Paris is one of the great dessert cities of the world (which is one of the reasons why it makes so much sense for the excellent David Lebovitz to have settled there). At certain times of day (starting around five minutes after you thought your breakfast had settled...) it begins to seem as if there's a patisserie on every streetcorner, if not several of them in any given block... all their windows filled with stunning pastries and sweets.

The last time EuroCuisineLady was passing through the City of Light, she was on her way to a business gig, and had an overnight stay in a hotel in the Place des Vosges, Paris's oldest square. The Place is a beautiful place to just lounge or relax, but EuroCuisineLady's work schedule meant she was going to have to spend all of her "break day" and evening hammering on the laptop and sorting out various issues with people who were working on the same project.

Fortunately there was an unusually congenial place to do this. Café Hugo, just down the square from Victor Hugo's old home, offers WiFi access at reasonable rates: so ECL wandered in there, found a comfy table near the door where she could at least watch Paris go by if not actually participate in the scene, had a snack, and got on with business.

The weariness of the end of the work day, though, was broken by something unexpected. On a whim -- or rather, subliminally stimulated by the memory of the glossy gleam of chocolate in all those patisseries she'd seen on her one swift walk around the block early in the afternoon -- ECL asked for some chocolate ice cream for dessert. What she got went way beyond any possible expectation. Her memory is now vague on whether or not the ice cream came from one of the high-end glaciers like Berthillon. But it was terrific: a luscious, rich, creamy ice cream with the most amazing truffle-y mouthfeel, perfectly augmented by a shake of plain dark cocoa over the top.

Normally ECL is not the type to go insane trying to reproduce foods she eats on the Continent. She prefers either to remember them fondly from a distance, or to go back as soon as possible and eat them again. But when EuroCuisineGuy looked up at the electric ice cream maker a week or so ago and muttered, "How long has it been since we used that thing?", the memory of that ice cream drifted to the surface. And there was cocoa in the house, and eggs, and cream, and plenty of chocolate...

The recipe that follows is -- by one of those miraculous flukes that sometimes happens in the kitchen when you're improvising -- very, very close to what ECL had in Café Hugo that evening. The mouthfeel, at least, is right on, due at least partly to the use of both cocoa and chocolate in the mix. It is rich: all cream, no milk, three eggs (well, two egg yolks and a third whole one)... so if you're dieting at the moment, save this for later.

Finally, please note that you really need a mechanical ice cream maker for this.

Click on "read more" for the recipe and the method.    Read more

The apple, as one of the few fruits that grows really well in the Irish climate, has been held in high regard everywhere in this island for thousands of years. Before the new religion came in from the East, apples and apple trees were considered important enough to be looked after by the mighty Celtic virgin goddess Brigit herself. And in the Brehon law-code of a millennium ago, apple trees were protected to an extraordinary extent. Whoever damaged an apple tree belonging to someone else was liable to pay a fine of several head of cattle, and a landlord whose tenant was moving on was required to compensate the tenant on departure for any apple trees the tenant had planted during his stay.

As a food and as a basis for drink, the apple remains heavily cultivated here, though naturally Ireland imports apples from many other regions when the local varieties are out of season. And it would be a rare farmyard that didn't feature a few apple trees for cooking and cider-making purposes.

Apple Amber is one of those Irish recipes that plainly involves the cook strolling out to the tree on a whim, pulling a few green cooking apples off it, and taking them back inside to quickly turn them into something unusually nice to end the meal. But the fact that the apples are cooked before baking suggests that this method was meant to work well with storage apples as well, the fruit that had been put away in straw in the cold cellar to last until the first new fruit of the next summer and fall started coming in.

Originally, apple amber was usually constructed as a crustless pie: the grated apple was briefly cooked, seasoned and sweetened (cider vinegar was probably used when lemons were hard to get) and then baked by itself in a pie dish: then meringue was piled on top and the dish returned to the oven just long enough to brown it. More recent versions of the recipe call for the addition of a pie crust. We've used a crust on this version, as it does a nice job of soaking up the juices produced by the fluffy apple mousse as it bakes.

