An Irish Country Cookbook Read online

  Serves 6 to 8

  2 oz/56 g butter

  2¼ lb/1 kg Jerusalem artichokes, cleaned and chopped

  1¼ lb/570 g potatoes, peeled and chopped

  1¼ lb/570 g onions, chopped

  Salt and freshly ground black pepper

  40 oz/1.2 L chicken stock

  20 oz/590 ml milk

  Chopped fresh parsley

  Croutons (recipe follows)

  Sesame oil or maple syrup

  Melt the butter in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan, then add the artichokes, potatoes, and onions. Season with salt and pepper. Cover with parchment paper and the pan lid and sweat gently over a low heat for about 10 minutes, checking often to ensure that the vegetables are not sticking. Remove the parchment paper, add the stock, and cook for another 10 to 15 minutes until the vegetables are soft. Liquidise the soup using a blender, food processor, or immersion blender and return to the heat. Thin to the consistency of thick cream, adding the milk gradually, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Ladle into individual bowls, sprinkle with parsley and croutons, drizzle with oil or syrup, and serve.

  Croutons

  Butter 4 slices of thick white bread. Cut into cubes, spread onto a baking sheet, and bake in a 375°F/190°C oven for about 10 minutes until golden brown.

  VARIATION

  Parsnip and Apple Soup. Substitute peeled, chopped parsnips for the potatoes, and peeled, cored, and chopped tart apples for the artichokes. Drizzle with maple syrup instead of oil.

  Kinky’s Note:

  Whilst Bramley apples would have been the cooking apples of choice in Ulster, if they are not available, try using Braeburn or any other slightly tart variety.

  Leek and Potato Soup

  Serves 4

  3 leeks

  A knob of butter

  1 onion, chopped

  4 large potatoes, peeled and chopped

  20 oz/590 ml vegetable stock; add extra if needed

  Salt and freshly ground black pepper

  10 oz/295 ml heavy cream

  Chopped fresh parsley

  Chop the leeks and wash very carefully in several changes of salted water. Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add the onion and fry gently for about 10 minutes, until cooked but still translucent. Add the leeks. Cook for another 5 minutes, then add the potatoes and vegetable stock and extra if necessary to cover. Season with salt and pepper to taste and cook for about 20 minutes, until the potatoes are done. Add the cream, garnish with parsley, and serve.

  VARIATION

  Vichyssoise. On a warm summer’s day I like to make the leek and potato soup as above but I serve it really well chilled. The French call this vichyssoise. For a different garnish use chopped scallions.

  Lentil Soup

  This is a substantial lunch soup and goes very well with my Guinness Bread (here), which I’m sure you’ll all enjoy.

  Serves 6

  1 Tbsp sunflower or canola oil

  2 large potatoes, peeled and chopped

  2 onions, chopped

  3 carrots, peeled and chopped

  1 celery stalk, chopped

  40 oz/1.2 L vegetable stock

  20 oz/590 ml water

  12 oz/340 g red lentils, washed

  1 small can tomato puree (10¾ oz/305 g)

  2 garlic cloves, crushed

  Salt and freshly ground black pepper

  Heavy cream

  Chopped fresh parsley

  Heat the oil in a large saucepan and add the potato, onion, carrots, and celery. Cover with parchment paper and the pan lid and sweat gently over a low heat for about 10 minutes, until the onions are soft but not brown. Remove the parchment paper and add the stock, water, lentils, tomato puree, garlic, and salt and pepper to taste. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat to a slow simmer, and cook for about an hour, stirring occasionally. Liquidise the soup using a blender or food processor and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve with a little swirl of cream and some parsley.

  Kinky’s Note:

  Instead of vegetable stock use stock made with a ham bone.

  Mussel and Seafood Chowder

  Here is another very substantial lunch soup, especially when served with my Irish Wheaten Bread (here) and butter.

