An Irish Country Cookbook Read online

  Treacle Farls: substitute molasses or treacle for 1 to 2 tablespoons of the buttermilk. Wheaten Farls: use whole-wheat flour instead or a combination of whole-wheat and all-purpose flour.

  Guinness Bread

  Makes 2

  1 Tbsp baking soda

  8 oz/235 ml milk

  10 oz/284 g all-purpose flour

  10 oz/284 g whole-wheat flour

  6 oz/170 g old-fashioned rolled oats

  2 oz/56 g sunflower seeds

  4 Tbsp brown sugar

  1 Tbsp salt

  15 oz/445 ml Guinness

  2 Tbsp cooking oil

  2 Tbsp molasses or treacle

  Preheat the oven to 400°F/200°C. Grease two 9 by 5-inch (23 by 12-cm) loaf tins well, line them with parchment paper, and grease the parchment. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk. Mix the flours, oats, sunflower seeds, sugar, and salt in a large bowl, make a well in the centre, and add the Guinness followed by the oil and molasses. Lastly, add the milk gradually. (You add the milk last because sometimes you may need to add more or less depending on the brand of flour used or even the weather conditions. However, what you are aiming for is a nice soft dropping consistency.)

  Divide the mixture between the loaf tins. (I ususally make 2 because the loaf freezes well and I always have one for an emergency.) Bake for 15 minutes, then turn the oven down to 350°F/180°C and bake for a further 35 to 45 minutes. The bread will sound hollow when the bottom is knocked. Turn the loaves out onto a wire rack to cool and cover with a damp tea towel.

  Kinky’s Note:

  1. If you use the spoon to measure the oil first, the molasses will run off the spoon more easily.

  2. Flour is a little bit like a sponge and it can absorb moisture from the atmosphere. Miss Sue Nolan, the school mistress, is very learnéd in these matters and she tells me that the amount of moisture in flour can vary because of damp weather and humidity in the atmosphere. How you store flour also makes a difference.

  Irish Potato Bread

  This is a great way of using up leftover mashed potatoes and takes no time at all to make. Also called potato farls, Irish Potato Bread is traditionally served with an Ulster Fry (here) and may be frozen until needed.

  Makes 4

  1 lb/455 g potatoes, cooked and mashed

  4 oz/113 g all-purpose flour

  1 oz/28 g butter, softened

  ½ tsp salt

  While the potatoes are still warm, mash together with the other ingredients, then knead and roll on a floured board into a flat round. Cut into four farls (from the old Scots word fardel, meaning “fourth”), and place on a hot, lightly greased frying pan of a size large enough to accommodate them. Cook on both sides until golden brown. Allow to cool on a wire rack. Reheat in a dry pan or toaster, or in the microwave.

  Irish Wheaten Bread

  This is also known as Irish soda bread or brown bread.

  Makes 2

  10 oz/284 g all-purpose flour

  10 oz/284 g whole-wheat flour

  6 oz/170 g old-fashioned rolled oats

  2 oz/56 g sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds

  2 Tbsp sugar

  1 Tbsp salt

  2 Tbsp butter or sunflower or canola oil, optional

  1 Tbsp baking soda

  1 tsp cream of tartar

  34 oz/1 L buttermilk (or slightly less)

  Preheat the oven to 400°F/200°C. Grease two 9 by 5-inch (23 by 12-cm) loaf tins well, line them with parchment paper, and grease the parchment. Mix the flours, oats, sunflower seeds, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Rub the butter in with your fingertips. (If you are using oil, add it with the buttermilk.) Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients. Dissolve the baking soda and cream of tartar in a cup of buttermilk. This will froth up so pour it into the flour mixture quickly (along with the oil, if using). You add the remaining milk gradually because sometimes you may need to add more or less depending on the brand of flour used or even the weather conditions. However, what you are aiming for is a nice soft dropping consistency.

  Divide the mixture between the loaf tins. Make an indent down the centre of the dough with the blade of a knife. Bake for 15 minutes, then turn the oven down to 350°F/180°C and bake for a further 35 to 45 minutes. The bread will sound hollow when the bottom is knocked. Turn the bread out onto a wire rack to cool and cover with a damp tea towel.

