entree

The salmon is described in the old poems as the "Chieftain of the Fish of Ireland", and has always been referred to down the centuries with affection and respect for its beauty, cunning, power... and good taste.

Irish salmon is unquestionably some of the best in the world, if not the best. Every day, tens of thousands of travelers passing through Irish airports for other destinations, east and west, pick up a side of smoked or cured wild Irish salmon to take home. What they unfortunately cannot take home with them (yet!) is fresh salmon, just out of the river or the sea that morning. But these recipes will enable you to get as close as you can to the taste of our unparallelled salmon as visitors here experience it, fresh from the unpolluted Irish waters.

The recipe for a whole poached salmon adds a buttery sauce with fennel, always one of Ireland's favorite herbs. The recipe for grilled salmon steaks recalls the Salmon of Knowledge that the hero Finn roasted by the mystical Pool of the Nine Hazels. There the ancient salmon of the pool fed on the magic hazelnuts dropping from the trees into the water, storing up in their flesh all the wisdom of the world...and possibly establishing for later millennia the tradition that "fish is brain food." ...Click "read more" for the recipes.

This hearty entree is also known in Ireland as "sailor pie" or "sailor's pie" even though it contains no fish. Presumably it was thought of as being a good hearty dish suitable to give to a man who'd just come in from the sea.

Another version of this pie appears in a series of cookbooks produced by the government of the Irish Republic for young housewives in the 1930's. Because of this, the pie is sometimes known by the name of the then-Irish Taoiseach / prime minister, and referred to as "De Valera Pie."

The oldest versions of the dish use plain pastry or puff pastry tops for the pie. This one follows the newer tradition of using a soda bread crust.

The recipe...

This is the original, much-loved, much-missed dish that Irish immigrants of the nineteenth century were trying to make when they came to North America...and when they couldn't get the pork they really wanted, they made do with salted (corned) beef instead. (See the article here for the details. The facts may surprise you.)

If Ireland really has a national dish -- which is another whole question -- this might just be it. You can get pretty close to the Real Thing at home, but you'll need to start a day or three early, and do a little extra work. Click on "read more" for the recipe and other details.