Irish Soda Bread

I made this to go with our Dublin Coddle for St. Patty’s day this year. I’ve never had soda bread before so I can’t say if this is an authentic recipe or not, but it was pretty tasty. It’s a pretty dense, crusty bread, so not great for sandwiches but really good for sopping up extra sauce/gravy.

What you Need:
3 ½ cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

¾ tsp salt

1 ½ cups buttermilk (I substituted 1 ½ TBS lemon juice plus enough milk to equal 1 ½ cups total)

What you do:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Sprinkle a thin layer of flour on a baking sheet.
Mix flour, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Mix in enough buttermilk to form moist clumps. Gather dough into a ball. Turn out onto lighly floured surface and knead just until dough holds together, about 1 minute.

Shape dough into a six inch diameter by two inch high round. Place on baking sheet. Cut a one inch deep X across the top of the dough, extending almost to the edges. Bake until bread is golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped on bottom, about 35 minutes. Transfer bread to a wire rack and cool completely. 

Dublin Coddle

So, being the splendid planner that I am, I woke up the morning of St. Patty’s day and thought that maybe it would be fun to do something special for dinner that evening in honor of the holiday. I did some research online and came up with a few ideas. I wanted something authentically Irish, and it turns out corned beef and cabbage (the only “Irish” meal I knew of) is actually an American thing. I found a few recipes that seemed to be traditional Irish fare, and decided to give them a try. Our menu ended up consisting of Dublin Coddle, Irish Soda Bread, a not-so-authentically-Irish-but-still-festive green fruit salad (granny smith apple, kiwi fruit, and green grapes with a squirt of lime juice to keep the apple from turning brown), and mint chocolate chip milkshakes for dessert(again not Irish, but green so it sorta counts).

Dublin Coddle seems to be a dish that comes specifically from Dublin. It’s not found all over Ireland but is just a local thing. It’s super easy to throw together and SO yummy! I adapted my recipe from here.

What you need:

3-4 medium sized potatoes, peeled and quartered

1 large onion, peeled and sliced thickly

1 lb good quality pork sausages (I couldn't find anything at Walmart that really fit this description, so I used Polska Kielbasa)

1 lb bacon, thick cut (my research suggested that American style bacon wouldn't work for this recipe and that if you couldn't get your hands on European style bacon to go with Canadian bacon or ham. I used ham that I cut up into chunks)

1 cup broth (I used chicken beef or ham stock would work too)

3-4 TBS fresh chopped parsley (I used dehydrated, it worked fine)

Salt

Pepper

What you do:

Grill or broil the sausages and bacon long enough to put some color on them. Be careful not to dry them out. Drain briefly on paper towels. When cooled enough to handle, chop bacon into one-inch pieces. You can also chop the sausage into smaller pieces, but don’t have to.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. In a large flameproof heavy pot with a tight fitting lid, layer your ingredients in the following order: onions, bacon, sausage, potatoes. Season each layer liberally with the parsley, salt and pepper. Pour the broth over the top. On the stove, bring the liquid to a boil. Immediately turn the heat down and cover the pot.

Put the covered pot in the oven and cook for at least 3 hours (more time will only make it better). At the 2 hour point, check the pot and add more water if necessary. There should be about an inch of liquid at the bottom of the pot at all times.

Serve with fresh soda bread to mop up the gravy.

Pomegranate Glazed Cornish Hens with Wild Rice Stuffing

I'm sitting here eating the leftovers of this as I type up this post, and it's sure yummy! It was such a pretty looking dish and it was fun to each get our own bird. It wasn't hard to make either, as long as your not bothered by handling raw poultry. The rice stuffing is so flavorful and moist and delicious. In this dish, there were a couple of ingredients I had never cooked with before. In the rice I used a Shallot and fresh pomegranate seeds (called arils). The hens are glazed with a mixture containing pomegranate molasses, which I had never had before and which I had to make myself because I couldn't find it anywhere.

What you Need:

• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
• 4 Cornish hens (about 1 1/4 pounds each), rinsed and dried
• 15 jarred grape leaves (optional)(I didn't use these, I don't think they have them at my local grocery store)
• 3 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 1 1/2 cups wild rice blend
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 large shallot, minced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 3/4 cup pomegranate seeds, plus more for serving
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley, plus sprigs for serving
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro, plus sprigs for serving
• 3 large egg yolks
• 3/4 cup fresh orange juice
• 1 tablespoon pomegranate molasses

What you do:

Mix the cinnamon, 4 teaspoons salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper in a bowl; sprinkle all over the hens and inside the cavities. Place the hens on a rack set on a rimmed baking sheet and refrigerate, uncovered, at least 2 hours or overnight. Meanwhile, soak the grape leaves in water 1 hour.

