Banoffee Pie

Bananas. Toffee. Whipped Cream. Powdered Chocolate. Oh my.

Beef & Guiness Casserole

The Irish casserole isn't like the American one. In the US, we think of casseroles essentially as an amalgamation of different ingredients baked in a dish. In Ireland, the casserole is a slow cooked stew-like concoction simmered in a large pot on the stovetop with the consistency somewhere between a stew and a saucy meat dish.

Fresh Irish beef and hearty Irish stout make a perfect pair, and in fact occur frequently in Irish cooking. If you're concerned about the alcohol in the Guiness, don't be. Alcohol evaporates during cooking and considering this casserole simmers for more than an hour, you're left with is the hearty full flavor of the Guiness without the alcohol. In fact, this richly flavoured popular dish is suitable for any occassion, including informal entertaining. Serve with creamy, well-buttered mashed potatoes.

Serves 4
2 lb stewing beef
2 Tblsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 leeks, chopped
2 carrots, sliced
2 celery sticks, sliced
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 1/4 c beef stock
2/3 c Guiness
1/4 c butter
3 oz streaky (fatty) bacon
4 oz mushrooms, sliced
2 oz shallots or small onions
1/4 c plain (all-purpose) flour
Salt and ground black pepper
Mashed potatoes, to serve

1. Cut the meat into thin slices. Heat the oil in the pan and brown the meat. Transfer to a casserole (large cook pot). Saute the vegetables for 5 minutes in the pan.


2. Add the vegetables to the meat in the casserole, then add the garlic. Pour in the stock and the Guiness. Season with salt and ground black pepper.

3. Cover the casserole and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, with the lid on, for about 1 1/2 hours.


4. Remove the meat from the casserole, strain the cooking liquid and reserve. Discard the vegetables (use these later pureed with a little water to make a delicious soup served with hearty bread and butter).

5. Trim and dice the bacon. Clean the casserole and saute the bacon, mushrooms and shallots or onions in the butter for 5-10 minutes (I didn't have shallots or small onions so I quartered 2 medium onions, which worked perfectly fine).

6. When the vegetables are tender, sprinkle in the flour and cook, stirring, over a low heat 2-3 minutes (this makes a nice thick light-colored roux), then slowly blend in the reserved cooking liquid.

7. Return the meat to the casserole and reheat. Serve with mashed potatoes.

Irish Sausage Sandwiches

These have become a staple in our house. Considering that the English Market (the daily open market downtown) has an endless variety of amazingly fresh and gourmet sausages available, we've taken the opportunity (and this recipe) to explore them all. With flavors like Apple & Sage, Sweet Italian, Pork & Fennel, Corcaigh Baigh (an aggressively-spiced local specialty), and Roasted Garlic, you really can't go wrong.

Also - these are super simple to make. Sausages can be tricky to cook well. You can either let them roast on a low-heat grill for-ever or speed things up the Irish way: boil them first.

Yield: 4-6 Sandwiches

4-6 (or more) Sausages

1 onion, thinly sliced

1 sweet pepper (yellow or red), thinly sliced

4-6 Buns/Half Baguettes/Rolls to serve

1. Bring a large pot of water to boil, add the sausages and boil for 5-8 minutes. Remove them from the water and put them directly into a hot frying pan.

2. Add the onions and peppers and sautee, turning the sausages occassionally, 8-10 minutes until the vegetables are tender and the sausages are nicely browned.

3. Slice the baguettes, add a sausage and scoop of onions/peppers, a slab of mustard if you like and enjoy.

Dingle Pies

These pies are traditional in Dingle for special occassions, but most notably Lammas Day, 1 August, which marked the first day of the harvest. Fittingly, we ate them the weekend before. Apparently there are many recipes for mutton pies in the area, with differing ratios of meat and vegetables depending on who 's cooking.

These came out really well and, considering the primitive conditions of our temporary kitchen, though it seemed time-intensive, it was well worth the effort. I'm sure I could shave off more than half the prep time in a well-equipped kitchen. (And by well-equipped I mean with basic utensils like a rolling pin, pastry blender and a knife any sharper than a butter knife).

And, like most Irish recipes we've tried so far, the ingredients are simple and results hearty and filling. These pies are also excellent the reheated the next day.

Yield: 6 small pies (This is not true. Oddly enough, it seems that most Irish 'yield' notations totally underestimate themselves. In the US, I never reach the appropriate recipe yields (Yield: 3 dozen cookies - I'm lucky to get 2 dozen), but here I always get much more than originally planned; with this recipe we ended up with 8 good sizes pies.)

1 lb boneless mutton or lamb
1 large onion, diced
2 carrots, diced
1 potato, diced
2 celery sticks, diced
1 egg, beaten
Salt and ground black pepper

For the shortcrust pastry:
generous 1 c butter (or half butter, half shortening)
5 c plain (all-purpose) flour
1/2 c very cold water

1. To make the pastry, rub the butter into the flour with the fingertips or a pastry blender. (I think this is best done either with the pastry blender or 2 knives - rubbing with your fingertips makes it easier to get an even texture distribution, but it also warms the butter and makes the pastry harder to work with.) Add the chilled water. Mix with a knife or fork until the mixture clings together (just barely). Turn it on to a floured worktop and knead lightly until smooth (2-3 times should do it). Wrap in foil and leave in the refrigerator to relax for 20 minutes before using.

