apple

Some of the best Irish dishes are the simplest ones, based on solid, good quality ingredients, not treated in any fancy way but simply with a respect for their basic flavors and the way the ingredients interact with other foods. This recipe is one of those.

It harks back to a time when cooks were intent on making the best of what they had on hand, and didn't have recourse to glossy supermarkets full of ingredients that were in season somewhere else but not at home. Most farmers in Ireland would have been within easy reach of someone growing barley, if they weren't growing it themselves. Besides being good for brewing with, the grain made its way into endless soups and stews, not just for the sake of its own nutritional value, but because of its thickening abilities. Apples, too, grow all over the island of Ireland quite happily. But their season doesn't last forever. The farmers and householders of the days before modern storage technologies were available got very clever about ways to keep a season's apples well into the next spring, even the next summertime. A given year's harvest -- what wasn't eaten fresh or preserved by being made into alcoholic / "hard" cider -- was mostly put down in straw in the coolest place a farmer could find. The apples would wrinkle, and their internal texture would go a little mealy over time, but their flavor would be well preserved.

This recipe for apple barley pudding was clearly developed to deal with those out-of-season apples and a little of the spare barley that would always be hiding somewhere in the kitchen. Cooking the apples down to a puree both removes the problem with their texture and infuses the barley with the apples' pectin, another effective gelling and thickening agent. Then the final result is sweetened a little, sharpened further with lemon juice, and chilled. The finished product is surprisingly light and delicate, with a tart kick: the cream mellows it all down and adds amazing richness.

The original recipe (which we've adapted from one in Ethel Minogue's Modern and Traditional Irish Cooking) calls for cool cream to be stirred into the apple and barley pudding when it's finished and ready to be eaten. However, another approach that works (we think) much better is to layer it in parfait glasses with freshly whipped, slightly sweetened cream. It's your call.

This is, by the way, yet another of a small but select group of Irish dessert recipes that are nonalcoholic. Doubtless there are people who'll want to put Irish whiskey in it anyway. Go right ahead, but we'll disavow any knowledge of your actions. (If you're going to do this, consider flavoring the cream, rather than the basic dessert, as you may run into problems with the pudding mixture thickening up.) The recipe will serve about four people.

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

This is a much-loved variant on the basic Irish scone recipe. It would be true to say that a lot of Irish people, especially back in the old days, had a sweet tooth, and this kind of "small baking" would have had a lot of appeal. Thrifty cooks would have liked it, too: it doesn't feature any fancy imported fruit, but that old Irish favorite, the apple... and the recipe works as well with fresh in-season apples as with ones that might have just come out of storage and been a little past their best.

In this recipe (adapted from one in Maura Laverty's classic Irish cookbook Full and Plenty) the scones aren't rolled out and cut separately. The dough mixture is baked in a pan and the scones are cut apart after they're done -- and after they've been well sprinkled with granulated sugar for a little extra sweet crunch.

Click on "read more" for the recipe and instructions.

MMMMM----- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v7.01
 
     Title: Apple Mash (Irish)
Categories: Vegetables, Fruits, Irish
  Servings:  4
 
      1 lb Cooking apples
      2 lb Potatoes
      1 T  Sugar
      2 oz Butter
 
  Peel potatoes.  Cook in salted, boiling water.  Meanwhile peel, core, and
  slice apples.  Place in a pot with a tablespoon of water, and the sugar.
  Cook until soft.  When the potatoes are cooked, drain and mash thoroughly.
   Beat in the apples and butter.  This mash goes particularly well with
  bacon, or fried herring.
 
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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.   

Lamb has been a favorite meat in Ireland for a long time -- maybe not as popular as pork, but a front-runner nonetheless when Irish cooks are thinking about something serious and substantial to make for that Sunday roast.

Locally, Wicklow lamb from the mountain pastures and rolling hills south of Dublin is probably the biggest favorite....though some Irish cooks prefer lamb from the West. There some of the flocks raised on the windswept Atlantic shorelines are grazed on spray-salted grassland that flavors their meat with a tang of the sea, producing local lamb and mutton that challenge the best of the famous French pre-salé lamb.

While lamb is always available as chops and smaller cuts, there seems to be a longstanding preference in Ireland for boned rolled roasts and the classic leg of lamb. This traditional farmhouse recipe surrounds the leg with a half-inch-thick crust of soft fresh breadcrumbs, butter and herbs that helps keep the lamb tender and juicy, but also adds an excellent crunchy contrast to the solid texture of the meat. The vegetables roasting under the lamb -- potatoes, sliced onions, and (a little unusually) apples -- are cooked to an inner tenderness by the hot chicken stock added at the beginning of the process. During the roasting period they absorb the stock and are flavored by it, becoming crunchy on the outside and perfectly tender on the inside.

If you don't care to go to the expense of a whole leg of lamb because there aren't going to be enough people around to help you eat it, you can also produce a similar result using one or two lamb shanks.

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

MMMMM----- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.04
 
      Title: Fanzieutes da meiles / Apple fritters
 Categories: Val gardena, Vegetarian, Fruits, Tyrolean
      Yield: 4 servings
 
      4    Good eating apples
    125 g  Sifted flour
    1/8 l  Milk
      2    Eggs
      1 pn Salt
           Sugar to garnish
 
  Peel the apples, core them, and slice into rounds about a finger
  thick.
  
  Mix the flour, eggs and other ingredients together into a batter,
  coat the apple slices in the batter and deep-fry them.  Remove,
  drain, and sprinkle with sugar.

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