  Serves 4

  1 lb/455 g mussels, scallops, and peeled shrimp

  8 oz/235 ml dry white wine

  1½ lb/680 g skinless and boneless white fish, such as cod, haddock, or snapper

  15 oz/445 ml milk

  1 tsp fresh thyme leaves

  1 bay leaf

  Salt and freshly ground black pepper

  1 Tbsp olive oil or sunflower oil

  1 oz/28 g butter

  4 oz/113 g bacon, chopped

  1½ lb/680 g potatoes, peeled and finely diced

  1 leek, washed and thinly sliced

  1 small carrot, peeled and thinly sliced

  1 shallot, minced

  4 oz/120 ml heavy cream

  1 Tbsp fish sauce (optional)

  A handful of chopped fresh parsley

  First, clean the mussels and, using a sharp knife, remove the beard. (That’s the little tufty bit on the shell.) Bring the wine to the boil in a large saucepan, add the mussels, cover, and cook for about 4 minutes. Discard any that did not open and remove most of the rest from their shells, leaving just a few in the shell for decoration. Reserve the cooking liquid.

  In another pan, simmer the fish in the milk with the thyme and bay leaf for just a few minutes until cooked but still firm. Remove the fish and set to one side. Discard the bay leaf and season the cooking liquid well with salt and pepper.

  Now heat the oil and butter in a deep pan, add the bacon, and sauté until crisp. Add the potatoes, leek, carrot, and shallot. Cover and cook gently, without browning, for a few minutes. Add the cooking liquid from the mussels and the fish and simmer all together until the potatoes are soft and breaking up. (You may wish to blend this briefly with an immersion blender or process some of it in a blender or food processor if you think it looks too chunky.) Then add the scallops and shrimp. They will only need a very little time to cook so watch that you do not overcook them or they will become rubbery.

  Finally, add the fish and the cooked mussels together with the cream and fish sauce. Season with salt and pepper to taste and add parsley. If the chowder is too thick just add some more milk or water and adjust the seasoning if necessary before serving.

  Pea and Mint Soup

  Serves 4

  1 oz/28 g butter

  1 small bunch scallions, chopped

  1½ lb/680 g fresh peas, shelled, or frozen peas

  25 oz/740 ml chicken stock or vegetable stock

  A large handful of mint leaves, chopped, plus mint leaves for serving

  Salt and freshly ground black pepper

  8 oz/235 ml heavy cream or crème fraîche

  Melt the butter in a large cooking pot and add the scallions. Sauté gently for a few minutes until soft. Then add the peas, stock, mint, and salt and pepper to taste. Boil for 3 or 4 minutes until the peas are cooked. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Liquidise using a blender or food processor and chill. Mix in the cream and decorate with mint leaves before serving.

  Kinky’s Note:

  This soup has a coarse texture but if you would prefer it to be smooth you could blend it for longer or push it through a sieve. And of course on days when the wind is howling like a stepmother’s breath you can serve it hot.

  Potato Soup

  Serves 4

  6 slices bacon, chopped, or 4 oz/113 g, chopped

  2 oz/56 g butter

  1 large onion, chopped

  1 lb 2 oz/500 g russet potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes

  25 oz/740 ml chicken stock or ham stock

  1 bay leaf

  Salt and freshly ground black pepper

  4 Tbsp sour cream

  4 Tbsp chopped fresh chives

  Fry the bacon in the butter in a large heavy-bottomed pan until crisp. Remove from the pa
n and set to one side. In the buttery residue, fry the onion over a gentle heat until it is starting to go soft but not browned. Add the potatoes, cover with parchment paper and the pan lid, and sweat over a very low heat for 8 to 10 minutes, checking often to make sure that the vegetables are not sticking.

  Discard the parchment. Add the stock, bay leaf, and salt and pepper to taste to the pan and bring to the boil. If any surface scum forms, just remove it with a slotted spoon. Reserve some bacon for a garnish and return the rest of the bacon to the pan and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes until the potatoes are cooked.

  Remove the bay leaf and half the bacon and process using an immersion blender. (You can leave this as chunky as you like or make it smooth and creamy. If it is too thick just add a little milk.) Add salt if necessary. Garnish with the sour cream, chives, and reserved bacon, and serve.

