Irish meals

oranje

If you wanted to impress a few foreigners with an Irish dish what you prepare?

I am always at a loss on this. I made bacon and cabbage last week which always goes down well but besides this I am at a bit of a loss when it comes to something Irish. Thinks like roast beef or Sheperd's Pie are English even though I ate them all the time growing up.

Does anybody have any culinary suggestions to help fly the tricolour proudly at the dinner table?

gandalf

Irish Stew, Coddle, or my favourite Thai Fragrant Green Chicken Curry (sorry couldn't resist!).

Beruthiel

You didn't mention stew, which is damn tasty if done properly

/edit
ppfff Gandalf, don't you have work to do or summit

Femelade

Yep was just about to say Stew too, but i was also going to say..belongs here maybe?

GAAman

A big stew with chunks of beef, big potatos, carrots, onions, peas etc etc


/me wipes drool

yeah i know what im doin for dinner tonight

edit jesus i musta taken ages to type this four bleedin replies in the meantime!!!

damn you thoughts of stew!!!

super_furry

Got to be a big steaming bowl of coddle - with extra rashers. It's perfect winter food.

Sleepy

Aye, ya can't beat a good stew after a wet day climbing a mountain

gandalf

Beruthiel wrote:

ppfff Gandalf, don't you have work to do or summit

Well as I am working out my notice I am having a very relaxed attitude to my employment duties

Rhyme

Stew... nothing but, and some floury schpuds.

"This was after stew, but so is everything. When the first man first clambered from the slime and made his first home on land, what he had that first night was stew." - S. Morgensten

oranje

Thanks for the suggestion. I am hungry thinking about it. I don't know if stew is a real dinner party thing though.

Any other killer dish out there?

oranje

super_furry wrote:

Got to be a big steaming bowl of coddle - with extra rashers. It's perfect winter food.

What is coddle? I've never eaten it, maybe that dish never made its way to west Clare.

Beruthiel

oranje wrote:

Thanks for the suggestion. I am hungry thinking about it. I don't know if stew is a real dinner party thing though.

Of course it is you snob!

Coddle is a Dublin dish, I never heard of it till I moved up here

scojones

Moved from AH.

The Hill Billy

If you're going for dinner party stuff - concentrate on quality seasonal Irish ingredients & not just the whole bacon 'n' cabbage thing.

A whole Atlantic salmon (caught by Michael-Joe from Letterfrack) baked in foil served with new potatoes (dug up by Vaclav from Rush) smothered in Kerrygold butter? Or a joint of real Corned Beef?

Oh, and a bottle of whiskey for dessert.

oranje

Hill Billy wrote:

If you're going for dinner party stuff - concentrate on quality seasonal Irish ingredients & not just the whole bacon 'n' cabbage thing.

A whole Atlantic salmon (caught by Michael-Joe from Letterfrack) baked in foil served with new potatoes (dug up by Vaclav from Rush) smothered in Kerrygold butter? Or a joint of real Corned Beef?

Oh, and a bottle of whiskey for dessert.

I'm in Holland so I can't source quality Irish ingredients.

pajos55

Coddle is extremely tasty. sounds horrible but honestly, don't knock it till you've tried it.

clear soup with boiled rashers and sausages, potatoes, carrots and onions, parsley and thyme.

best ever dinner on a cold winter night!

Beruthiel

As your granny would say, that'll put hair on you chest

The Hill Billy

pajos55 wrote:

Coddle is extremely tasty. sounds horrible but honestly, don't knock it till you've tried it.

clear soup with boiled rashers and sausages, potatoes, carrots and onions, parsley and thyme.

best ever dinner on a cold winter night!

Use big, fat sausages & extra thick rashers.
For the liquor - try half cider/half chicken stock.

damonjewel

colcannon which is chopped cale or spinach mashed up with spuds and onions, served with mincemeat and onions that have been fried in a gravy. Smashing

Plenty of fish in the irish sea. So any fresh irish fish, cod in parsley sauce delicious, steamed mussels, mmm. Guinness and oysters too.

Good selection of soda breads, cheeses, smoked fish.

dudara

bacon and cabbage is truly delicious when given a bit of thought.

Boil the bacon, changing the cooking water if necessary. Then roast in the oven for a while, in order to dry out the fat a little and crisp the outside slightly. Due to the boiling however, the inside will stay moist.

For the cabbage, get savoy cabbage and cook in the bacon water, but don't overcook. Leave it still a little crunchy. Drain and serve.

Add some new potatoes.

To top it all off, make a white sauce from a roux of butter and flour, using milk flavoured with onion and bay leaves. mmmm

traditional but damn tasty.

The Hill Billy

oranje wrote:

I'm in Holland so I can't source quality Irish ingredients.

OK then...
A salmon (caught by Wim from Terschelling) baked in foil served with new potatoes (dug up by Johan from Utrecht) smothered in Kerrygold butter (you can get that stuff anywhere)? Or a joint? Fcek the Corned Beef part.

Oh, and a bottle of whiskey for dessert.

