Soda Bread
Baking soda, reacting with buttermilk, provides the leavening agent in this quick bread, an Irish staple. Cutting a deep cross in the top of the dough allows the bread to expand during baking, although some would say it is so the fairies can escape.
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- 2 cups white flour, plus extra for dusting
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2 cups wholemeal flour
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2 teaspoons baking soda
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1 teaspoon salt
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2-2¼ cups buttermilk |
Preheat oven to 200°C. Sift the flours, baking soda and salt into a large bowl. Add any remaining bran flakes from the sifter to the bowl.
Make a well in the centre of the flour mix and gradually pour in buttermilk, mixing with a wooden spoon. The dough should be soft but not sticky (you may need to add a little extra buttermilk if the mixture is too dry).
Transfer dough to a floured surface and shape into a round about 4cm in thickness. Place the bread on a floured baking tray and cut a deep cross through the top.
Bake 30 minutes or until the bread sounds hollow when tapped on the base. Cool on a wire rack covered with a clean tea towel. Serve the bread with Oysters Kilpatrick (recipe follows) or on its own with butter. Soda bread is best eaten on the day it is baked. Makes 1 large loaf.
Oysters Kilpatrick
Even if your guests are oyster wary, this classic dish, in which the oysters are served cooked, should win them over.
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- 24 oysters in the half-shell
- About 4 cups rock salt
- 2 cloves garlic, finely crushed
- Worcestershire sauce
- 4 rashers streaky bacon, cut into 2cm pieces
- 2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves
- Lime wedges to serve
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Preheat grill to medium high. Arrange oysters on a bed of rock salt in an ovenproof serving dish. On to each oyster place a little crushed garlic, a couple of shakes of Worcestershire sauce and a piece of bacon. (Oysters can be prepared several hours before guests arrive and placed, covered, in the refrigerator until ready to grill.)
Place oysters under grill for about 5 minutes or until bacon is crisp. Serve sprinkled with parsley and garnished with wedges of lime. Makes 2 dozen.
Pan-fried Salmon with Mustard and Guinness Sauce
Ireland’s most popular drink makes a tasty sauce for simply cooked salmon.
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- 6 x 150g pieces salmon fillet, skin on
- 1½ tablespoons olive oil
Sauce:
- ¾ cup Guinness
- 1 large shallot, peeled and finely sliced
- 1½ tablespoons Dijon mustard
- 2 teaspoons brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
- ¼ cup cream
- 50g chilled butter, cut into small cubes
- Spring onions or chives for garnish
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Salmon: Remove any bones from salmon with tweezers. Heat oil in a non-stick frying pan and cook salmon in batches, skin side down, for 2-3 minutes until skin is crisp. Turn salmon over and cook a further 2 minutes or until cooked to preference. Remove from pan and keep warm until serving.
Sauce: Add Guinness, shallot, mustard, brown sugar and vinegar to a hot frying pan (if making sauce after frying salmon, use the same pan, unwashed). Cook over medium to high heat, stirring until reduced and thickened; do not let it all evaporate. Add cream and take pan off heat. Whisk in butter 1 piece at a time.
Strain mixture through a sieve and season to taste with salt and pepper. Sauce can be made a few hours ahead; keep it covered and serve at room temperature.
Serve salmon on champ cakes (recipe follows), drizzled with 1-2 tablespoons of the sauce and garnished with finely sliced spring onions or chives. Accompany with a green vegetable. Serves 6
Champ Cakes
Champ is the name for traditional Irish mashed potato with spring onions. Simple and comforting, it makes great potato patties to serve with salmon.
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- 1kg potatoes suitable for mashing
- 5 spring onions, finely chopped
- 160ml milk
- 50g butter
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- Flour for dusting
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Peel the potatoes and cut into even-sized pieces. Cook in boiling salted water until tender. Drain well, cover pot and place back on the still-warm element.
Place spring onions and milk in a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 2 minutes. Turn off heat and leave to stand for a further minute.
Mash potatoes. Add milk mixture, butter and seasoning to taste. Mix well. Allow potatoes to cool then refrigerate for at least 1 hour or overnight if possible, to allow mixture to firm up.