  You can make variations by adding or substituting various ingredients. I sometimes add more whole-wheat flour than all-purpose flour or different seeds. Adding molasses gives a rich brown color. I even add crushed garlic if I’m planning to use the bread as an accompaniment with soup or a savory starter. Ma never weighed her ingredients. Like a lot of Irish cooks she just used handfuls and instinctively knew when it was right.

  Kinky’s Note:

  If you are using molasses, measure it with the same spoon that you used for the oil and it will slide off easily.

  Potato and Pumpkin Seed Bread

  Makes 2

  15 oz/445 ml warm water

  1 Tbsp olive oil

  1 Tbsp dried yeast

  A pinch of sugar

  1 lb 2 oz/500 g all-purpose flour

  12 oz/340 g mashed potato

  2 oz/56 g pumpkin seeds (or more if you like)

  1½ tsp salt

  Mix together the warm water, oil, yeast, and sugar in a jug and leave for about 10 minutes, until the mixture becomes frothy. Combine the flour, potato, and sunflower seeds in the bowl of a stand mixer. Using the dough hook, mix the liquid into the flour and potato.

  Remove the bowl from the mixer, cover with a damp cloth or oiled cling film, and leave to rise in a warm place for about 2 hours or so. An airing cupboard is a good place. Or heat the oven to its lowest temperature and turn off. Providing that the residual low heat is not too warm, this should start the fermentation process without actually cooking the dough.

  Preheat the oven to 450°F/230°C. Grease two 9 by 5-inch (23 by 12-cm) loaf tins well, line them with parchment paper, and grease the parchment. The dough will have risen now and you need to knock it back to take out the excess air. You can use the hook again or put it on a floured work surface and punch it about.

  Transfer the dough to the tins and again leave covered with oiled cling film in a warm place until the dough has risen to the top of the tins, 15 to 30 minutes. Bake for about 35 minutes or until the top is golden brown. The bread will sound hollow when the bottom is knocked. Turn the loaves out onto a wire rack to cool and cover with a damp tea towel.

  Kinky’s Note:

  If you are letting the dough rise in a warm oven or a bread-proofing oven programme, it really gives the rising process a head start if you create steam by placing a baking tin containing boiling water in the floor of the oven.

  Potato-Apple Fadge

  Serves 4

  1 lb/455 g cooked potatoes

  4 oz/113 g butter

  4 oz/113 g all-purpose flour

  1 tsp salt

  1 large tart apple, peeled, cored, and grated or thinly sliced

  A sprinkle of sugar

  Mash the potatoes while they are still warm with the butter. Sift the flour and salt together and add to the potatoes. Form into a round and roll out on a floured work surface to a round about ¼ inch/6 mm thick.

  Cover one side of the round with the apple and sprinkle with sugar. (The sweetness of the apple will determine the amount of sugar needed.) Then moisten the edges and fold over to seal the potato cake. Lightly grease a heavy frying pan and cook slowly on both sides over a medium heat so that the apple inside is cooked. Serve hot, spread with extra butter.

  Kinky’s Note:

  I like to use Bramley apples grown in the beautiful orchards of Co Armagh. These are quite a tart apple and do need a little sugar.

  Oven Soda Bread

  Traditionally, soda bread was shaped into a round and placed into a greased iron pot called a Bastible. This looked rather like a Dutch oven and was hung over the fire in the hearth.
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br />   Makes 1

  1 lb/455 g all-purpose flour

  1 tsp baking soda

  1 tsp salt

  1 oz/28 g butter

  20 oz/590 ml buttermilk

  Preheat the oven to 425°F/220°C. Grease a 9 by 5-in (23 by 12-cm) loaf tin or a flat baking sheet.

  Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl and rub in the butter. Add the buttermilk and work gently but quickly into a soft dough. Place in the loaf tin or make into a round shape and place on the baking sheet. If you are making a round cake you need to mark a cross in the top to let the Devil out or to make it easier to cut into four segments. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes. The bread will sound hollow when the bottom is knocked. Turn the bread out onto a wire rack to cool and cover with a damp tea towel.

