Traditional Irish Recipes
Irish Recipes enjoyed on St. Patrick's Day and in Ireland
Traditional Irish recipes and modern dishes are inspired by the Irish culture and the foods readily available to the Irish. Irish Recipes foods you're going to want to eat even after St. Patrick's Day. Homemade Irish stews and bread featuring plenty of potatoes, bacon, cabbage, and good old Irish butter. Enjoy these Irish recipes with your family and friends.
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Irish Beef Stew with Irish Stout
Ingredients:
- 4 tbsp plain flour (corn starch if you want it to be gluten-free)
- 1 ½lb stew beef, trimmed and cut into chunks
- 1 tsp chopped fresh thyme
- 2 onions, diced
- 2-3 large carrots, sliced
- 1 ½ cups beef stock (from a stock cube is fine)
- 1 cup of Irish Stout (omit for gluten-free and increase beef stock by 1 cup)
- dash of Worcestershire sauce
- 2 lbs even-sized peeled potatoes
- 3 tbsp (1 ½oz) Irish Butter
- salt and pepper
Directions: Coat beef with corn starch. Brown stew beef in a pot with butter and onions. Add carrots, thyme, potatoes, stock, stout, and Worcestershire sauce. Bring to a boil. Simmer for 1 1/2-2 hours until beef is tender. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Colcannon
(I love this stuff) A traditional Halloween meal.
Colcannon Recipe
Ingredients:
• 1 lb potatoes
• 1 lb kale or cabbage
• Onion or leek
• 1/4 cup milk
• Butter, salt and pepper
Directions:
First, peel and boil the potatoes. Then chop the kale or cabbage up small. Steam cabbage until tender, about 8 minutes. Then saute the onion until golden. Mash the potatoes well, and mix with the cabbage and onion. Add a wee bit of milk and butter to get that creamy consistency. Then salt and pepper to taste. Bake in a medium oven for about 15 minutes.
Barmbrack Recipe
Barmbrack is the center of an Irish Halloween custom. The Halloween Brack traditionally contained various objects baked into the bread and was used as a sort of fortune-telling game. In the barmbrack were: a pea, a stick, a piece of cloth, a small coin (originally a silver sixpence), and a ring. Each item, when received in the slice, was supposed to carry a meaning to the person concerned: the pea, the person would not marry that year; the stick, would have an unhappy marriage or continually be in disputes; the cloth or rag, would have bad luck or be poor; the coin, would enjoy good fortune or be rich; and the ring, would be wed within the year. Other articles added to the brack include a medallion, usually of the Virgin Mary to symbolize going into the priesthood or to the Nuns, although this tradition is not widely continued in the present day.
Barmbrack (Irish: bairín breac), also called Barnbrack or often shortened to brack, is a yeasted bread with added sultanas and raisins.
Barm Brack – Arán Breac (Speckled Bread)
- Ingredients:
- 1 lb flour
- 6 oz sugar
- 1 lb mixed dried fruit
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp all spice/mixed spice
- Pot of hot Irish tea
The Bram Brack - Irish ‘lucky’ ingredients: (can be a choking hazard for small children and adults)
- ‘gold’ ring, to foretell marriage within a year
- a small coin, to forecast a wealth
- small piece of cloth to forecast poverty
- little piece matchstick to forecast the husband will beat his wife
- thimble to forecast spinsterhood
- button to forecast bachelorhood
Method:
Wrap each ‘lucky’ item carefully in wax paper. The trick to making a Barm Brack-like soda bread is the soaking of fruit overnight in the tea. While this makes the dried fruit softer and more appealing in general, one must be careful when mixing the dough not to over-knead or the re-hydrated fruit will crumble. Add the sugar and egg to the fruit mix the next day. Sift in the remaining dry ingredients. Mix gently. Stir in the wrapped ‘lucky’ items and try to distribute them evenly. Use a 7″ round baking tin at 350°F for 80 minutes. Cool on a wire baking rack.
The Brack can be made a week in advance and stored in an air-tight container. It is traditional that only he/she who has baked the cake should cut and serve the slices, as only he/she may know where are the ‘lucky’ items and will distribute them equitably!!
Irish New Years Tradition...
New Year’s Day in Ireland also is known as the Day of the Buttered Bread. It’s called “La na gCeapairi”, Gaelic for “Day of the Buttered Bread” or “Day of the Sandwich”.
Irish tradition says buttered bread placed outside the front door symbolizes an absence of hunger in the household, and presumably for the year to come.
Barm Brack (a fruit bread) is baked especially to be smashed against the door by the man of the house, to banish hunger from the land in the new year.
It is also said to chase the bad luck out of a house and to invite good spirits in.
Irish Soda Bread Recipe
Irish Soda Bread
This Irish soda bread makes a great breakfast treat. Or omit the raisins and sugar, and add caraway seeds for bread that’s perfect for dinner.
Traditional Irish Soda Bread (we prefer the raisins)
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1½ teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 4 tablespoons sugar
- 1½ cups 1% buttermilk
- ⅔ cup raisins
Preparation
Preheat oven to 375.
Whisk dry ingredients in a large bowl. Slowly add buttermilk, stirring until a soft dough is formed.