Form mixture into 6 large patties and dust with a little flour. Heat a non-stick frying pan (if possible, do not add any oil) and cook patties until browned on both sides. Serve immediately with the salmon.
(Alternatively, the cakes can be cooked a day ahead and gently reheated, covered with foil, in the oven.) Makes 6.
Rhubarb Bread and Butter Pudding
We used potato bread or rewana, available from some supermarkets, in this delicious pudding but any thickly sliced, day-old white loaf will work. You will need to begin making this recipe at least two hours before serving.
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- 500g rhubarb, cut into 3cm lengths
- 180g caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
- 4 eggs
- 500ml milk
- 300ml cream
- 2 tablespoons Irish whiskey
- About 40g butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
- 10 x 1cm slices potato bread
Whiskey cream:
- 300ml cream
- 2 tablespoons icing sugar
- 2 tablespoons Irish whiskey
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Grease the base and sides of a 1.8 to 2-litre baking dish with butter.
Place rhubarb in a large saucepan with 125g of the sugar and 1 tablespoon water. Cover and cook over gentle heat for about 10 minutes until tender. Do not stir but shake the pan frequently to ensure even cooking.
In a large bowl, whisk eggs with the remaining 55g sugar. Warm milk and cream together in the microwave then whisk into egg mixture with whiskey.
Butter bread slices on one side. Arrange half the bread (cutting into shape and removing any crusts if necessary) butter side up and overlapping in base of prepared dish.
Spoon in rhubarb and arrange the remaining bread over top.
Gradually pour in the egg mixture, giving it time to soak in before the next pour and pressing the pudding a little with your hands to ensure the egg soaks into the bread. Sprinkle extra caster sugar on top of pudding. Leave to stand for 1 hour (or cover and refrigerate if making further ahead).
Preheat oven to 175°C. Place baking dish in a bigger oven pan and pour boiling water into pan to come halfway up the sides of the pudding dish. Bake 1 hour or until pudding is golden and just set.
Serve dusted with icing sugar and a good dollop of Whiskey Cream, made by beating the cream with icing sugar and whiskey. Serves 6-8.
Chocolate, Oat and Orange Marmalade Cookies
These biscuits can be made up to a week in advance, but it pays to hide them.
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- 125g butter, softened
- 125g white sugar
- 100g brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon milk
- 1 tablespoon orange marmalade
- 125g flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon finely grated orange zest
- 160g rolled oats
- 120g chocolate chips
- Dark chocolate, melted, for decoration
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Preheat oven to 180°C. Cream butter with white and brown sugars then beat in egg, milk and marmalade.
Sift over flour, baking powder, baking soda and ginger and mix in. Stir in orange zest, oats and chocolate chips.
Roll tablespoon-sized quantities of the mixture into balls and place on lined baking trays, allowing space to spread.
Bake the cookies until lightly golden, about 10 minutes. Cool slightly then transfer to racks to cool completely.
If desired, decorate some or all of the biscuits with a drizzle of melted dark chocolate. Store in an airtight container. Makes about 36
Special Irish Coffee
Joseph Sheridan, a chef in Foynes, County Limerick, is credited with inventing Irish coffee in the 1940s when he decided to add whiskey to coffee to help warm some patrons one miserable winter’s evening. The coffee is drunk through the cream floating on the top. Purists maintain the glass should be set on a side plate – without a spoon.
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- 300ml cream
- 4 cups good-quality hot coffee
- Irish whiskey
- 12 teaspoons demerara sugar
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Beat the cream until thickened but still pourable. (The cream can be prepared several hours ahead if desired. Cover and keep chilled.)
Divide hot coffee between 6 serving glasses (the coffee should come three-quarters of the way up the glass). Add whiskey to taste – 2-3 tablespoons works well – and 2 teaspoons demerara sugar to each glass. Stir well to combine.
To float the cream on the coffee, slowly pour it on over the back of a spoon while holding the spoon just above the coffee. Do not stir. Serve immediately. Serves 6.
Story: Bernadette Hogg
Photographs: Melanie Jenkins
Stylist: Claudia Kozub
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