Hearty Irish fare

I can't believe it is well over a week since St Patricks Day.



This year, there was eight for dinner. Everyone arrived wear something green - it was fun night. The kids were sooo excited to have their grandparents over for dinner. I realised it had been a while, we must do it again soon.



It was an Irish feast to be sure.

On one of our hottest days and a rare day of full sunshine, I was committed to the kitchen. I didn't mind, it is my favourite place to be. Here was the menu for the night.

Parmesan Cheese Biscuits (with drinks)

Beef Braised in Guinness
Dublin Coddle
Colcannon
Baked Onions
Steamed Broccoli and Asparagus
Soda Bread

Ballymaloe Apple Cake 
Spiced Apple and Walnut Cake 

Homemade Baileys



While I travelled through Ireland for over a month when I was in my twenties, I never got the chance to eat in an Irish home. However Grandma and Grandpa have visited Ireland many times and have stayed with their Irish relatives. My mother-in-law told me that there is always a big bowl of mashed potatoes on the table no matter what. Even if there is colcannon or champ or roasted potatoes or soda bread there is also, always a bowl of plain mashed potatoes. I guess I will be doing that next year.

My grandfather's father was Irish, he died in France in World War 1, not a lot (read: pretty much nothing) is known about his family. But I have always enjoyed celebrating St Patrick's Day, thinking about our unknown ancestors, the lives they lived and the foods they could have eaten.

I bought this book 15 years ago while living overseas, while I do vary my St Patricks Day dinners from year to year, a firm favourite are the recipes from this book, that I will share here today. This is the meal that I cooked for my husband on our very first St Patricks Day together, just us, in our first home, by candlelight, with way to much food for two. I remember the night like it was yesterday.



Beef Braised with Guinness

serves 6-8

• 200 grams prunes (pitted and left whole)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1.5 kilograms chuck beef (cut into 5cm cubes)
• 1 onion (diced)
• 450 grams carrots (cut into fingers)
• 6 garlic cloves (peeled but left whole)
• 2 tablespoons plain flour
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 750 ml Guinness
• 1 bouquet garni (3 bay leaves, 2 sprigs rosemary, thyme, parsley, and 3 strips of orange peel)
• salt and pepper

Start this recipe the day before. Soak the prunes in water overnight. Drain before using them in the casserole.

Preheat oven to 150 degrees. Heat the oil in a heavy based casserole and seal the meat on all sides. You may need to do this in two batches. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. Add the onion, carrots and garlic and let them begin to colour before sprinkling them with the flour. Add the tomato paste and then return the meat to the pot. Slowly pour in the Guinness, stirring as you do, allowing the liquid to thicken. Bury the bouquet garni in the liquid and bring to the boil. Season to taste and transfer into the oven. Cook for 1 1/2 hours. After this time, add the prunes and return to the oven. Continue to cook for another 30 minutes or until the meat is tender. Remove the bouquet garni and serve immediately.

Colcannon

serves 6-8

• 1 kilogram green cabbage (finely shredded)
• 2 leeks (rinsed well and finely diced)
• 150-300 ml milk
• 1 kilogram potatoes (peeled and roughly chopped)
• salt and pepper
• a pinch of grated nutmeg
• 125 grams butter (melted)

Simmer the cabbage and leeks in just enough milk to cover. Cook until soft. Boil the potatoes until tender, then drain and mash them. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Add the cabbage, leek and milk mixture to the potatoes and mix well. Place the mixture into a deep serving bowl and make a well in the centre. Pour in the melted butter. Serve the vegetables with spoonfuls of butter.

I actually didn't know this, but according to my book the Irish make this with kale. Kale has only recently appeared on the shelves here in Queensland. I might try this again during the cooler months. I only discovered kale last year and I love it!




Baked Onions

• allow 1 large onion per person

to serve 

• butter
• salt

Preheat oven to 150 degrees. Trim the bases of the onions, if necessary, so that they will stand upright, but do not peel them. Stand the onions in a roasting tin and pour in about 1 inch of hot water. Bake for 2 hours. Serve the onions in their skins with butter and salt.

This is the same time and temperature as the Beef Braised with Guinness. So if you are serving them together they are cooked at the same time.


