Boxty – out of the laundry room and into the frying pan

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Out of the laundry room and into the frying pan
(the gorgeous bowl and jug are by my aunt, Patricia Casey, artist and potter extraordinaire)

Writing in The Medical Times and Gazette in 1865, Henry MacCormac M.D., of Belfast, mentions the preparation of Boxty or ‘poorhouse bread’.

“The country people prepare, for purposes of laundry, potato starch. Raw potatoes are peeled, grated and washed. The gratings from which the boxty cake is made remain in the colander. This boxty cake … has a peculiar but not unpleasant flavour. I remember having partaken of it… in one of the houses of the peasantry.”

Thanks Henry, I know there were particular reasons for such frugality at the time, but that sounds really, really grim. No wonder Boxty isn’t our national dish!

As if that weren’t bad enough, a traditional rhyme suggests that if you were a female at that time, and this concoction wasn’t in your repertoire, you were in big trouble: Boxty on the griddle /Boxty in the pan / If you can’t make boxty / You’ll never get a man. Yikes!

Mercifully, laundry methods, society, and potato cuisine have all moved on since the dark days of the nineteenth century. You'll find that Boxty can be a type of potato cake, a dumpling or a pancake. Today’s recipe is for the pancake. My preference is for the floury Rooster potato but any floury potato will do.

For approximately 12 boxty pancakes you will need…

350g freshly boiled and mashed potato

50g butter

250g raw potato, finely grated

250g plain flour

1 teaspoon fine table salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

¾ teaspoon bread soda

350mls buttermilk

A little sunflower oil or extra virgin olive oil for frying

Mix the butter with the freshly made mashed potato while it is still hot. Leave to cool.

Meanwhile, wring the grated potato out in a clean tea towel to extract as much liquid as possible. (Discard the liquid.)  Add the grated potato to the cooked mashed potato along with the flour, salt, baking powder and bread soda and mix to combine.

Gradually mix in the buttermilk to form a thick batter.

Now, heat a frying pan over a medium heat. Wipe the hot pan with a wad of kitchen paper dipped in sunflower oil, giving the pan the barest sheen of oil. (Keep the oily paper to wipe the frying pan between cooking each pancake.)

Fry gently until the surface of the batter has set

Scoop about 80mls of batter into the pan and quickly smooth it out to form a circle. Fry gently until the surface of the batter has set, then flip the pancake over. Continue cooking for a further 30 seconds or so, or until the pancake is golden brown. Repeat until all the batter has been used up, keeping the cooked pancakes warm in a low oven.

Serve as part of a cooked breakfast or drizzled in maple syrup.

Variation:

I make tiny versions of these as an alternative to blinis and serve with smoked salmon and crème fraiche.

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Panfried Hake with Potato Crab Cake – A Sofishticated Dish!

Pin It The fact that I live a stone’s throw from Glendalough made it easy to persuade some English friends to make a long-overdue visit to Ireland.  Glendalough was not the only attraction. Here’s how my sales pitch went:

Fishing for compliments: Pan-fried Hake with Potato & Crab Cakes and Spicy Tomato Sauce

·        We’re less than an hour’s low cost flight away...

·        Your English pound will stretch so far against the euro you’ll think it’s made of elastic...

·        We have sunshine 365 days of the year – ok that’s stretching it slightly but not my fault the sunshine is above the clouds J

I promised them a céad míle fáilte (the hundred thousand welcomes, compulsory under Irish law).  I promised them the countryside would soothe their stressed-out souls with its wild beauty.  I promised them that the food would get their taste buds dancing like Michael Flatley. The Guinness got them thinking they could dance like Michael Flatley – but that’s another story...

Their timing made them the perfect guineapigs for my Irish Food Bloggers Association Salon du Blog creation...

Potato + Crab + Chillies = Hot Stuff!!!

These friends are pescatarians. Woohoo! Give me fish and potato in any form and I’m one happy girl. This magical combination can be moules frites and a glass of Rosé... sigh ... or fish n chips eaten from the paper while seagulls swoop ever closer in an attempt to share in the feast. However, sometimes a girl needs something a little more so-fish-ticated...  

Don’t be put off by the list of ingredients - most, you will already have in the cupboard. Everything except for the fish can be prepared in advance.

For 4 servings you will need...

Spicy Tomato Sauce
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 fat garlic cloves, crushed
300mls pasata (or a tin of tomatoes, sieved)
1 red chilli, finely chopped
1 teaspoon paprika
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
a pinch of salt
freshly ground black pepper

To make the tomato sauce, heat the olive oil in a saucepan over a medium heat. Add the onion and garlic. Lower the heat and cook gently for about 5 minutes until the onion has softened without colouring. Then add in the remaining ingredients and let the sauce bubble gently for about 10 minutes until most of the liquid has evaporated.