Add raisins, and lightly knead the dough on a floured surface for about a minute. Form into a round, slightly flattened shape.
Place dough on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper.
Using a sharp knife, make an “x” on the top of the dough, about ½-inch deep. Bake until golden brown, about 40 minutes.
A little soda bread history….
Soda bread first appeared in Ireland during the 1800s, when the use of baking soda as a leavening agent was introduced. Baking was done in the Irish home. They had little time to bake and ingredients were often at a premium. Soda bread contained little more than flour, buttermilk, baking soda, and salt. Buttermilk was used because it was often leftover from the butter-making process. Soda bread was served warm from the oven with a Lashing of Irish butter. Soda bread caught on quickly and soon became a staple of the Irish diet still popular in Ireland and in many parts of the world today.
There is an old Irish proverb that says…” the freshest of food and the oldest of drink”
Traditional Irish Soda Bread Our Irish Soda Bread Dish is functional and fabulously beautiful. Irish Soda bread is a hearty and delicious quick bread you’d never guess was born out of necessity. Irish Soda Bread has a lovely golden-brown crust, traditionally with a cross pattern on top. It is delicious served warm with Irish buttered and a bit of traditional Irish jam.
There is an old Irish proverb that says…“the freshest of food and the oldest of drink."
Traditional Irish Shepherd’s Pie
This is what I’m fixing to make tonight. How about you?
Cottage pie or shepherd’s pie is a meat pie with a crust of mashed potato. The term cottage pie is known to have been in use in 1791 when the potato was being introduced as an edible crop affordable for the poor. (The term “cottage” means a modest dwelling for rural workers). In early cookery books, the dish was a means of using leftover roasted meat of any kind (it was a recipe to re-purpose leftovers) , and the pie dish was lined with mashed potato as well as having a mashed potato crust on top.
The term “shepherd’s pie” appeared around 1877, and since then it has been used synonymously with “cottage pie”, in America and Ireland regardless of whether the principal ingredient was beef or “mutton.”
Our family's traditional Irish Shepherd’s Pie recipe was born from many a cold night at our family cottage. Often in Ireland, you can find a mixed package.
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon black pepper and or salt
1lb – 1 1/2lb ground beef
1 large onion, finely diced
3 -4 large carrots, finely diced
1 cup frozen peas (or if you’re in a rush just use frozen peas and carrots)
thyme, finely chopped to taste if you have it.
2 tablespoons flour or corn starch
1 or 2 tablespoons butter
1 can tomato paste
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 cup beef stock
mashed potatoes made w/butter and milk (6 cups, fresh, or store-bought or leftover if you’re in a rush)
paprika and grated Parmesan cheese (optional)
Directions…
Pre-heat oven to 400°.
Sauté carrots in olive oil until they get tender if using fresh. Then add the onions and sauté for a minute or two then add the chopped meat. Season with black pepper, salt (I prefer sea salt), and thyme. Cook it all up until browned then drain fat away.
Add the butter and frozen peas. Sprinkle on flour or corn starch and mix well. Then add tomato paste, and Worcestershire sauce. Mix it all very well. Then add the beef stock. (I also add a wee bit of stout but that’s our family secret…shh!)
Allow mixture to reduce down until you have a thick meaty gravy. Season to taste.
Remove mixture from the heat. Then grease up an oven-proof dish about 9×13 with butter and add the meat.
Spoon the mashed potatoes over top. You can get creative with your pattern. Add some butter and sprinkle with paprika and Parmesan cheese if using. Bake for about 30 minutes, really until the mashed potato is browned on top.
Serve with some crusty bread or traditional Irish Brown Bread to mop up that yummy sauce! You can purchase brown bread or a mix at your local Irish Shop.
Lambs Wool
After you feast on traditional Irish foods on Halloween you will need to wash it down with an old drink called Lambswool. The name Lambswool is believed to be derivative of the Irish Gaelic, “La Mas Nbhal” meaning ‘Feast of the Apples. The Gaelic saying was pronounced “Lammas-ool”. This ultimately evolved into Lambswool. There are several recipes for Lambswool that exists. But the drink basically consists of baked crushed apples(cored and crushed without skins), which are added to milk, and hot spiced ale, hard cider, and or wine. Grate in the nutmeg and some ginger. Add sugar according to taste.
About This Lambs Wool Recipe
“This is a traditional cider drink that was made and enjoyed on Twelfth Night (January 16-17) in Elizabethan England. It is said that it gets its name from the whiteness of the roasted apples as they fluff out of their skins while they cook. I haven’t made it yet, but I can't let go of the recipe every time I go to clean out my recipe box.”
Ingredients
- 4 pints real ale ( Newcastle or similar)
- 2 -3 large apples
- 1 cup hard alcoholic cider ( such as Woodchuck or Hornsby’s)
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 3 cloves
- sugar
Directions
- Preheat oven to 180°C: 350°F: Gas 4.
- Core the apples and bake in a 350-degree oven for about 40 minutes until very soft.
- Squeeze all of the pulp from the apples and discard the skins then fluff the puree with a fork.
- Heat the ale and cider with the cinnamon stick and cloves.
- Add the apple puree and sugar to taste.
- Serve immediately.
Recipe courtesy of Food.com
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