Click on "read more" for the recipe and method.   Read more

Carrageen is a seaweed (its formal name is Chondrus crispus). Finding seaweed in the same sentence with the word "pudding" may seem a little strange. But carrageen is the product of one of Ireland's longest-running industries, and a very useful ingredient for the cook... especially one who's looking for jelling or setting ingredients that don't involve animal products. (By the way, greetings to our visitors from the forums at PostPunkKitchen.)

There's no telling who first noticed that this seaweed produces a thick jellylike substance that will jell up and set whatever liquid it's introduced to. The discovery may go back to Bronze Age times. But for many, many years, small seaside communities in Ireland eked out their income by gathering the carrageen seaweed from the rocks near their homes, drying and bleaching it (usually in the sun: nowadays the drying is handled in commercial ovens) and then selling it on as a setting agent, cheaper than gelatine and with its own unique, subdued flavor of the sea. Carrageen has made its way from Ireland all over the world, and can normally be found without too much trouble in health food stores, which sell it with an eye to its natural content of minerals and iron as well as for its natural thickening and demulcent qualities. (It turns up in cough medicines and numerous other preparations for sore throats and troubled chests, as well as in cosmetics and all kinds of food. Numerous dairy products in North America -- especially yogurts and sour creams -- now routinely contain carrageen as a thickener, instead of being made as they were back in the days when dairy products were given enough time, or allowed a high enough butterfat content, to thicken themselves.)

After it's been processed, the carrageen seaweed retains only the slightest taste or scent of the sea. Some people don't care for this: others think it adds a unique flavor to a dessert, an edgy, slightly spicy quality. This taste works particularly well with citrus flavors, and treatments including orange, or lemon, or both -- as in this pudding -- are commonplace in Irish cookbooks of the last couple of centuries.

Handling the carrageen itself is quite simple. A brief soaking in warm water activates the frilly, springy seaweed. After that it's simmered gently for a while with the milk of your choice: these recipes work as well with soy, rice or oat milks as they do with full-cream dairy. Sweetened and flavored -- in this case with lemon and orange juice and rind -- the thickened mixture is then strained, poured into bowls or molds, and chilled. The final product is a delicate dessert, suitable for having cream poured over it, or a tart fruit sauce. Carrageen's "set" tends to be more fragile and delicate than that of commercial gelatines, that being one reason that cooks who know about it seek it out. But if you're thinking of doing a carrageen dessert in a mold and you really expect it to stand upright, you'll want to increase the amount of seaweed you use in the cooking by about half.

Click on "read more" for the recipe and method.     Read more

"Rabbit was always the great meat for the country people," Biddy White Lennon quotes someone as saying in one of her many articles on the food and eating habits of the Irish in recent centuries. Other native Irish food writers agree. Beef could all too often be too expensive, or entirely unavailable: pork, much loved though it was, was also seasonal. But rabbits were available all year round, reproduced themselves even more enthusiastically than the most energetic pig could, and didn't require special care or any cash outlay to speak of for their food. With all this going for them, there was no way they could avoid being popular as a dinner dish in Ireland.

Rabbit, originally (it's believed) imported by the Norman occupiers of the 1100's, has cyclically gone up and down in popularity, due to economic factors, formerly uncontrollable diseases in the rabbit population, and the general attitudes toward one food or another which in Ireland, as in other countries, come and go. In the cities, in particular, rabbit has occasionally been viewed as the kind of food that only "culchies", the dim bulbs from the deepest countryside, would be caught eating -- or as an unwelcome reminder of periods in past years when times were hard and people ate whatever they could get whether they liked it or not.