MrJones

Can someone post up instructions on how to make a proper irish stew???
I have a fair idea but to prefect it i would like some experts opinions

dudara

This is my version of an Irish stew. It's not too far off the mark. Traditionally lamb is used, but I prefer beef.

Cut some onions really coarsely (quarters or sixths). Fry gently for a few minutes in some oil in a pot. Add sliced carrots (the bigger the slices the better as this is going to be cooking for a while). Add cubed beef/lamb and fry until the meat is sealed. Season well with salt and pepper while frying.

Add in stock (whether instant or homemade) along with some bay leaves, and herbs of your choice (I like a little thyme). Bring to the boil, cover and leave to simmer gently for at least 1.5 hours, stirring occasionally. (until the meat is starting to fall apart). Peel some potatoes and cut them according to preference. Place on top of the stew, cover and leave until potatoes are cooked. Serve.

Zillah

/Runs to get food.

The Hill Billy

Eats food

/Gets runs

Tazz T

Impress your foreign friends with Tazzy T’s Sea Trout Tricolour

Wrap a large fillet of sea trout in tinfoil with sprinkled with lemon, white wine, parsley, dill and butter. Bake in an oven for 20 minutes while you cook the veg.

Boil parsnips and mash.

Boil carrots and mash.

Boil peas, add a little sugar and veg stock – puree.

Arrange vegetables in the shape of the Irish tricolour. Serve sea trout on top and drizzle around juices from tin foil.

MrJones

dudara wrote:

This is my version of an Irish stew. It's not too far off the mark. Traditionally lamb is used, but I prefer beef.

Cut some onions really coarsely (quarters or sixths). Fry gently for a few minutes in some oil in a pot. Add sliced carrots (the bigger the slices the better as this is going to be cooking for a while). Add cubed beef/lamb and fry until the meat is sealed. Season well with salt and pepper while frying.

Add in stock (whether instant or homemade) along with some bay leaves, and herbs of your choice (I like a little thyme). Bring to the boil, cover and leave to simmer gently for at least 1.5 hours, stirring occasionally. (until the meat is starting to fall apart). Peel some potatoes and cut them according to preference. Place on top of the stew, cover and leave until potatoes are cooked. Serve.

Sounds really good.
How do you make homemade stock?
Also how much stock would you add to the stew if you are only making stew for one person?Would it be like 500 ml?

Blub2k4

dudara wrote:

This is my version of an Irish stew. It's not too far off the mark. Traditionally lamb is used, but I prefer beef.

Traditionally it's mutton, not lamb.
I started a thread on this a while back and got some good suggestions.

Alun

Seeing as the OP is based in Holland, some of the suggestions given are going to be bit tricky without importing stuff from home, others are going to take some searching.

Take lamb for instance. Not easy to find in mainstream Dutch butchers, and when you do it's likely to be a few scrawny chops for crazy money. If you're in a largeish town or city, your best bet is to find a good Halal butcher where you'll get good quality lamb/mutton at less than half the price of the average butcher / supermarket. Some are a bit dodgy though, so take your time to find a good clean one.

Rashers and sausages ... forget it! You can get bacon of sorts, but it's very thinly sliced smoked streaky bacon. Nice in it's own way, but not suitable for coddle. Same goes for the sausages.

Parsnips are virtually impossible to find (they're called 'pastinaak' in Dutch). If you're close to Belgium, you can get them there easily enough close to Christmas time, but not otherwise. Same goes for winter root vegetables out of season. Only in Ireland can you get swede and parsnips all year round. Floury potatoes are also not that common, they're usually more of the firm waxy type.

oranje

Alun wrote:

Seeing as the OP is based in Holland, some of the suggestions given are going to be bit tricky without importing stuff from home, others are going to take some searching.

Take lamb for instance. Not easy to find in mainstream Dutch butchers, and when you do it's likely to be a few scrawny chops for crazy money. If you're in a largeish town or city, your best bet is to find a good Halal butcher where you'll get good quality lamb/mutton at less than half the price of the average butcher / supermarket. Some are a bit dodgy though, so take your time to find a good clean one.

Yeah, how right you are there. Most of the ingredients are very hard to get. I already get minced lamb from the halal places to make Sheperds' Pie.

Whenever I have visitors they bring a piece of bacon for the bacon and cabbage so that is always possible. Other than that stew will be possible and I must try the colcannon suggestion too.

Thanks to everybody for the suggestions.

Alun

oranje wrote:

Yeah, how right you are there. Most of the ingredients are very hard to get. I already get minced lamb from the halal places to make Sheperds' Pie.

Whenever I have visitors they bring a piece of bacon for the bacon and cabbage so that is always possible. Other than that stew will be possible and I must try the colcannon suggestion too.

Yep, I lived there for 13 years ... now I miss things from Holland that I can't get here instead

Actually, thinking about it, colcannon isn't too far removed from the Dutch 'boerenkool stamppot', potatoes and kale roughly mashed together, so maybe they wouldn't be too impressed by that. There they usually serve it with a big juicy 'rookworst' or smoked sausage, and gravy ... mmmmm!