Happy St. Patrick’s Day and My Irish Roundup

I hope everybody has a wonderful day and remember the idea is FLOAT THE SHAMROCK DON’T DROWN IT. I have had an interesting start to the Irish themed month so far and have had more posts in a short period of time than at any time in the past. I thought I would take this opportunity to share a few links in my Irish food series and a couple of older Irish themed posts for you to check out. 

While St. Patrick’s day is a great day for me to celebrate everything Irish coincidentally it was on March 17th 2005 that I was sworn in as a US citizen so I can never remember if I am American-Irish or Irish-American.

Individual Shepherd’s Pie	Beef and Guinness Casserole	Potato, Leek and Mussel Soup
Irish Soda Bread and Rhubarb Jam	Irish Soda Farls The Quickest of Quick Breads	Smoked Salmon and Dubliner Cheese Muffin
Some Of My Irish Photos	Not Your Mother’s Dublin Coddle	Meatballs With Guinness Gravy

Please remember I am keeping my Irish food link up open and would love to see your favorite Irish Themed Food Posts. Pop over and see what everyone has being sharing.

http://www.theculinarylens.com/2012/03/mikes-miscellaneous-mondays-irish-food.html

I do not go to the NYC parade every year, in fact I have been out of town the past few years. But a year I will never forget was the parade following  9-11. As you can imagine emotion was running very high. I would consider this photo one of my best ever when it comes to capturing how a lot of people were feeling at a single moment in time. I was able to find this guy using his collar pins and get copies of this to him

The picture above is create from some photos I took in Chicago at the Smith Museum of Stained Glass quite a few years back.

Individual Shepherds Pie of Sorts

I qualified the title of this post with “of sorts” because I used ground beef rather than ground lamb in the dish. While this is common it is not technically correct as the version made with beef should be called Cottage Pie.

I made these quite small in one 8oz dishes as I was serving them as part of a bigger meal you can of course make them larger or in one large dish. I excluded peas from this only because  am not a fan of peas in this dish.

• 1lb Ground Beef or Lamb
• 3 Cloves Of Chopped Garlic
• 1 cup of Diced Onions
• 1 cup of Diced Carrots
• 2 Tablespoon of Tomato Paste
• 1 Tablespoon of AP flour
• 2 Cups of Beef Broth
• 2  Tablespoons of Worcestershire Sauce
• Salt and Pepper To Taste

Sauté your beef over medium heat till it is lightly browned. Remove beef from pan with a slotted spoon and reserve till later. Discard all but enough of the grease to sauté the vegetables. Sauté vegetables and garlic till lightly browned. Mix in tomato paste and allow to cook for two minutes. Add flour and mix. Return meat to the pan and mix. Add beef broth and Worcestershire Sauce. Stir, brig to a simmer and allow to cook for 15mins stirring frequently.
Divide mixture between six  8oz baking dishes or whatever dish you have decided on. I feel it is better to allow the mixture to cool completely and somewhat set before topping with mashed potato.
You can top this with whatever your favorite mashed potato recipe is. I would recommend making your potato a little dry and adding a couple of raw egg yolks to the mix as it really helps to give the potatoes a golden brown look when you bake the dish.
I also sprinkled some Parmesan cheese on top before baking, this is certainly not Irish but add so much to the taste it is best not to quibble.

And here is another very tasty piece of Irish comfort food that has so many memories for me.
http://www.theculinarylens.com/2011/05/not-your-mothers-dublin-coddle.html

Not Your Mother’s Dublin Coddle

Being that this post is about Dublin Coddle I probably should have called it “Not Your Mammy’s Dublin Coddle.”
I am visiting Dublin next week and there is a bit of a tradition that one of the first meals I have is a bowl of my mother’s coddle. Coddle is basically an all in one pot casserole of sausages, bacon, potato and onion. Some people add other vegetables like carrots or celery. It is a tasty if somewhat anemic dish.
I thought I would like  to replicate the dish and maybe add a little of my own twist.
I went to my local supermarket and they had neither Breakfast sausage or Irish streaky  bacon. So I had to make do with what was  available locally. I of course added a few things not traditionally in a coddle.

• 1lb Sweet Italian Sausage
  
• 1/4lb Bacon cut in half cross ways
  
• 3 medium Red Potatoes
  
• 2 medium Thickly Sliced Onion
  
• 4 Carrots
  
• 3 cloves chopped garlic
  
• 1 tablespoon fresh chopped thyme (plus some for garnish)
  
• 6oz Apple Cider (half bottle needed for coddle and you drink the rest)
  
• 6oz Chicken or Vegetable Stock
• Salt and Pepper

Cook bacon in large pan till crisp. Remove bacon from pan leaving  a little of the fat behind. Brown sausages on all sides (do not worry about cooking them as they will cook in the liquid later). Remove sausages from pan and set aside.
Sautee onions and garlic till lightly browned. Add apple cider and stock to pan  followed by sausages, carrots and potato. Chop half the bacon and add it into pan. Cook for thirty minutes and add fresh thyme.
Check potatoes and sausages for doneness you will probably want to cook it a little longer. Taste, adjust seasoning  and serve using reserved thyme and bacon to garnish.
Bring to boil and then turn down heat and allow to simmer. After twenty minutes add chopped thyme and check potatoes and sausage for doneness. You may want to cook a little longer. Taste before seasoning with salt and pepper as the bacon may have added  enough salt to the broth.
I like to cut the sausages in half before serving.



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