But in a countryside well stocked with people who enjoy catching or raising their own dinners without recourse to a supermarket or the butcher, rabbit has never really fallen entirely out of favor. A surprising number of people still raise rabbits, on a small scale, specifically for the table. Others, trying to reduce the depredations of the bunny population on their crops and kitchen gardens, are still quite happy to hunt them when the need arises, and to make sure the meat's never wasted afterwards. In the towns and cities, our butcher tells us that rabbits are staging something of a comeback -- possibly due to the credit crunch and the increasing reluctance of nearly everybody to let a cent more than necessary out of their wallets. In terms of value for money, rabbit has always been economical, with a high ratio of meat to bone, as well as being lean and (when young) very tender and flavorful. (By the way, as regards taste, those who say you can put rabbit into any chicken dish are sort of talking through their hats. Rabbit definitely tastes different from chicken. True, many chicken recipes would work well with it. But tender young rabbit -- as one Sam Gamgee once remarked -- is a delicate meat, worth seeking out for its own virtues without dragging chicken into the discussion.)

This recipe, adapted from one in Biddy White Lennon's Poolbeg Book of Traditional Irish Cooking, is a solid countryside treatment, perfect for either a tender young rabbit (like the one EuroCuisineLady brought home two days ago from a Dublin butcher, and was surprised to discover on getting it home was actually imported from an organic rabbit-farming collective in Italy) or one whose age you're not too sure about (like one a hunting neighbor might have brought you). The braising renders even the meat of an older rabbit meltingly tender. There's nothing fancy in the braising stock, just onions and celery and Guinness from the pub down the road (or from the supermarket if there's no time to bring home a jar of the draft "black stuff"). Slow stovetop braising lends this dish great tenderness and flavor, and the Guinness lays down the basis for a beautifully rich gravy. The dumplings are a variation on the shredded-suet dumpling that's long been a mainstay in these parts, and the smokiness of the bacon goes superbly with the dark rich flavor of the finished stew. If you don't want to do dumplings (or you have trouble finding the shredded suet these require), you can always substitute another dumpling recipe, or else simply make mashed potatoes to sop up that great gravy.

Click on "read more" for the recipe and the method.    Read more

This dessert looks like another invention of a cook in one of Ireland's southern counties who found him- or herself with a few leftover cooked potatoes on a day when the farmyard chicken flock was laying well. Half a dozen extra eggs on the counter, maybe a forgotten half-glass of whiskey from yesterday evening's hospitality... then a moment of inspiration, and a dessert is born.

The Carrigaline whiskey pie starts out its life as a dessert soufflé in the usual way -- beaten eggs, whipped egg whites, sugar to sweeten it all -- but there goes its own way, adding mashed potatoes and a little pounded almond to bind the mixture. Orange juice or extract is added for an extra spike of flavor and aroma, and then the whiskey. After baking the soufflé falls, but in this case it's meant to, and even when you make it in a springform pan, it winds up looking like a pie. The final result is a solid, fragrant, and surprisingly rich dessert that speaks of the Irish countryside and a rural lifestyle that's still (just barely) with us.

The name of the recipe probably has to do with Carrigaline's closeness to the great whiskey distilleries of Cork. In particular, Carrigaline is only thirty kilometers or so from Midleton, now famous all over the world for the premium whiskeys of the same name.

Click on "read more" for the recipe and method.    Read more

Okay, maybe the slug line up in the browser's title bar is contentious. There are people who would argue loudly that Ireland's favorite shellfish is the oyster, or possibly the mussel. But all the same, fishmongers all over the island would be embarrassed not to be able to offer Dublin Bay prawns to their customers all year round -- something they can't do with the other contenders.

One thing should be cleared up right from the start: Dublin Bay prawns don't come from Dublin Bay, and they aren't even prawns. They're a lobster -- not baby lobsters, as they're sometimes called, but micro-lobsters (the scientific name for them is Nephrops norvegicus). Elsewhere in Europe they're usually called Norway lobster, langoustines or scampi. The "Dublin Bay" moniker may have been hung on them in previous centuries when North Sea fishing boats were forced to take shelter in Dublin Bay during bad weather, and sold their catches of these little lobsters in Dublin before heading out again. In any case, the name has stuck regardless of the wee beasties' origin. They're fished all up and down the North Atlantic coasts of Europe -- including Ireland, of course -- and some are taken off the eastern seaboards of Canada and the United States as well.

