich diet of potatoes and buttermilk - high in vitamin C, high in fat, and rich in everything else you need to make you healthy - there was a population explosion. When the staple crop failed, people died in their millions - but if you get your hands on a list of exports from Irish harbours in a single day at the height of the famine, you realise it was a famine of one crop.

Some shellfish are still scorned in areas of the west of Ireland and the islands, because they were 'famine food', the shores covered with starving foragers at low tide picking cockles, periwinkles, so on.

These are the historical facts of the origins of Irish cooking. However, this is a country that has a climate and soil that lends itself to fantastic dairy, and fantastic pig products - and trust me if you travel, you'll soon learn how difficult it is to get cuts of pork brined and cured the way they are in Ireland, and the flavours simply aren't as good. Butter, milk, cheese - they really, really are fabulous in Ireland - you just don't get the grazing in other countries. I have to drive 45 minutes out of the town I live in to find a shop that stocks a creamery butter made in Tasmania to get anything that tastes like Irish butter - and other butters aren't as good, they're slightly sour, almost rancid out of the packet. I make the drive because there's a difference to my baking and cooking when I use better butter.

Milk, butter, cheese, buttermilk, sodabread - these are store cupboard basics that are way ahead in quality in Ireland than they are in other areas. These are comfort foods, basic ingredients, and they are star quality - and spend a little time with the lastest trendsetters in modern cuisine and they will show you and tell you how important it is to be able to appreciate the basics; simplicity, local produce, quality, flavour, freshness. If you cannot recognise and appreciate these things, you will continue to miss the point on more complex dishes.

I guess I'm actually disappointed by the sheer tone of scorn, belittlement and begrudgery from some posters on this thread. If you can see no good in anything, it's little wonder the country's in the toilet tbh.

Qualitymark

kylith wrote: »

Very true. That's why the French invented so many sauces; to hide the tast of the meat. England was so famous for good beef that the only sauce the needed was the meat's juices; i.e. gravy.

True - English restaurant food of the Edwardian era was famous for being hearty and delicious.

I'd love to know about the Irish yogurts and cheeses that were famous in mediaeval and pre-mediaeval times. Bog butter is sometimes found buried in crocks, perfectly preserved, but I don't suppose yogurt or cheese could be preserved for thousands of years in the same way.

I wonder if skyr and viilli, for instance, were originally brought from Ireland northwards by Irishwomen who were traded as slaves or captured by piratic northmen. They (the yogurts) are now firmly ensconsed in their Scandinavian persona, but maybe they were originally Irish.

(When the Scandinavians went to America in the 19th century, they used to bring a kerchief that had been soaked in their local yogurts with them. When they got to where they were going, they soaked the kerchief in boiled, warm milk and kept it warm overnight, and got a first batch of yogurt, and continued to make it from that first batch.)

The Hill Billy

I've moved some off-topic posts to a new thread. Please stick to discussing Great Irish Recipies here.

Thanks,

HB

Kimia

spottyelephant wrote: »

Nope, I had amazing food and never had to suffer the likes of a cabbage and bacon dinner. Braised pork loin with homemade stuffing, potatoe gratin, and endless sidedishes were the norm (well not the norm, but frequent!).

In my opinion "Traditional" irish food is shi//te. Just varying degrees of shi//te depending on how it's cooked. There's no two ways about it. BUT having said that, I have zero problem with people disagreeing with me, or who love it, each to their own.

FYP

Excellent post Sweeper, I agree. My mother unfortunately was of the type who overcook everything and mash everything together (bless her, and she loves it), but my grandmothers (both of them) are talented traditional cooks, and I as a result am a HUGE foodie fan and amateur myself.

Home made bread, beautiful savoury mashed potato with real butter and softened onions, delicately flavoured fish and the richest and most delicious desserts of all shapes and sizes is a staple when I go home. mmm