I will post a few more recipes tomorrow. One of the apples cakes was not nice and I didn't end up serving it on the night. I can't put my finger on what went wrong. But I just didn't like it. How can apple cake not taste good? The other apple cake was this one, actually a dutch apple cake that has been baked at the Ballymaloe Cooking School in Ireland for years.

Do you celebrate St Patrick's Day? I'd love to know what you cook?

What is your favourite Irish food?

Better than KFC

It's strange that I decided to post these two recipes here today. It was not intentional, I had intended to share some random recipes and then I realised - Kentucky Fried Chicken! Perhaps I should have tried making southern fried chicken again?

I haven't eaten KFC in well over 15 years, but if you do, here is a great alternative I am sure.

I don't actually like coleslaw very much, so I had never made it before.

A few months ago, I had a handful of cabbage leftover from cooking something else so I thought I would give it a try. This is a basic recipe that I am adding it to my repertoire, for those people who like coleslaw. I might play around with it a little more, but for now, if you come to my place, this is the coleslaw that you will be eating. I made it again for my son's birthday party on the weekend. Our table was decorated with some bright seventies melamine that had come from my childhood home. Imagine a hot pink pineapple shaped bowl, and bright orange and avocado coloured salad servers. It put me in a retro mood for the salads: potato salad, coleslaw and a rice salad.

The recipe origin? Was it Gwenyth? Or Donna? or maybe that Jewish cookbook that I had out from the library? It was only a few months ago, but I can't remember, all I know is that I had scribbled it hurriedly onto the back of an envelope. Here it is:



Coleslaw 

serves 4-6

• 300 grams cabbage (shredded)
• 1 carrot (grated)
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise  
• 2 teaspoons cider or white wine vinegar
• 2 teaspoons caster sugar
• salt and pepper

Mix all of the ingredients together and serve. 

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Sorry, no mashed potato photo, but you now what it looks like, right?

You are probably wondering, why a mashed potato recipe? I had been plodding along making mash potato with random quantities of potatoes, cream/milk and butter for years. But last winter when I was playing around with my bangers and mash recipe (watch this space) I wanted to get it right. I wanted mashed potatoes that were oozing creamy goodness every time that I made them. After consulting a few cookbooks (I think this one is from Jamie Oliver) this is what I came up with.

Every time I have made mashed potato since, they have been perfect. I usually use cream, and make this less often. As a child, mashed potato was on the plate with every evening meal. But now it is more of a treat, an indulgence, it has it be, I have been know it eat very large bowls of it. 

Mashed potato is pure comfort food. Enjoy.

Mashed Potatoes

serves 4-6

• 1 kilogram potatoes (peeled and cut into large pieces)
• 100 ml cream or milk
• 100 grams butter
• salt and pepper

Put the potatoes into a large saucepan of cold, salted water. Bring to the boil, then lower the heat and simmer until tender. This will take about 30 minutes, depending on the size of the potato pieces.
When the potatoes are cooked, tip them into a colander to drain and leave for four minutes. Add the cream and butter to the hot saucepan and return to the heat. Warm the cream and butter over a low heat until the butter has melted. Push the hot potatoes through a potato ricer, straight onto the cream and butter. Beat with a spoon, then season to taste.

The recipe states that you use a potato ricer, I actually don't have one, so I just mash my potatoes, but I have written it this way, because if you do have a potato ricer, then I'm sure you potatoes would be all the more creamier.

Roasted Pumpkin with Feta and Pine Nuts

I was just telling a friend about this yummy pumpkin recipe I made last week. While it was still on my mind I'd thought I share it with you too. I have no idea where this recipe came from, I know that I scribbled it out from a library book - possibly a Greek one? If you know this recipe or the book, please let me know. I can not claim credit for the genius of this simple dish.



Roasted Pumpkin with Feta and Pine Nuts

serves 4

• 1 kilogram pumpkin (peeled and cut into small pieces)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon chopped rosemary leaves
• salt and pepper
• 1 tablespoon pine nuts
• 80 grams feta cheese (crumbled)

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Place the pumpkin on a baking tray and toss well with the oil and rosemary. Season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle the pine nuts and feta over he top of the pumpkin and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the pumpkin is tender.

