Traditional Irish Foods & Recipes

    Happy St. Patrick's Day! As my mom says, "The day where everyone is Irish." Well, thanks to DNA testing and research, I have learned I am actually part Irish on my Dad's side! I wrote about Harry Hill, my Irish Ancestor last year. Check out that post and come back here to see what we have in store for this St. Patrick's Day.

    I love watching this Channel on YouTube where Irish people try all kinds of things from all over the world. It's called The Try Channel. That gave me the idea of trying traditional Irish Foods to celebrate my Irish heritage. So that's what I did. I reached out to some friends on the internet for some ideas. Here is what I came up with.

Mark & me trying Irish foods

Watch me try all these Irish foods!

Boxty

“Boxty in the griddle, boxty in the pan, if you can’t make boxty, you’ll never get a man”.

Boxty is a traditional Irish Potato Pancake with grated potatoes and mashed potatoes. It is commonly made with about 70% potato and about 30% other ingredients. The most popular version of the dish consists of finely grated raw potato and flour. The grated potato may be strained to remove most of the starch and water but this is not necessary. The mixture is fried on a griddle pan for a few minutes on each side, similar to a normal pancake. The most noticeable difference between boxty and other fried potato dishes is its smooth, fine-grained consistency.

The dish is mostly associated with the north midlands, north Connacht and southern Ulster, in particular the counties of Leitrim, Mayo, Sligo, Donegal, Fermanagh, Longford, and Cavan. (Irish: bacstaí)

The recipe I used I found on Pinterest. There are other recipes that might have just a slight variation, but this one turned out so well, I'm going to stick with it.

    This recipe made quite a lot of potato pancakes. I had enough leftovers for my husband, daughter, and my mom. I served mine with sliced green onions and a couple of sausage links. Other sites state you can serve them with syrup or sour cream, depending on your taste. 10 out of 10 would make this again.

Irish Coffee

This was something my husband has been wanting to try for a long time. He loves coffee and he loves whisky. So I looked up many recipes for Irish Coffee. I was surprised at all the variations. I finally landed on a simple recipe that was perfect. Click the link to read about the History of Irish Coffee.

Irish Coffee
4oz Coffee
1-2 TBS sugar (hubby doesn't like it too sweet)
1 shot of Irish Whiskey (I used Jameson Black Barrel)
Homemade Whipped Cream

Pour hot water into the glass you are going to serve your Irish Coffee in so it will warm up. Make your coffee. Put the sugar in a small pot, add just a bit of water, and heat it until it melts. Remove from heat and pour in the whiskey to warm it with the sugar. Pour out the water from your cup. Add the coffee, then add your sugar/whiskey mixture and then top with homemade whipping cream. (Just whip heavy whipping cream until solid) 

There you go! Like I said, there are many variations. So make it however you want. This is just the way I make it and hubby loves it! I don't have a traditional clear glass to serve it in, so I used what I had. I served my coffee with Irish Soda Bread. I did not make that. I purchased it from the store. It was one less thing for me to make. 

The Irish Coffee was created in the winter of 1943 by Joe Sheridan, chef at Foynes Port near Limerick, Ireland. When he was asked by the passengers if he had used Brazilian coffee, Sheridan replied: "No, it was Irish coffee.” https://weaverscoffee.com/blogs/blog/the-original-irish-coffee-recipe-and-its-history

Irish Soda Bread

I had thought about making this from scratch, but with everything else I was doing, I decided to just pick it up from the store. I served it with my Irish Coffee and some Kerrygold Irish Butter.

"Despite its hefty presence during Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations, the history of Irish Soda Bread doesn’t nearly date back to the days of Saint Patty himself—roughly 400 AD—but rather only a couple of centuries. Irish Soda Bread was first created in the late 1830s when the first iteration of baking soda—or bicarbonate soda—was introduced to the U.K." Source: History of Irish Soda Bread

More history: http://www.sodabread.info/history

Irish Beef Stew

I wasn't planning on making this at first, but since I wanted to try a Guinness for the first time (and you can only buy the cans in a four-pack) I decided to try this recipe. It called for a full can of Guinness. Wow! It takes all day to cook to get the flavors melded together. The house smelled delicious. I got the recipe from here: Irish Beef and Guinness Stew. She explains it so well, so I'm not going to type it all out below. follow her instructions and it will turn out amazing. 

I served this with Colcannon Potatoes since they recommend Mashed Potatoes. 

Colcannon

Colcannon is an Irish Mashed potato recipe that contains kale or cabbage and bacon. I absolutely LOVED this. It paired well with the Irish Beef Stew, but I would serve this by itself some time. 