Bring the chicken broth and 2 cups water to a boil in a saucepan; add the rice blend and cook as the label directs. Drain and rinse under cold water.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Melt 4 tablespoons butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the shallot, garlic, ginger and cumin and cook, stirring, until soft, about 3 minutes. Remove from the heat; add the cooked rice, pomegranate seeds, and chopped parsley and cilantro; toss to coat. Season with salt and pepper. Add the egg yolks and stir to combine.

Make the glaze: Bring the orange juice and pomegranate molasses to a boil in a small skillet over medium heat. Cook until reduced by half, about 5 minutes.A good way to measure how much something has reduced is to stick the handle end of a wooden spoon in the liquid and then mark how high up the handle it came with a rubberband or piece of string. Then, you can use the same spoon and keep checking until the liquid only comes half way up to the mark you made. Remove from the heat and swirl in the remaining 2 tablespoons butter.

Fill the cavity of each hen with about 1/2 cup of the rice mixture (reserve the rest); tie the legs together with twine. Roast 20 minutes, then brush with the pomegranate glaze. Continue roasting, glazing every 10 minutes, until a thermometer inserted into the thigh registers 165 degrees F to 170 degrees F, 1 hour to 1 hour, 10 minutes. (Rotate the hens halfway through cooking; if the skin gets too dark, cover loosely with foil.)
If you don't tie the legs together it won't affect the cooking, but it does leave the bird free to sprawl out all over the pan and then it doesn't look as pretty when you serve it. I just used some yarn I had left over from some project, and I also tied the wings as well so they'd stay put and looking nice. When tying the legs it helps to cross one over the other like I did in the second picture, and then tie the yarn around the feet and the pope's nose (that's what the tail is called, I'm not kidding).

Meanwhile, drain the grape leaves and pat dry. Use some of the leaves to line a 9-inch pie dish. Fill with the reserved rice mixture and drizzle with 2 tablespoons water. Cover with the remaining grape leaves, shiny side up, then cover with foil. (If you aren't using grape leaves, spoon the rice into a pie dish, sprinkle with water and cover with foil.) After the hens have roasted about 20 minutes, transfer the rice to the oven and cook until heated through, about 45 minutes.

Transfer the hens to a platter and add some parsley and cilantro sprigs and pomegranate seeds. Peel the grape leaves off the top of the rice and serve alongside the hens.

I got this recipe from Food Network Magazine.

Potage Crecy (Carrot Soup)

This was so yummy! We really enjoyed it and I'll probably make it again. Ethan gobbled it up! The color is a little off-putting, but the taste is great! I only made a half a batch and it made about 3 servings.

What you Need:

1 lb fresh carrots, peeled and chopped into 1/2-1 inch thick pieces

1 medium Russet (or other starchy) potato, peeled and chopped into pieces about the same size as the carrot pieces

2 Tbsp unsalted butter

1 medium onion, peeled and roughly chopped

1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed

½ cup dry white wine (I substituted chicken broth)

1 qt vegetable broth or stock

Kosher salt and ground white pepper, to taste (I just used regular pepper and it tasted good)

What you do:

In a large soup pot melt the butter over medium-low heat. Add the onion, garlic and carrots and cook for 2-3 minutes or until the onion is slightly translucent, stirring more or less continuously.

Add the wine and cook for another minute or two or until the wine seems to have reduced by about half.

Add the stock and the potato. Increase the heat to medium-high and bring to a boil. Then lower the heat and simmer for 15 minutes or until the carrots and potatoes are soft enough that they can easily be pierced with a knife. Don't let them get mushy, though.

Remove from heat and purée in a blender, working in batches if necessary. (I had to add more stock so that it wasn't too thick to blend nicely)

Be Very Careful!: When processing hot items in a blender the hot steam can sometimes blow the blender lid off. Start on a slow speed with the lid slightly ajar to vent any steam, then seal the lid and increase the blending speed.

Return puréed soup to pot and bring to a simmer again, adding more broth or stock to adjust the thickness if necessary. Season to taste with Kosher salt and white pepper.

Garnish with a toasted crouton and serve right away. (I didn't want to take the time to make the croutons, but they would've been pretty good, I think I'll be sure to do that next time.)