2. Trim any fat or gristle from the meast and cut it up into small pieces. Plase in a large bowl and sitr in the onion, carrots, potato, celery and seasoning.

3. Preheat the over to 350 F. Cut a third off the ball of pastry and reserve to make the lids of the pies. Roll out the rest and, using a small plate as a guide and re-rolling the pastry as necessary, cut out six circles (I had enough for 8). Divide the meat mixture between the circles, piling it in the middle of each.

4. Roll out the remaining pastry and cut out six smaller circles, about 4 in across. Lay these on top. Dampen the edges of the pastry bases, bring the pastry up around the meat, pleat it to fit the lid and pinch the edges together.

5. Make a small hole in the top of each, brush them with beaten egg and slide on to baking sheets. Bake in the oven for an hour. Serve hot or cold.

Mustard Baked Chicken

This recipe is super easy and quick to prepare - and comes out delicious. The wholegrain mustard is the key ingredient, so be sure you use one of high-quality, but feel free to experiment. So far we've tried the Irish version - whiskey mustard, a wholegrain honey mustard and wholegrain Dijon - though it's a bit more potent than the others we've tried.

Serves 4-6

8-12 chicken joints, or 1 med chicken about 2 1/2 lbs, jointed

juice of 1/2 lemon

2-3 Tbsp whiskey mustard (or other wholegrain mustard)

2 tsp chopped fresh tarragon

sea salt & fresh ground black pepper

to serve - boiled potatoes and peas

1. Preheat the over to 375 F.

2. Put the chicken joints into a large shallow baking dish in a single layer and sprinkle the lemon juice over the chicken to flavour the skin. (I prefer to remove the skin, but have tried it both ways. With skin is slightly juicier - which is no surprise)

3. Season well with sea salt and black pepper.

4. Spread the mustard over the chicken joints and sprinkle with the chopped taragon.

5. Bake in the preheated oven for 20-30 minutes, until thoroughly cooked through.

6. Serve immediately with boiled potatoes and peas.

Ireland in Snapshots

Ahem. I guess what I should have said is 'Irish Food' is Snapshots. ha! Copley St. is where we have our apartment - just south of the city center and right off the River Lee. Lovely, really.

Ireland: A Primer

Here we are in Ireland and doing well. Jordan is enjoying his Latin program - but it's hard work (more than I think he realized). We spent the first 6 weeks away from home in Paris and touring France a bit - which was absolutely lovely. So when we arrived in Ireland, it was nice just to settle in and call somewhere home for a little bit.

We haven't yet seen a whole lot of Ireland since Jordan has class 6 days a week, but we're getting to know Cork very well (grin)! I was just thinking yesterday that I think I'll finally start posting again, but it'll be all Irish recipes for now. When we got here we bought a 'Taste of Ireland' cookbook and it's been fabulous to make all these great Irish dishes. We've certainly learned that 1. the Irish are proud of their own (almost everything in the store and market is marked 'made in Ireland' or 'make sure it's Irish - we do'.) They have spectacular selections of meat - pork, chicken, turkey, rabbit, beef, lamb - you name it, they've got it. It's all very fresh and very very good. Of course, the potato features prominently in everything but I was surprised to know that the Irish have an abundance of produce as well - it's a fairly mild climate, not necessarily warm but mild nonetheless.

The weather, for me, has been fantastic. The most interesting are the days when the sun shines brightly and fiercely for 45 mins or so, then it clouds over and rains for 20 mins then the sun comes back out in vengeance for another hour and then it rains again. It's nice to have such variation! But, we can almost always count on it raining at least once a day! We've heard how hot it's been there in LA and I'm just glad it's so much more temperate here. The wind was a surprise though. I hadn't realized that it would be so windy, but it often is.

Reagan and I spend our mornings playing (while I try to do a little work for the business online) and going to the park. Jordan and Rachelle (a girl from Jordan's program in Claremont who is also doing the Latin course and staying in our apartment with us) come home around 1 and we eat lunch. Then we walk around Cork and often go to the English Market - a huge food market downtown where you can find everything from gooseberries (did you know they're green?! I had always pictured them as dark purple/blue) to roast duck. It's fascinatingly beautiful. We have a lovely dinner and read and play more while Jordan and Rachelle study and then off to bed. It doesn't get dark here until 11:30pm (just like home in Canada) so Reagan usually doesn't get to sleep until well after 9pm - and then only because we drop the blinds and try to convince him it's late enough. "Iss not late yet" he says. chuckle.

It's a good life and it's nice to enjoy the slower pace of Ireland. The Irish apparently believe in sleeping in - nothing opens before 10am. Even Jordan's class that starts at 9:30 is considered the early early class. And all the stores close by around 6 - which means you get your shopping done and then go home to the family. I think it's a spectacular routine. At home we seem to be so crazy busy rushing here and there and out doing errands until late at night (because everything is open late) that I think we miss out on a lot of that family time that just naturally happens here.

The branch is great; they've been very welcoming and have put us to work right away. I'm playing the organ in Sacrament meeting and both Jordan and I have already taught in Relief Society/Priesthood -ha! They have about 60 members in church every week, but it seems to change week by week. There are actually quite a few Americans here - either stationed here for work or here for studies or passing through on vacation. It's a very good little branch and the members and sweet and sincere; it's good to be here.

We'll be exploring Ireland a little more in the coming weeks - there's a long weekend ahead and the last two weeks of Jordan's program are only 5 days a week so we'll have Saturday to explore. Stay tuned!