Spooky Halloween Dinner

New traditions have been started in this house. Our spooky dinner on Halloween is one that we hosted for the first time last year and again earlier this week . I know for sure, that I will be cooking the same food next year, so I thought I'd better write it down.

My children have been talking about spooky food for over a month. There was no way we were having Halloween without goblin pies and bandaged fingers.

Here is our 'Spooky Dinner' menu

• sticky bat wings
• bandaged fingers or severed fingers
• slime pie
• goblin pies with blood sauce
• ribcage potatoes
• salad

• witches brew with shrunken heads
• murky merlot and queasy reisling

• mud cake
• eyeball jellies
• snakes in slime

Today I give you the recipes for our main meal.



Sticky Bat Wings

Honey and Soy Chicken Marinade

serves 6 - 8
 
• 1.8 kilograms chicken pieces (use chicken wings to make bat wings)

for the marinade

• 2 tablespoons honey
• 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons light soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce
• 2 tablespoons tomato ketchup
• 2 tablespoons sesame seeds (optional)
 
Mix all of the marinade ingredients together and marinate the chicken pieces overnight.

To make bat wings, preheat the oven to 200 degrees and bake for 35 minutes. If you are using this marinade for other chicken pieces, I suggest that you cook drumsticks and thighs (with bones) for 45 - 55 minutes. If you are marinating chicken breasts or chicken thigh fillets I would cook them on the barbecue.
 


Bandaged Fingers

serves 4 - 6

• 12 chipolata sausages
• 3 tortillas (cut into 1 inch wide strips)
• tomato ketchup

Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Oil a baking tray. Lay the sausages onto the tray and cook in the oven for 20 minutes. To serve, wrap the end of each sausage with a strip of tortilla and dollop a drop of tomato ketchup onto the other end.

This year we served severed fingers because I forgot to buy the tortillas.




Slime Pie

Spanakopita

serves 6-8

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 leeks (chopped)
• 1 cup shallots (chopped – include some of the green tops)
• 800 grams spinach or silverbeet (chopped)
• 1 cup dill (chopped)
• 1 cup flat-leaf parsley (chopped)
• 1/2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• salt and pepper
• 400 grams feta cheese (or 200 grams feta and 200 grams ricotta - crumbled)
• 4 eggs (lightly beaten)
• 16 sheets filo pastry
• 250 grams butter (melted)

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Grease a 30 x 18cm baking dish. Heat the oil in a large pot and gently sauté the leeks and shallots until soft. Stir in the spinach and stir until wilted. Cover and cook for 5 minutes. Add the dill, parsley, nutmeg, cumin, salt and pepper. Cook uncovered for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the most of the liquid has evaporated and the spinach begins to stick to the pan. Remove from the heat and cool to room temperature. Stir in the eggs and feta.

Line the baking dish with 8 sheets of filo pastry, brushing each sheet with melted butter. Spoon in the spinach and feta mixture. Top with the remaining layers of filo pastry, once again, brushing each sheet with butter. Finish by brushing the top with butter. Cut a small slit into the top of the pastry and bake for 40 – 45 minutes until golden brown.
 


Goblin Face Pies with Blood Sauce

Mini Meat Pies

makes 16

for the filling

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 onion (finely diced)
• 1 garlic clove (crushed)
• 500 grams mince
• 150 grams mushrooms (finely chopped)
• 1/2 cup red wine
• 1/2 cup beef stock
• 1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 bay leaf
• salt and pepper
• 1 tablespoon cornfour
• 2 tablespoons water

for the pastry

• 5 sheets of store-bought shortcrust pastry (thawed)
• 1 egg (lightly beaten)

to serve

• tomato ketchup

Preheat oven to 180 degrees and oil muffin trays. Heat the oil in heavy based pot and gently saute the onions until tender. Add the garlic and then the beef mince and mushrooms. Cook until brown. Add the red wine, beef stock, worcestershire sauce, tomato paste, bay leaf and season to taste. Bring to the boil, cover and reduce the heat to simmer for 20 minutes. In a cup, mix the cornflour and water until well combined. Add to the mince mixture and increase the heat. Stir through and cook until thickened. Remove from the heat and allow to cool completely.