Variations:

• Try adding ¼ cup of minced fresh ginger along with the onions and garlic.
• Or, after puréeing, add 1 Tbsp fresh thyme leaves before bringing the soup back to a simmer.
• Or, stir ¼ cup hot cream into the soup just before serving. (As you can see in the picture I put a little dollop of sour cream on ours. I liked it, Ethan didn't.)
• The soup can be thickened with rice instead of potato. Just substitute about 1/3 cup of uncooked rice for the potato, and simmer the soup until the rice is soft. (I realized when it was too late to run to the store that I had somehow run out of potatoes, so this is the method I used. If you do it this way make sure you really cook the rice well, or it's a little gritty.)

I found this recipe here, if you're interested in checking out the original.

Bangers and Fried (by Nate)

This is a traditional british dish called bangers and mash. It is often served in bars an falls under the "pub food" category. It's usually done with mashed potatoes but hash browns seemed to go better with the sausages. So my version is called bangers and fried.

regular bratwursts

horseradish sauce

deli mustard

onions

bell peppers

potatoes

tomatoes

Dice the potatoes and fry them on medium heat in either butter or vegetable oil. Fry them until the outsides are crispy, golden brown. This can take around 15 to 20 minutes. Put the sausages on the grill or in the oven with medium heat (around 325-350). It’s important to keep the temp low enough that the sausages won’t burst or leak. The juice is the flavor. Cook them about 10 minutes on both sides. Sauté the onions, tomatoes, peppers in the same pan as the potatoes. Put the vegetables on top of the sausages and the fried potatoes on the side. Then for the secret sauce. Mix equal parts horseradish sauce and deli mustard. This dilutes the sharp edges of both flavors and enhances the sausages.

Vernal Equinox and St. Patti's Day Dinner

Cameron wanted to do an Irish meal for St. Patrick's Day, but we were gone to Mesa for a fabulous wedding on that day, so we decided to make our Vernal Equinox meal do double duty. Sunday the 20th was the Vernal Equinox, so we had the dinner then. Ed and Kayleen (just friends), came to visit us for the weekend, so we included them in the dinner and had a ball.

We found pint glasses at Dollar Tree (for a buck each), and then Kayleen helped me come up with a cool way to fold the napkins. I found the fabric in the discount bin at WalMart, but it wasn't quite big enough to be a table cloth, so I just put it as a runner, and then found a green crocheted washcloth that I hadn't used yet (so it was still crisp and pretty) and put the beeswax candles on it as a center piece. Simple, but it did the job.

Here's what we had to eat:

Corned Beef

Cabbage

Boiled Potatoes

Green Bean Casserole

Green Trifle for dessert

and to drink...

Cream Soda! (not Irish, but it looks like Ale in the pint glasses, lol)

We had a lot of fun with this, and stuffed ourselves silly.

Cabbage and Potatoes

We had sautéd cabbage and boiled potatoes as 2 of our side dishes for the equinox/Irish dinner. Both were pretty simple, so I didn't want to make 2 separate posts for them.

Cameron sauted the cabbage (along with chopped onion) in butter, a little bit of bacon grease (he loves cooking with bacon grease), and some of the brine/juice from boiling the Corned Beef.

Cameron boiled the potatoes in the leftover juice/brine/water from boiling the Corned Beef. I think he had to add a little bit of water just so there'd be enough.

Corned Beef

This was oh so yummy! When Cameron told me that he was making Corned Beef, I cringed. The only corned beef I'd ever known was the hash out of a can...needless to say I was hesitant. I was quite glad to learn that it also came roast style.

We found this Corned Beef at WalMart-giver of all good and evil.

• Cameron put the raw corned beef in a pot of cold water and then stuck it on the stove.
• When the water got to boiling, Cameron took the roast out and put it in a pan and covered it 1/2 way with the water/juice it was just boiling in, and then placed it in the oven (at 325) for 1 1/2 - 2 hours.

That's it! It was simple but really tasty.

Roast Stuffed Goose

This dish was a little more work than the duck, but was definitely very good. The stuffing was really really yummy and the apples that are to be served with it as a garnish are amazing. We carved into this bird so fast that Marquette couldn't get any more good pictures, so this one will have to suffice.