  Tomato Soup

  Serves 4 to 6

  1 Tbsp olive oil

  2 onions, chopped

  2 carrots, peeled and chopped

  2 potatoes, peeled and chopped

  2 lb/910 g ripe tomatoes, skinned and chopped, or equivalent weight in canned tomatoes

  34 oz/1 L vegetable stock or chicken stock (good-quality stock cubes are grand for this)

  1 garlic clove, crushed

  1 tsp sugar

  Salt and freshly ground black pepper

  Chopped fresh basil or parsley

  Heavy cream

  Heat the oil in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan and add the onions, carrot, and potatoes. Cover and cook gently for about 10 minutes, until softened. Add the tomatoes and cook for a further 5 minutes. Add the stock, garlic, and sugar and simmer for about 15 minutes. With an immersion blender or in a food processor, puree until smooth, season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve with a swirl of cream and chopped basil.

  Kinky’s Note:

  If using fresh tomatoes, immerse them in boiling water for a minute then plunge them into ice cold water and draw a line round the tomato with a sharp knife. This will make it easy to peel off the skin. When I am in a hurry, I like to use the canned tomatoes instead, which I think have a better flavor anyway.

  Doctor Laverty told you in the introduction that I had asked him to write down some of his memories of 1964, the first year he worked with Doctor Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly. Barry told me that for a young man fresh from the sheltered world of boys’ boarding school and the cloistered medical school, meeting our boss for the first time and moving into Number One Main Street, Ballybucklebo, in County Down could only be described as culture shock. The rural peaceful village itself and the surrounding country were certainly a refreshing change from Belfast city life. The region was populated with characters as diverse as Donall Donnelly, an arch trickster; Councillor Bertie Bishop, builder, Grand Master of the local Orange Lodge, and all-round bastard; Cissie Sloan, a woman with a heart of corn, but who never stopped talking; and Maggie MacCorkle, Barry’s first patient, who complained of headaches—two inches above the crown of her head. Barry laughed at my request, but he did as I’d asked.

  I did a bit of rewriting and here is the first story.

  A Source of Innocent Merriment

  Doctor O’Reilly was an impatient man, but on occasions when faced with what he thought was someone showing off or being a smart Alec needing to be taught a lesson, he could bide until the time was absolutely right to give the subject their comeuppance. Then he’d pounce on the unsuspecting victim like one of those jumping spiders. I know because he did it to me.

  In September of 1964, we had driven up to Belfast to attend a lecture at the Royal Victoria Hospital.

  I’d only been working for him for a few weeks. Someone, and for once I can’t quote my source, something which we had been trained to do as young doctors, but someone said, “A first impression is the one thing you don’t get a second chance to make.”

  It had been that way when I had first met my illustrious senior. I’d been standing on his doorstep, having just rung the doorbell hoping to meet a rural GP who had advertised for an assistant. To my amazement the door had burst open. An ogre stood there and hurled a small man and a sock and shoe into a rose bush. “Next time, Seamus Galvin, you want me to look at a sore ankle, wash your bloody feet.” You can imagine what my first impression of Doctor Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly, physician and surgeon, was and based on that I was determined to do my very best not to antagonise him. I also set out to show him that although I might be freshly minted, I really did know my stuff. Perhaps I tried too hard.

  Now, to return to the lecture in question. Part of a series put on for GPs by the consultants at the teaching hospital, it concerned diseases like multiple sclerosis, cerebellar ataxia, and Friedrich’s ataxia, all arcane neurological disorders. Ataxia, I should explain, is the inability to coordinate voluntary muscle movements.

  The speaker said, “One diagnostic sign is the presence of dysdiadochokinesia…”

  “Begob,” whispered O’Reilly, who was giving the outward appearance of being bored silly, “if you put an air to that you could sing it.”

  I shushed him and tried to concentrate.