The Dublin Bay prawn's meat is much more tender and rich-tasting than any shrimp or genuine prawn... which makes it popular here as a high-end appetizer (simply grilled or boiled and served with lemon and butter, as lobster would be). Dublin Bay prawns also turn up in stews or soups like this one, especially in seaside communities where fishermen's freshly landed catches go straight to the pubs, shops and homes of the appreciative locals. In this treatment -- passed to us by a friend originally from Skerries, a little fishing port town north of Dublin -- the prawns are teamed up with a creamy chowder-like soup base taken a little upmarket by the prawns themselves and by the peppery but delicate seasoning and a final swirl of double cream.

Click on "read more" for the recipe and method.    Read more

At this time of year, approximately a quarter of the people who come to our site arrive in search of recipes having to do with Irish Coffee. Maybe there's a good reason for this. Sometimes the simplest things work best, and it's hard to think of anything simpler than the magical drink that Joe Sheridan came up with one cold and rainy evening in 1943 when yet another flying boat landed on the River Shannon at the old seaplane base at Foynes, County Clare, disgorging a crowd of tired, thirsty, and (shortly) cold and wet passengers into the Irish night. Coffee might have been all those poor weary people first wanted when they got in out of the rain, but Joe gave them something better -- hot coffee with sugar and Irish whiskey in it, topped with unwhipped, thick Irish double cream -- and since then his signature drink has made its way all over the world.

Irish Coffee itself, in its original form, is quite wonderful -- look over here on our site for the original Irish coffee recipe as it's preserved at the Foynes flying boat base's direct descendant, Shannon Airport. But people just can't let well enough alone, and before very long enterprising cooks were attempting to incorporate it into all kinds of desserts. One of the most successful of these is Irish Coffee Cake, which first started turning up in Irish cookbooks in the 1960's and '70's.

The cake itself is simple: a delicate one-layer sponge with a pretty intense coffee flavor. But the real kick in this version of the cake comes with the syrup that later saturates the cake -- more coffee, naturally with whiskey in it -- and then with the topping, rich with double cream as a good Irish Coffee topping should be, flavored with yet more whiskey, and finished off with an inspired sprinkling of that best-loved of Irish native nuts, the hazelnut.

Click on "read more" for the recipe and the method.    Read more

And welcome to EuropeanCuisines.com!

You can follow our tweets here. We Tweet every time we post a new European recipe. Right now, that's a new Irish recipe every day between March 1 and March 17. Coming up: the awesome Irish Coffee Cake!

(And thanks to the noble makiwi for directing you here.)

Leeks get a lot of play in Irish cooking, being another of the vegetables that don't mind the island's cool climate, and can grow on poor ground with relatively little preparation of the garden or field. As a result they wind up being praised in early Irish poetry as "the friend of cooks", both for their versatility and for the extra punch of flavor they gave the various savory dishes in which they were used.

One favorite approach was to put them in soups or stews, and (by extension) in pies. This pie is one of the single-crust variety that are apparently descended from the cook's eternal quandary: "what do I do with all this leftover stew?" Sooner or later, some Irish cook hit on the idea of putting a reduced soup or stew into a pie dish and covering it with a pie-dough crust (or sometimes puff pastry), thereby giving it a new lease on life.

Eventually people started bypassing the pre-pie stew stage and simply made the pie from scratch. This recipe is one of that type. The ham or smoky bacon (probably more leftovers in the original versions...) gives a nice deep note to the lighter flavor of the chicken and the sharp touch of onions and leeks.

This recipe can be made in two different ways: to eat hot -- with the savory, cream-finished chicken stock in which the meat was cooked -- or adapted slightly so that the creamy stock will become a solid, savory jelly when the pie chills down. This way it can be served as a cold entree. (The original recipe depended on the natural gelatine of homemade chicken and ham stock to do the trick, but the results in this regard were always iffy depending on how good your stock was.)

Click on "read more" for the recipe and details.    Read more