What you need:

1 young goose, about 8lb

2 TBS butter

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1/4 tsp ground ginger

1/4 cups port(we just skipped this ingredient)

1/2 cups stock (you can find a recipe for this online)

1 tsp cornstarch mixed with 1 TBS water

For potato stuffing:

3 medium onions, finely chopped

4 large potatoes, peelied and cut in large pieces

1/2 cup butter or heavy cream

1 1/2 teaspoons sage

salt and pepper

for garnish:

1/4 cups butter

10 small tart apples, peeled and cored

1/4 cup red currant jelly (we couldn't find this anywhere so we used seedless raspberry jam)

2 TBS red wine vinegar

What to do:

1. To make the stuffing: cover onions with cold water and bring to a boil and simmer 5 mintes, or until tender. Drain well. Boil potatoes in salted water 15-20 minutes or until soft, drain and return to pan. Dry over very low heat for 5 minutes, stirring frequently to avoid sticking. Mash with a potato masher or electric mixer, then add butter or cream, beating until potatoes are light. Take from heat and stir in onions, sage, salt and pepper.

2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Fill the body of the goose with stuffing and truss (see duck post for trussing directions), sewing each end firmly shut. Cream the 2 TBS butter with the salt, pepper, and ground ginger and spread over the breast of the goose. Set in a roasting pan and roast in preheated oven for about 2 1/2 hours, basting and turning bird from time to time so it browns evenly. After 2 hours, pour off all fat in roasting pan, spoon the port over goose and continue to cook until skin is crisp.

3. For the garnish: melt butter in a small pan (I used a couple of glass pie pans for this). Put the apples in and cover them all over with the butter. Bake in the same oven as the goose for 40 minutes, or until golden brown. Put the red currant jelly in a pan with the vinegar and melt over gentle heat.

4. Take the goose out, remove trussing strings and wing pinion bones and set on a serving platter. Arrange apples around and spoon melted jelly over them. Skim any fat from the juices in the roasting pan, add stock to the juices and boil well to disolve the meat juices(Be sure you really scrape the bottom of the pan to get all the yummy stuff off the bottom of the pan). Adjust seasoning and thicken by stirring the cornstarch mixtures into the pan, bringing it to a boil, and stirring and simmering it for 1 minute. Strain into a gravy dish.

Canard aux Navets (Roast Duck with Turnips)

This was one of the main dishes for our big gourmet dinner. It was my definitely my favorite of the two choices. It is fairly simple to make and is very impressive. The most difficult thing about cooking duck is that it is very fatty, so you have to be careful to follow the directions so that you allow most of the fat to drain off.
What you need:
4-5 lb. duck
peeled rind of 1 lemon
salt and pepper
1 cup duck stock(you can find a recipe for this online)
1 1/2 cups Espangonle sauce (you can find a recipe for this online)
1 cup white wine (I used water)
juice of 1/2 lemon

For garnish:
6-8 small white turnips, peeled and quartered
2 TBS butter
1 TBS sugar
10-12 small onions, blanched and peeled

What to Do:

1. Put the lemon rind into the duck, sprinkle the inside with the salt and pepper, and truss it. Trussing is just using a thick piece of string to tie the legs of the bird together, and another to tie the wings of the bird down to it's sides. You do this to make the bird hold it's shape while cooking so it will look prettier. If you don't want to do this you don't have to. Once the bird is seasoned and trussed, place on a rack in a roasting pan, pour around the stock and prick the skin all over to release the fat.

2. Roast the bird in a 400 degree oven for about 1 1/2 hours or until the skin is crisp and the thigh of the bird is tender when you stab it with a fork. (Duck and goose are both very dark meats, so they will not look done when you cut them open.) During cooking, turn the duck from one side to the other, then onto it's back, basting occasionally. (Basting is just taking the juices from the bottom of the pan and drizzling them over the bird) Discard excess fat as it gathers on the bottom of the pan.

3. To prepare the garnish, blanch the turnips and drain them. (Blanching is putting the veggies into boiling water for a short period of time, then putting them into a bowl of very cold water right away. It's not hard and doesn't take very long.) Melt the butter in a large saucepan, add the turnips. Sprinkle with sugar and cook over very low heat, stirring the pot from time to time, for 10-15 minutes or until the turnips are almost tender and the sugar has begun to carmalize (turn brown). Add the blanched onions and cook 8-10 minutes longer or until the onions and turnips are tender and glazed with caramel.

4. When the duck is cooked, transfer it to a serving platter(I just took mine out of the pan for a few minutes while I got the gravy ready then put it back in to serve it out of the pan) and keep it warm. Discard the fat from the pan and dissolve the pan juices in the wine(water) and lemon juice, boiling well. (Make sure you really scrape the bottom of the pan well so that you get all the yummy flavors that have cooked to the bottom) Strain the mixture into the espagnole sauce and boil it rapidly until glossy and the consistency of light cream. Spoon a little sauce over the duck, garnish the platter with the turnips and onions and serve remaining sauce separately.