Use a small plate or cup to cut around for to make the pie shells. Line the muffin trays with the cut pastry and fill with the cooled meat filling. Using a smaller cup template, cut out the lids of the pies. Use a paring knife to cut out the eyes and mouths of the lids. Top each pie with it's goblin face lid. Brush the pastry with egg and bake for 10 - 12 minutes or until golden. Serve with tomato ketchup (blood sauce)

Editors note: I have updated this recipe (31/10/12) I found these were a little dry last year, so if you have made them, you might want to try them again. I think that this years batch of goblin face pies (much requested in this house) are an improvement.

Ribcage Potatoes

Hasselback Potatoes

serves 6

• 6 large potatoes (peeled and cut in half lengthways)
• 50 grams butter
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees. Oil a large baking tray. Place each potato half on a chopping board, flat side down, ready to cut. Starting from one end of the potato, make slits in each potato by cutting almost all the way through the potato. Continue along the potato, making cuts about 4 mm apart. Carefully place the potatoes on the baking tray. Dot each potato with butter and drizzle with olive oil. season with salt and pepper. Bake the potatoes for 45 minutes or until the potatoes are golden and crispy. During the cooking time, baste the potatoes with the butter and oil and shuffle them about so they don't stick, but not in the first 15 minutes of cooking or they will break up. Serve immediately.

A greek inspired barbecue

The first couple of days of Spring where all sunshine and beautiful blue skies. My husband and I were looking forward to some fresh flavours and planned a simple barbecue for dinner. Cooking some of our old favourites, I set to work. However by mid afternoon the spring weather had disappeared, it was raining and grey. I was wearing a tracksuit and had turned on the heater.

It didn't matter, we barbecued our chops in the rain and poured a glass of wine.

Even though we didn't get to eat outdoors as planned, we were excited about the warm months to come. We are looking forward to easy, impromptu barbecues with mediterranean flavours that we love so much. Here the recipes that we cooked on the weekend... like I said, some old favourites.



Lemon and Garlic Lamb Marinade

serve 6

• 1 kilogram lamb chops
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1 lemon (juiced)
• 2 cloves garlic (crushed)
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 2 dried or 4 fresh bay leaves (broken)
• salt and pepper

to serve

• lemon wedges

Mix all of the ingredients together and marinate the lamb overnight. Barbecue and serve.



Tzatziki

• 25o grams thick Greek yoghurt
• 1 continental cucumber or 2 Lebanese cucumber's (peeled, de-seeded, grated)
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2 garlic cloves (peeled and roughly chopped)
• pinch of salt
• 1 tablespoon dill (finely chopped)

Squeeze the grated cucumber of any excess water and spread it out on a clean tea towel to remove as much moisture as possible. Leave for 15 minutes. In a mortar and pestle crush the garlic with a pinch of salt. Mix all of the ingredients together.

If you can, it is best to make the tzatziki the day before, to let the flavours develop.



Briami
Greek Baked Vegetables

serves 4-6

• 4 courgettes (cut into chunks)
• 450 grams potatoes (cut into large chunks)
• 1 red pepper (cut into chunks)
• 1 red onion (roughly chopped)
• 3 cloves garlic (sliced)
• 3 tablespoons flat-leaf parsley (chopped)
• 1 x 400 gram tin tomatoes (chopped)
• 150 ml olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 1 teaspoon dried greek oregano

to serve

• 2 tablespoons flat-leaf parsley (chopped)

Preheat oven to 190 degrees. Place all the ingredients except the oregano into a large baking dish. Mix well. Sprinkle with the oregano. Bake for 1 hour. Sprinkle with chopped parsley. Serve immediately or at room temperature.



Greek Country Salad

serves 4-6

• 4 tomatoes (cut into 6-8 wedges)
• 1 large continental cucumber (cubed)
• 1 red onion (sliced)
• 2 red pepper (roughly chopped)
• 1 cup kalamata olives
• 2 cups cos lettuce (roughly torn)
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

Mix all of the ingredients in a large bowl and serve immediately.