Recipe: Irish Colcannon Potatoes

During the 1600 and 1700’s in Europe and Ireland, potatoes, cabbages, and leeks were considered the food of the common man so it was inevitable that a dish would evolve that combines all the ingredients.  The word colcannon is from the Gaelic term “cal ceannann” which means white-headed cabbage.  It is also believed to be a derivative of the old Irish “cainnenin” translated as garlic, onion, or leek.

In Ireland, colcannon is served as a special treat with ham or Irish bacon.  The Irish tradition is to serve colcannon as the main dish for Halloween festivities and refer to the evening as “Colcannon Night”.  Colcannon is used for the foretelling of marriages.  Just as Americans have the fun superstition of the single young lady who catches the wedding bouquet will be the next to marry.  Young single Irish women hope to find the ring hidden in their plate of colcannon. Source: What's Cooking America

    All in all, it was a good day trying traditional Irish foods. I did end the day trying my first Guinness, and I have to say... eh... well watch the video to get my take on it. What a great way to celebrate my Irish heritage. I am going to try some other items soon that were recommended to me. Such as a Tayto Crisp sandwich. I ordered the chips from Amazon. 

Have you tried any of these recipes? What do you like to make for St. Patrick's Day? do you have Irish heritage? Let me know in the comments below. And don't forget to check out my video!

via GIPHY

Vintage Family Recipes - Gooey Butter Cake

     Gooey Butter Cake, a St. Louis staple for sure! Have you ever heard of it? Most people out of St. Louis have either not heard of it or have heard about it, but haven't tried it. Let me tell you, oh it's delicious! Since I am from St. Louis, I am very familiar with this ooey-gooey dessert.
     But how did it come about? Who created this fantastic dessert? Well, there are plenty of claims around about who came up with it first. There are two stories mentioned on the website, "What's Cooking America?" Two families claim to be the original creators of this iconic recipe, but neither have the proof to back up their stories. This article does include a recipe for Gooey Butter Cake, but it doesn't match the recipe left behind by Grandma.
   

The recipe is typed out below to better understand

Gooey Butter Cake

9x13in Pan, Grease

Crust on bottom:

1 Yellow Cake Mix**

1 Egg

1 Stick of Oleo*, soft (butter) &

press it in the bottom of the pan

Filling:

2 Eggs

1-1 lb box of Powdered Sugar

1-8 oz cream cheese, soft &

mix and pour on top and

bake 350° for 40-45 minutes

and let cool & sprinkle

some powder sugar on top.

     This recipe was in my grandma's collection when it was given to me. It was just written down on a notecard. I've had this recipe for many years now, but never tried it. I've only seen my mom and grandma make it, but that was about 20 years ago. So since we have had time recently because of the self-quarantine, I decided to give this recipe a shot. 

Everything I used in this recipe

UPDATE: I never took into account the different ingredients that were available in other locations, so I am adding some substitutions in case some items are not available. Note: I have not tried the cake with these substitutions as of yet, so I do not know how it will turn out. If you have found success using the substitutions or have used something else that works better, please leave a comment below.

*Oleo is an old term that was used for Margarine back in the day. Margarine is more like a solidified vegetable oil and was much cheaper to use than butter. So many recipes had this as a substitute. I do not use Margarine. I avoid it for its unhealthy content. So I use real butter. Our butter comes in sticks, so the measurement is one stick of butter. That translates to 1/4 lb. butter or 1/2 c. depending on what your normal unit of measurement is. 

**Yellow Cake Mix comes pre-mixed in boxes here by us. See photo above. If you do not have pre-mixed cake mixes by you, here is what you will need:

2 1/4 c. (281g) all-purpose flour

1 1/2 c. (300g) granulated sugar

3 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

Optional:

1 Tbsp. Vanilla Extract for flavoring

Note: The recipe listed above is the dry ingredients for a basic yellow cake mix. I have not tried this substitution for the box of Yellow Cake Mix, so I do not know how this is going to work or taste. You may need the optional Vanilla Extract to give it flavoring, because the box mix may already have vanilla flavoring. I am only basing that assumption on the fact when I mixed the box mix, I smelled vanilla.

If you would like to see how I made this recipe myself with the original ingredients listed,

watch the video below.

Photos of the finished product!

     So this is going to be something new I'm going to do during this time. Trying to cook some vintage family recipes from my collection. Since my Papa Fuchs's birthday is coming up in June, I'm going to make a recipe that is in the Oakland cookbook that my Grandma Fuchs provided, called George's Casserole. It sounds similar to ratatouille. We will see!