  Kinky’s Note:

  Sometimes Ma would add currants or raisins just for a change. I loved this bread sliced and toasted (using a long-handled toasting fork shaped like a trident) in front of the fire and smothered with butter.

  Ulster Buttermilk Scones

  Makes 12 scones

  8 oz/227 g all-purpose flour

  2½ tsp baking powder

  ½ tsp baking soda

  A pinch of salt

  2 oz/56 g sugar

  3 oz/85 g butter

  1 egg, beaten, plus 1 egg yolk

  4–5 Tbsp buttermilk

  Milk

  Preheat the oven to 400°F/200°C and line a large baking sheet with greased baking parchment.

  Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a bowl and add the sugar. Cut the butter into the flour and rub in with your fingers. Then stir in the egg and a tablespoon of buttermilk. Gradually work in the rest of the buttermilk to make a dough. (Different brands of flour may use more or less buttermilk, so do this slowly as you may have too much or you may need to add more.) When it all comes together in a soft dough, turn it out onto a floured work surface, knead it lightly, and roll it out to about 1 inch/2.5 cm or more thick. Now take a 1½-inch/4-cm cutter or a small upturned glass tumbler and cut out rounds.

  Arrange the scones on the baking sheet and brush with a little egg yolk mixed with a little milk to give the scones a golden top (or you could simply dust them with flour). Bake for about 10 minutes until the tops have browned slightly and the scones have risen. Allow to cool on a wire rack.

  I’ve Half a Mind to…

  One of the first things my mentor taught me very early in our partnership was a rule taught to him by a Doctor Phelim Corrigan in 1936, in a dispensary practice in the Liberties in Dublin. “Never, never, never, let the patient get the upper hand.” And as interpreted by O’Reilly, it did not apply only to patients.

  He was no great respecter of titles or position when it came to appying that law. I recognised that from the morning when an overbearing patient, a local dignitary, who was dissatisfied with having to take his turn in the waiting room, demanded in a loud voice, “O’Reilly, do you know who I am?”

  O’Reilly stopped, looked down on the seated man, cocked his head, and with a grin enquired of the packed waiting room, “Can anybody help? This gentleman seems to be suffering from amnesia. He’s forgotten his own name.”

  The resultant gales of laughter weren’t quite up to those Bob Hope or Jack Benny could command, but they didn’t fall far short, either.

  O’Reilly, while not averse to taking his time when it came to seeing patients—usually because he refused to rush anyone through their consultation—detested being kept waiting himself. I first noticed this on one of our trips to the Mucky Duck when Willie Dunleavy had been slower than usual in pouring O’Reilly’s pint.

  “Tell me Willie,” O’Reilly leaned over the bar and asked in dulcet tones, “were you aware that under Brehon law, the statutes that governed Ireland from the dawn of time, the publican could be fined three sheep and a cow if anyone died of thirst in the public bar?”

  Willie, suitably contrite, allowed that he wasn’t, but on this occasion the doctor’s pint was on the house. The upper hand definitely resided in O’Reilly’s corner then too.

  And it did when he was kept waiting by a very eminent colleague.

  He had been invited to a meeting in the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast and had brought me along for moral support.

  He parked the big Rover in the car park and we started walking to the hospital.

  “I’ve to see the newly installed professor of what is now being called ‘family medicine’ instead of ‘general practice.’ Funny kind of term. ‘Family medicine.’”

  “What’s in a name?” I said. “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

  “Juliet. Romeo and Juliet act two, scene two,” he remarked, “but honestly I never saw what we do at work as an academic specialty. Maybe I’m wrong.”

  Good Lord. O’Reilly wrong? More likely the Pope would be in error after having spoken ex cathedra … when supposedly he’s infallible.

  “Aye,” said O’Reilly, “They’ve invited me up to discuss the possibility of our taking medical students into the practice so they can see what it’s like in the trenches, not just look after the exotic cases that get sent to teaching hospitals.”

  I nodded, thinking of the first time I’d met Maggie MacCorkle. “Right enough,” I said, “in all my four and a half years at the Royal Victoria, I never saw one patient with headaches two inches above the crown of her head. I think it’s a great idea. Showing students what we actually do.”