  When the lecture finished and it was time for questions, I stuck up my hand and asked what I thought was an erudite one and, hoping to impress O’Reilly, cited Houston, Joiner, and Trounce; 1962, as the source of the information upon which the question and my subsequent elaboration were based. I stole a glance to see my senior frown, shake his head, and grunt. Perhaps I hadn’t quite succeeded in having the effect I had intended.

  Never mind. I was easily distracted when he said, “All the listening would give a fellah a thirst. Let’s nip across the road to O’Kane’s Pub before we drive home. I’d go a pint and a nibble.”

  “Fair enough,” I said, falling into step for the short walk to the Grosvenor Road.

  “Go on in,” he said, holding open the door. The place was a fug of tobacco smoke, beery smells, and snatches of conversation. I knew the pub well because in my day it had been a favourite haunt of medical students and junior doctors.

  In no time O’Reilly had ordered two pints of Guinness and asked to see the menu. “Fancy a bite?” he asked.

  “No thanks.” I shook my head. O’Reilly’s appetite was famous, but I am a small man. Not three hours ago we’d polished off a dinner of Kinky’s avocado mousse with shrimp, steak and kidney pie, and a cheese plate.

  “Right,” he said as the barman delivered our drinks. “Do you still do mussels in Guinness?”

  “We do, sir.”

  “Grand. I’ll have a plate.”

  As we waited for his grub I thought I’d have one more try to impress him. “I think,” I said, “it really does add weight to your argument when you can cite your source.” It didn’t seem to have registered.

  I forgot about the whole thing. I didn’t find out until several weeks later that my comments had not gone unnoticed.

  * * *

  We were making a home visit to see a retired British army colonel who, stereotypical as it may seem, was suffering from gout.

  Colonel James Fothergill-Smythe (Retired) was an aged artefact of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy and had what the Scots would call a very good conceit of himself. Perhaps his pre-war years of service in India had led him to believe that he was king of the castle and that all others, his physicians included, were of the serving classes to be treated as a Russian dowager duchess might have treated one of her serfs. Florid of face, clipped grey moustache above a nose with as many broken veins as a sea anenome has tentacles, heavy of build, he barely deigned to greet us when we had been shown into his study by a maid who flinched every time the cantankerous old man spoke. “You, O’Reilly…” He didn’t bother to acknowledge my presence, “are ten minutes late.”

  “Och,” said O’Reilly, who was no respecter of rank or title, “sure in’t it better late than never?”

  The Colonel sat in a wingback chair, his heavily bandaged left foot propped up on a footstool. Beside his chair, a ma
hogany tabletop was supported on the amputated and preserved foot of an elephant. On the wood-panelled walls hung trophies of his Indian days—a scowling Bengal tiger’s head, some unfortunate member of the deer family with twisted horns. There was a double-barrelled gun on supports. The thing had such a bore that I thought it probably fired two-pounder shells.

  At O’Reilly’s remark the colonel gave such a snort I wondered if, like Mowgli who was raised by wolves, the old man had had an Indian elephant for an ayah.

  “Indeed,” said O’Reilly, “and how’s the hoof?”

  “Blasted thing hurts like blazes. You quacks don’t know your stuff.”

  “Mmm,” said O’Reilly. “Better take a look.” He squatted to do so.

  “Get out, Margaret,” the colonel ordered his maid who, not having been dismissed earlier, had stayed, presumably ready to dance at her master’s slightest whim.

  She fled.

  I waited until O’Reilly had completed his examination of a red, swollen, glazed-looking big toe, reapplied swabs freshly soaked in lotio plumbi et opii (lead and opiate lotion), and gently redressed the toe and foot, all the while to the accompaniment of muttered imprecations from the colonel.

  That O’Reilly did not respond surprised me. His initial instructions to me when I had accepted the job as his assistant had included his first law, “Never, never, never let the patient get the upper hand.” Little did I know that the old colonel’s foul temper was being tolerated because it was going to give O’Reilly the opportunity to take me down a peg or two after my being “Doctor Know-It-All” at the neurological lecture. Before pouncing on its prey, the jumping spider lines up its route of attack. So did O’Reilly.