Coddle or Stew?

Can someone explain to me what coddle actually is?

The word "to coddle" means to cook very gently by leaving at a bare simmer in hot liquid, undisturbed, until tender.
It is a one-dish meal that must have been evolved by poor families with only one fireplace to cook over and possibly only one pan!
Even so when carefully made it is a very good dish and the traditional food in Dublin for Saturday nights. The handful of pot-herbs is a characteristic and distinctive flavouring.

Both,try a bit of Col Cannon too, wash it all down with some real expensive champagne. Carpe diem man, yolo.

Dan_Solo wrote: »

And what do you do with it?
You eat it.
How revolting!
:-)

Haven't had it in years. Growing up I had very little choice. I don't miss it at all.

If have spuds bacon and sausages I can think of many many ways of making a nice dinner.

I'm not from the capital so the first time I had it was last year in a pub grub place in the Dublin. Didn't look fantastic nor did it taste brilliant. As a meal that was made from bits of leftovers, its not bad but I'd be unlikely to go for it again. Stew all the way!

Quote:
Originally Posted by RomanKnows View Post
The sickly white sausage peering out from the broth like the withered and flaccid penis of a dying pensioner. .

This is a fair point, the flavour might be better than the appearance: but all can be put right with a large handful of chopped parsley scattered on top.

Needs a poll, very serious issue.

It's stew for me.

Only a dub could love coddle, sewer juice with boiled meat.

No thanks.

Coddle was an end of the week meal back in the days when working class people (mainly in Dublin) couldn't afford fridges. Every couple of days whatever meat was there was boiled up, often with a few vegetables, or it would go off. As a result, there is no such thing as one definitive recipe for authentic coddle, since it varied from house to house. And since each individual house would have the same people living in it, they would therefore have effectively the same coddle week in week out. Other countries have traditional recipes that developed the same way - for example, paella and minestrone are similar 'throw it all in the pot and cook it up' recipes.

In my house, a coddle when I was a kid was sausages, rashers (not cut up, whoever said that), onion quartered, chunks of heart and black pudding, with a load of tomato puree stirred in towards the end of the cooking (ie boiling) process. No veg at all (apart from the onion). You'd eat a big bowl of it with thick slices of bread on a Sunday morning. But I don't make it any more. Meat now tastes different to when I was a kid. The black pudding just falls apart.

However, it's given me a lifelong love of meat cooked in tomato sauce so mmmm Italian.