Traditional Irish Recipes

Nothing much is known about my great-grandparents who emigrated from Ireland to Canada except that they eventually settled in Ontario.

Details about my grandparents were passed down to me from my dad and a love for the Irish people, their culture, and cuisine has been the result.

I have recently found a whole bin full of "almost" worn-out traditional Irish recipes written in my grandmother's hand. I am busy testing them out and will share them with you as I do.

If you like to sample recipes from other lands, I hope that these, "Made in Ireland," will please you.

From the stains and smudges on this old piece of paper it looks as if this was a favorite family recipe of my great-grandmother. I will now pass it down to my daughter and my daughter will pass it down to her daughter, etc., etc.

IRISH POTATO PANCAKES

4 large potatoes

(3 pounds)

cold water

1 small onion

2 eggs

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

salad oil

parsley sprigs for garnish

Directions:

~ Peel potatoes; rinse under running cold water.

~ Into large bowl half filled with cold water, coarsely shred potatoes and onion.

~ In colander lined with clean towel or cheesecloth, drain potatoes and onion.

~ Wrap potatoes and onion in towel, squeeze to remove as much water as possible.

~ In same large bowl, beat eggs; return potatoes and onion; add flour, salt and pepper; toss until well mixed.

~ In 12-inch skillet over medium heat, a skim of hot salad oil, drop potato mixture by scant 1/4 cupfuls into 4 mounds, 3 inches apart.

~ With pancake turner, flatten each to make a 4-inch pancake.

~ Cook pancakes until golden brown on one side, about 4 minutes; turn and brown other side.

~ Remove to paper-towel-lined cookie sheet to drain; keep warm in low oven.

~ Repeat to make about 12 more pancakes, stirring potato mixture occasionally and adding oil to skillet if needed.

~ Arrange pancakes on warm platter; garnish with parsley and serve with applesauce or sour cream.

Irish style

Irish potato pancakes are wonderful as appetizers, a side dish, snack, or with a breakfast "fry-up" of rashers (Irish bacon), sausages, white pudding, and soda or brown bread.

Many cultures that feature potatoes in their cuisine have a version of the Irish potato pancake. Certainly, the Jewish cook would put the latke up against the Irish potato pancake, and with no small amount of challenge, but it is the surrounding foods that add a certain extra delish to this dish.

Potato pancakes are light, just-right meal partners for meat, poultry or fish, at lunch or dinner, with omelets or scrambled eggs at breakfast or wonderful anytime by themselves, served with a generous helping of applesauce. Pancakes, tender and golden brown, flecked with onions, are pan-fried, never greasy. Coarsely shred the raw potatoes for better flavor and texture. Larger potatoes are easiest to handle; a vegetable parer gives the thinnest peels possible and avoids wasting potato or the valuable nutrients that are found close to the skin.

(1) Potatoes won't discolor if you shred them directly into cold water.

This reduces or eliminates the exposure of the potato surface to air, which causes darkening.

(2) Secret of crisp-every-time pancakes: extract as much moisture as possible from the potatoes. To do this, simply wring the shredded potatoes and onions in a towel.

This also prevents the batter (a mixture of shredded potatoes, onions, eggs, flour, salt and pepper, stirred smooth) from becoming watery and sticking to the pan while cooking.

(3) Prepare batter just before cooking time. Batter will darken if it stands too long. Though the taste of the pancakes won't be affected, they may be less attractive. Make successive batches rather than doubling the recipe and letting the batter sit.

(4) Lightly flattening pancakes.

Lightly flatten pancakes and slowly cooking them, ensures that they are thin and crisp, thoroughly and evenly done.

(5) Use only as much oil as is necessary to cook them.

Serve immediately.

This is a very versatile dish that can be served as a side dish to hot dogs and hamburgers, or can be eaten as a main dish. Why, it's Poutine!!! If I hadn't found this recipe in gramma's "old recipe bin," I wouldn't have believed it! Maybe the French didn't invent it!

What you need:

1. French fries. You can make your own or buy them frozen.

2. The sauce (basic recipe)

1 quart stock of chicken or veal

2 ounces of flour

2 ounces of butter

Salt and pepper to taste

~ Bring the stock to a boil in a saucepan.

~ Combine the butter and the flour

~ Cook over high heat, stirring the mixture until everything simmers (two to three minutes).

~ Reduce heat and let simmer for about 35 minutes.

Caution: Don't forget to stir the sauce frequently.

~ Strain the sauce through a strainer lined with cheesecloth, and add salt and pepper to taste.

If you want your sauce to be thicker, lower the heat to medium and let it reduce further.

3. A bag of fresh cheese curds. You want those to be really fresh! How can you tell? When you eat a piece, they have to squeak loudly in your teeth. You may substitute grated cheddar or mozzarella, but it's not as good.

Assemble

~ Place cheese curds on the bottom of a bowl

~ Cover them with fries

~ Cover the fries with a good fistful of curds

~ Pour sauce on top of everything.

Sounds disgusting? Maybe, but it's absolutely delicious.

Here are a few extras you can add to this dish.

Fried onions

Chopped hot dog sausages

Chicken

Peas

Replace the traditional sauce with a Bolognese or Marinara one. We call this 'Gramma's Italian Chips 'n Gravy Recipe.'

Get the idea? Use you imagination. I'm sure you'll come up with some fantastic variations.

Amazon has it for you

**Imagine being welcomed into a 400-year-old Irish watering hole with a thatched roof and open fire, the floor strewn with timber shavings and the walls packed with bric-a-brac, sliding into a snug for a pint and a hotchpotch, and instead being served Caramelized Duck Breast with Pineapple Chutney followed by White Chocolate Terrine.

In The Irish Heritage Cookbook, Johnson continues on her mission to inform Americans that contemporary Irish cooking means not just a rustic, stick-to-your-ribs Irish Stew with Brown Soda Bread, but also Green Tomato Tarte Tatin, as original and sophisticated as one found anywhere in Europe.

The book reads like a tourist itinerary for hungry pub crawlers and shares history on favorite pubs and their famous and infamous patrons and proprietors. Leigh Beish's full-page photos deliver elegant interpretations of humble pub grub like Bacon and Cabbage, and Ploughman's Lunch. It's inevitable that the recipes cover some well-trod territory, since it's difficult to imagine an Irish cookbook omitting Shepherd's Pie, but "Blackboard Specials" like Bacon, Blue Cheese, and Courgette Soup tend toward the global gourmet, and some were even developed by Bord Bia, the Irish Food Board, to promote traditional Irish products to modern chefs and consumers.

Talk about the luck of the Irish, there are so many Irish cookbooks to choose from here at Amazon. They include many of the recipes I will give you later but it you desire them right away, you will want to have a look at some of these.

There's recipes for shepherd's pie, fish and chips, seafood chowder, and whiskey bread pudding for those with a taste for the quintessential. Contemporary specialties such as Bacon, Blue Cheese, and Courgette Soup; Salmon Cakes with Dill and Wine Sauce; Braised Lambshanks with Red Currants; and White Chocolate Terrine spotlight modern Irish cooking's richly deserved acclaim.

I will be adding more recipes as I try them out. Please let me know if you try the recipes I have copied from G-Gramma and how they turned out. If you haven't prepared any of them, I encourage you to do so. They are delicious!

These recipes may look difficult but ... they are made with potatoes, so how difficult can that be??