Oh crumbs!

Potato Crab Cakes
400g Rooster potatoes, boiled, then ‘riced’ or mashed and cooled
200g crab meat
1 tablespoon finely grated fresh ginger
1 green chilli, finely chopped
3 spring onions, finely chopped
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh coriander
1 egg, beaten
½ teaspoon salt
 ¼ teaspoon ground white pepper

3 tablespoons plain flour

1 large egg, beaten
125g fresh breadcrumbs

Preheat oven to 180°C (fan)

1          In a large mixing bowl, combine the first 9 ingredients. Divide the mixture into 4 even portions and form into cakes or patties about 2.5cm (1 inch) thick.

2          Set out three plates or shallow dishes, one each for the flour, the breadcrumbs and the beaten egg. Dust each potato cake with flour, then dip in egg and cover with breadcrumbs. [If preparing in advance, cover and place in the fridge at this stage. Place in a pre-heated oven about 15 minutes before you start cooking the fish.]

3          Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown - 20-25 minutes

Tanned? Me? Well, just a bit...

Hake
4 boneless fillets of hake, each about 180g
2 tablespoons sunflower oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Fresh coriander to garnish

Fish - the ultimate fast food!

1          Brush each fillet with oil and sprinkle with a little salt and freshly ground black pepper. Meanwhile, heat a non-stick frying pan over a medium heat. Place the fillets – skin side down – in the hot pan and cook for 5 minutes. Then, using a fish slice, carefully turn the fillets and turn off the pan, allowing the fillets to continue cooking in the residual heat while you assemble the dish.  To assemble, divide the tomato sauce between 4 warm plates. Sit a potato crab cake on top and finally sit the hake on top and add some fresh coriander.



A saucy little creation!



Bask in the compliments as your friends sigh happily and start planning their next trip to Ireland. Pin It

Happy "Arthur’s Day" - A Stroke of Guinness!

Pin It My Goodness! The marketing machine over at Guinness is Genius! When Obama visited Ireland to find the lost apostrophe of his Irish roots (O’Bama) the money shot was that pint of the black stuff in his hand. Britain’s Queen Elizabeth was a little more canny on her visit, and merely looked at her pint of plain with suspicion. It still made headline news.

This bread is a stroke of 'Guinness' - and it's perfect with my mum's Plum and Ginger Jam

In a nod to “Arthur’s Day” - another stroke of Guinness from the marketing department - I made Guinness and Cranberry Bread from TV Chef, Catherine Fulvio’s new book. In Catherine’s Family Kitchen, she shows us around Ballyknocken House, her cookery school and home. As the title of the book suggests, this is all about family. Catherine says “There is nothing quite like sitting around the dinner table, laughing, joking, catching up, and, most importantly, enjoying good home-cooked food.”

The book revolves around the number 5… 5 useful gadgets… 5 ways with chopping… 5 quick soups…  soda breads… scones…  pasta… mash… sauces – you get the picture - all easy ways to ring the changes and keep the family menu from ever getting boring.

There are plenty of simple-to-prepare dishes to tempt your tastebuds and also to broaden the palate of any younger members of the household. It is an eclectic mix – Asian, Italian, Irish – with the emphasis on dishes that are quick and easy to put together, and even easier to eat.

The Guinness and Cranberry Bread (a soda loaf) took about 3 minutes to put together and just under an hour in the oven. It was dark and sweet and the perfect partner for my mother’s incredible plum and ginger jam. Himself and I demolished several slices before it had even cooled.

On my list to try are: Marinated Aubergine and Courgette with Goat’s Cheese and Hazelnut Dressing; Orange and Oregano Cod; Seafood and Spinach Open Ravioli; a show-stopping Thyme-infused Raspberry Chocolate Meringue Tower and how could I resist the Orange Mocha Crème Brulée.

I have two criticisms, and they are both aesthetic. Firstly, while most of the recipes are dark type on a light background making for optimal readability, there are several on brightly-coloured pages with white type in a script font, which I found hard on the eye – and my eyesight is pretty close to perfect.

Secondly, Catherine is one of the most animated and energetic people you could possibly meet and yet there is a ‘posed’ stiff quality to several of the lifestyle portraits in the book which doesn’t do her justice. On the other hand, the food photos are stunning; so less lifestyle and focus more on the food perhaps… These are minor complaints. I’ll definitely be cooking from this book.

As for “Arthur’s Day”, where does it all end? Next thing you know the Whiskey companies will be clamouring for their day… What’s that? They already have one? So they do - Paddy’s Day!

Review copy of Catherine’s Family Kitchen, courtesy of Gill & McMillan Publishers

Catherine’s Family Kitchen by Catherine Fulvio

ISBN: 9780717150571
Hardback: €22.99 Pin It