Irish

Commentary goes here. Or will momentarily.

Ingredients:

The Irish attitude to fish has been ambivalent for a long time.

Probably this has to do with it having been mandatory once a week for most of the country for so long. It's a peculiar state of affairs when the very best Irish fish isn't to be found in markets at home, but instead winds up being sold at exorbitant prices in France and Germany. (EuroCuisineLady ate her very first Irish oyster in Zurich.)

But slowly attitudes are beginning to change. Partly this may have had to do with the various high-visibility TV chefs and other media personalities who've descended on Irish shores over the past decade and raved about the quality of the seafood. Whatever the cause, Irish fish are beginning to be seen as the cool thing to be eating. Which is nice, since not only do they taste great, but they're also good for you.

And chief among the Good For You fish is probably the handsome mackerel. Full of omega-3 oils and bearer of Good Cholesterol, mackerel is a win-win proposition from the nutritional point of view. What's almost suspicious, considering this, is how great its flavor is, and how well it picks up and enhances the flavors of what you cook with it.

This being Ireland, it's no surprise that bacon would involve itself in the process sooner or later. Oatmeal, too, turns up in this recipe: not the rolled kind, but the "pinhead" oat, which (crushed or ground down a little) makes a wonderfully crunchy crust with a nutty taste. And the oatmeal's healthy, too. The bacon fat is the only thing that's a little suspect, but think of it as being balanced out by all those omega-3 oils.

This is a quick dish to make, simple and hearty. Some people might like it as a starter, but it makes a great lunch, too (that being what EuroCuisineLady did with it after taking the pictures).

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

Many people come to our site each day (especially as we get closer to St. Patrick's Day) looking for traditional Irish dessert recipes, especially ones that contain Baileys Irish Cream.*

As far as "traditional" goes, this is always going to be a sticky subject... especially in Ireland, where the label is usually applied to recipes that have been around for hundreds of years. Can you have traditional recipes for anything that's only been around for thirty-five years? Locally, at least, the jury is still out (Though there's no problem with Baileys as such. Lots and lots of native Irish people love it.)

But there's no question that there's a tendency in North America to put Baileys in all kinds of desserts. The problem is that some of the desserts are distinctly dodgy. And this tendency manifests itself most fully in a whole lot of the recipes for "Baileys Mousse Pie" that are out there on the Web at the moment.

The worst thing about them -- the most un-Irish thing, anyway -- is probably their tendency to contain non-dairy toppings, either instant or frozen, as a major ingredient. One of our County Wicklow neighbors stopped EuroCuisineLady in the pub one evening a couple of months ago, knowing that she was an American, and asked her, "What exactly is Cool Whip?" ECL explained that it was a whipped topping that didn't contain any dairy products except the very processed milk chemical casein, and that its main attraction was probably that you could keep it in the freezer for a long time and just get it out when you needed it.

The neighbor then showed ECL a typical Baileys Mousse Pie recipe he'd found that contained nothing much but a graham cracker crust filled with Baileys, sugar, and Cool Whip. "What's this stuff doing in an Irish pie?" ECL's neighbor said: possibly with some reason, since Cool Whip does not exist in Ireland. In fact, no non-dairy topping has ever taken off successfully here, as native Irish people seem to think that there's no point in wasting your money on some weird overprocessed fake-cream product when there's perfectly good real cream all over the place. And the neighbor was very confused as to why -- if these recipes were being pushed as something Irish -- why the people inventing these recipes didn't make them the way Irish people would, with ingredients that you could normally find in Ireland. "They don't mind the cream in the Baileys," the neighbor said. "So why do they have to put this bogus chemical junk in?"

EuroCuisineLady had no quick answer to this. The conversation then wandered off into other territory, especially the question of non-bake versions of such a pie that might actually keep the Irish whiskey in the Baileys inside the pie instead of letting it be driven off by an oven's heat. ECL then went home and started to experiment, to the point where EuroCuisineGuy started wondering why the milkman was leaving so much cream every other day. (The EuroCats, however, did not complain at all.)

After some experiments, EuroCuisineLady finally constructed a Baileys Mousse Pie recipe that fulfills these requirements: (1) It contains no ingredients that are not available in Ireland. (2) The alcohol stays in it. (3) Native Irish people, after tasting it, have agreed that they don't mind it being called "Irish", and have declared it to be Not Bogus.

Please be clear: though the amounts of alcohol in the pie as a whole are not huge, you probably should not eat this pie and then drive. Other than that, all you need to know is that it's rich, it's yummy, and it freezes nicely if you have any extra left over. (Not very likely.)

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

Of all the Irish traditional main dishes, lamb stew is possibly one of the ones most constantly made... and possibly also one of the most contentious. (Please note that not many people here call it Irish stew: it seems a little redundant, since this is not only where it comes from, but where it's being made...)

The problem is, of course, that everybody's Mom makes the best one. Changing recipes from the one that's been passed down in your family for decades or indeed centuries can be a cause of serious friction at home. Serious discussion can break out over what cut of lamb to use...how much water...whether the potatoes are peeled or not.

And there's another far bigger problem surrounding lamb stew in this island: a faultline of culinary thought that runs straight through all strata of society, south and north, and apparently cannot be reconciled. It's the eternal question: carrots or no carrots? EuroCuisineLady once had to sit in EuroCuisineGuy's Mum's sitting room and listen to Mum and her elderly sister going at the Carrot Question, each trying to be polite to the other, each failing badly because neither could deal with the complete irrationality of the other's stance. It got ugly. And since there's no accepted authority to quote, the two sides of the argument continue to refuse to grant one another parity of esteem whenever the subject comes up. Even supermarket versions have to be clearly labeled as "Contains Carrots" or "No Carrots." EuroCuisineLady is afraid that it may take another few generations yet to sort this one out and achieve some kind of consensus.

Meanwhile, our recipe comes down on the No Carrots side (which does seem to have a slight edge on the Carrots side). In fact, like the oldest Irish lamb stew recipes, it contains no vegetables except onions, potatoes, and a few herbs. All the rest is basic seasonings -- salt and pepper and those herbs -- and lamb. In a dish of such pristine simplicity, you must concentrate on getting the best lamb you can find: it will carry the dish.

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

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.