Happy St. Patrick's Day everybody. Erin go braugh means "Ireland forever!" To celebrate my Irish ancestry I decided to cook a typical Irish meal: corned beef and cabbage. (Ok, I know corned beef isn't really Irish, but it's sort of the traditional St. Patrick's Day meal.) I haven't had corned beef in almost 20 years so I hardly even remember what it tastes like, I just remembered that I liked it. So I looked up a recipe on foodtv.com. Paula Deen's recipe started with "open a can of corned beef" Uh...what? Corned beef comes in a can? Is it a relative of SPAM? I decided to look further. Alton Brown has seldom led me astray so I checked out his recipe. Promising. It started at least with a cut of beef brisket. But then as I read the recipe one questionable ingredient popped out. Saltpeter. What is this? I decided to do a little research. It turns out that saltpeter is potassium nitrate, a key ingredient in gunpowder and fertilizer. If you have trouble finding it at the grocery store (which you will) you can order it from a lab supply company. No thank you! Saltpeter is what makes it pink. I suppose you could make it without the saltpeter but I wasn't going to try to find out.
On to Irish Soda Bread. The Brennan Family Cookbook that I complied this winter for my mom's family has no less than 4 different Irish Soda Bread recipes. Although the Irish Soda Bread that we make (with sugar and raisins or currants) isn't authentically Irish, soda bread, is in fact a traditional Irish food. You can read a really interesting post about the science and history of Irish Soda Bread here. Oliver and I cooked up a batch using my Aunt Gayle's recipe. It was delicious! I'll post the recipe below. I also ended up making an awesome variation on Shepherd's Pie for supper. I'll post that on my cooking blog when I get a chance.
Gayle Brennan's Irish Soda Bread
Ingredients:
4 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 TB baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup butter (softened)
2 cups raisins
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 egg (beaten)
Mix dry ingredients first.
Add the rest. Mix by hand until blended. (floured hands are very helpful ; ) ) On a floured surface, knead for a minute or two. Divide into two sections. Place each section into two greased cake pans. Make an X through top of each with knife. Bake at 350 for 40 - 45 mins until golden brown.Best served warm with butter, or later toasted with butter.
Enjoy!
5 comments:
Thank you for sharing your recipe...
Pablo and I loved the bread, we were fighting over it...It was delicious!
Had I known, I would have been over!
It's so funny that you mentioned the Alton Brown Corned Beef and Cabbage recipe. A few weeks ago, Jon and I were looking for a corned beef recipe that started with a regular brisket that we could brine on our own, and we found that one. It looked the best with all the spices. We freaked out when we researched what saltpeter was too! We still decided to make it though (without the saltpeter--who cares if the meat isn't pink?), and we're going to have it tomorrow. Jon has been on a fly-out for a job interview and so we missed having our St. Patrick's Day meal on the 17th. Oh, well. I'm really excited about the Irish Soda Bread recipe that you've shared. We were also planning on making Irish Soda Bread tomorrow, and now I can't wait to show Jon your recipe when he finally comes home tonight. (We're having our dinner with some friends, and they're bringing Dublin Coddle.)
oh wow! i can't believe we gave you commerical irish soda bread while you were here. next time, i'll make this one. yum!!
i already miss you guys - thanks for brightening our home.
and for the record, i made corned beef and cabbage. it stinks up your home, but it's de-lish. the best way to do it is buy the corned beef pre-brined. no need to look for fertilizer salts... i would bet that one of your gourmet grocery stores would have the meat.
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