  “And,” he said, glancing at his watch, “we’d better get a move on. I don’t want to be late for the meeting.”

  We lengthened our strides.

  “Have they offered you any salary? Title?” I asked.

  He nodded. “No money, but I’d get to be a clinical professor.”

  “And would you like that?” We had finished climbing the stairs in the Clinical Institute.

  O’Reilly shook his head. “Not at all. I’d still be Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly, title or no title.”

  I did tell you right at the start he was no respecter of titles. I was soon to have that trait most convincingly reaffirmed.

  He opened a door marked “DEPARTMENT OF FAMILY MEDICINE.”

  A woman, presumably the departmental secretary, sat behind her desk finishing writing something. Eventually she looked up at us over her spectacles. “Yes?” That one word held in its tones the contempt felt by important members of the medical establishment for pharmaceutical salesmen, mendicants, and the least of beings in the eyes of the hierarchy, medical students.

  “Fingal O’Reilly to see John MacIlderry at twelve o’clock.” He glanced at an inner door labelled PROFESSOR OF FAMILY MEDICINE, then looked at a wall mounted clock reading one minute to twelve. “He’s a Trinity graduate like me. I know him.”

  “Have a seat,” she said, indicating a couple of arm chairs behind a low table. “Professor MacIlderry is engaged.” She went back to her writing.

  O’Reilly shrugged and sat.

  I merely sat.

  “Tick.” The minute hand registered twelve.

  O’Reilly inhaled. Deeply.

  “Tick.” One minute past.

  O’Reilly’s next indrawing would have been described by Kinky as “strong enough to draw a shmall little cat up a chimney.” I could tell he was not well pleased. O’Reilly’s temper could always be judged by the depth of pallor on the tip of his bent nose. Then it was gently off-white.

  By ten minutes past, with not as much as an “I’m sorry” from Cruella de Vil behind the desk, O’Reilly said sotto voce, “I know for a fact that Kinky’s doing chicken with green peppercorns for lunch. She gets a bit upset if we’re late and…” his tummy growled, “my belly thinks my throat’s cut.” He asked in his most dulcet tones, “Excuse me, but do you think the professor will be much long—”

  “Professor MacIlderry is in an important meeting with Professor Scott of Social Medicine. You’ll simply have to wait.”

  “Professor Scott is it? I
know him, too.”

  I wondered what O’Reilly’s knowing the two men in question had to do with anything and I was worrying about a possible eruption. I had read that escape of hydrogen from a tectonic fault line can predict an imminent massive earthquake. O’Reilly’s nosetip had attained that shade of blue-white only seen on Antarctic icebergs. Any minute now … But to my surprise he rose and asked mildly, “May I borrow a sheet of paper and two drawing pins?”

  I frowned. What for?

  “Thank you,” he said.

  I watched as he printed something in block letters on the paper, moved to the door to the inner office, and pinned what he had written on the door. I couldn’t see because he turned to the secretary and his body obscured the door. “We’ll be leaving now,” he said. “Please give my apologies to John.” With that he stepped away from the door.

  As I rose to join him I saw he had written in block capitals “DO NOT DISTURB. GREAT MIND AT WORK.”

  “Don’t you mean minds?” I asked.

  He turned and looked the secretary right in the eye. “I’ve known John MacIlderry and Roddy Scott for thirty years. ‘Great mind’ is accurate.” He paused for a long while, then said, his voice cutting as a Wilkinson’s Sword razor blade, “Both of them are only halfwits to begin with so ‘great mind,’ singular, is probably being overly generous.” And with that he stormed out into the hall, with me trailing in his wake.

  Two days later he received a written apology from Professor MacIlderry and an invitation to dinner at the faculty club to discuss their business.

  I think my old mentor kept the upper hand—and with a man of title, too.

  MAINS

  Traditional Ulster Fry

  The Ulster fry dates back to Victorian times and the English version was included in Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management. An Ulster fry was usually eaten at breakfast time and was regarded as the best meal to set you up for a hard day’s work or for play. There was also a belief that it was a good cure for a hangover. In Ulster most restaurants and pubs now serve the Ulster fry at any time of the day.