Recipes Discovered

While unpacking (still), I found an Irish cookbook that I had bought a long time ago. Seth’s family is very Irish, and I’ve always wanted to learn to cook traditional Irish food. I had Seth pick out recipes for a complete meal, and this is what he came up with.

We started with Mushroom Soup, which simply a lot of mushrooms cooked with potatoes, onions, garlic, and some stock. The recipe implies to blend the soup, but it leave it rather chunky, but Seth and I both prefer the soup blended smooth. It developed a very cream texture, similar to cream of mushroom soup. I used portobello, crimini, and white button mushrooms, which gave the soup great flavor. I served the soup with Brown Soda Bread, which is so incredibly easy to make. I mixed whole wheat flour with baking powder and buttermilk (I had to use more buttermilk than the recipe called for) together until a dough forms. I then kneaded the dough for a minute until it was smooth and baked until hollow. The bread was so good! It formed a nice crust on the outside, but was so soft and smooth on the inside. Seth wanted me to make it everyday. >>

After our soup, we had a Pear with Cashel Blue Cream and Walnut salad. Cashel Blue cheese is a very creamy Irish cheese made from cow’s milk, but I unfortunately couldn’t find it so I used Maytag Blue Cheese instead. The blue cheese is blended with a little cream cheese to mellow the flavor, mixed with walnuts, and served in a pear half over mixed greens. A simple lemon vinaigrette is drizzled over top. Seth and I both enjoyed the creamy, sharp cheese that contrasted with the sweet pear. The vinaigrette was actually a little bland though, and I don’t think it stood up well to the greens. I would change the dressing, but otherwise, the salad was very good.

For the main meal, Seth chose a Roasted Pork Loin with Apple and Spinach Stuffing along with Warm Potato Salad with Bacon Dressing. The apple and spinach stuffing is a combination of apples, spinach, orange zest, apricots, and cheddar cheese. Once mixed, it’s inside the pork loin, which is baked, coated with whole grain mustard and raw sugar that creates a sweet crust. The pork turned out to be a perfect balance of sweet and savory, and was extremely juicy. I didn’t have a lot of pan drippings for the sauce though, so I added some beef bouillon and water to the orange juice to create the dipping sauce. Honestly though, the pork was so tender and had enough flavor from the stuffing that it really didn’t need the sauce. The potato salad recipe calls for small new potatoes, which I couldn’t find, so I substituted baby Dutch yellow potatoes. I found out later though that new potatoes simply refers to any small waxy potato that is harvested immature. They are also referred to as creamer potatoes. The potatoes are boiled with mint, drained, and then covered with a bacon and onion dressing mixed with a lot of herbs. The dressing for the potatoes was outstanding, but I think the potatoes themselves lacked a lot of taste. Since the potatoes were whole, there wasn’t really a balance of flavor. Seth really enjoyed the potato salad though, so I will probably just cut the potatoes smaller next time.

For dessert, we had an Irish Apple Cake. Apples are very popular in Ireland, and apple pie is actually the most popular Irish dessert. Seth prefers cake to pie though, so for the cake, apples are mixed in with a simple batter base of flour, butter, and sugar, and then baked. The cake can be served warm or cold. I think I added too much milk to the batter though because after baking for 45 minutes and being crisp and brown on the outside, it was still very gooey in the center. The cake had amazing flavor though. The apples bake up to be incredibly tender, and the cloves give a nice little spice to the cake. I will definitely have to try this again with hopefully better baking results.

To wash everything down, we had to go with a modernized classic Irish drink – Black Velvet. Champagne and Guinness mixed half and half (or however you prefer it). I was really surprised how much I liked this combination. It sounds strange, but the Guinness tones down the sweetness of the champagne and the champagne lightens up the Guinness. Probably not an every day drink, but it made a fun toast for our Irish meal.

Mushroom Soup Recipe

Brown Soda Bread Recipe

Pear with Cashel Blue Cream and Walnut Salad Recipe

Roasted Pork Loin with Apple and Spinach Stuffing Recipe

Warm Potato Salad with Bacon Dressing Recipe

Irish Apple Cake Recipe

Black Velvet Recipe