SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Besides corned beef and cabbage, what are some other traditional Irish meals prepared for this fun holiday?

Colcannon is delicious --mashed potatoes with cabbage and scallions. Also boxty (pancakes made from a mixture of mashed and shredded potato), soda bread, and beef stew with Guinness in it.

We still have corned beef in the chest freezer from the sale last year after St Patrick's Day. I like Irish beef stew- sorry, maybe it was lamb?- and my FIL really liked oatmeal with Irish Cream when we took a trip there. It was about 20 years ago, and we arrived the day after St Patricks Day in a touristy area. We couldn't figure out why nothing was open, and the towns were dead. We were totally clueless. Great trip. Beautiful country!

[This message edited by KitchenDepth5551 at 11:08 PM, Friday, March 6th]

These all sound pretty amazing. I'm going to try a few of these this month in honor of my 4-5% Irish DNA! 😂🤣

Our church used to celebrate St. Patrick's Day with a group dinner serving traditional corned beef, red potatoes, carrots, cabbage and soda bread. The cook would go to a wholesale restaurant supply place and buy a jumbo piece of corned beef that he would cook (somehow, boiled?) with the included spice packets and then he would add the root veggies and finally the cabbage to the same cooking water until they were all tender enough to serve and had picked up the flavors and spices - First Class! I know Allspice berries were one of the spices, because we would see them sometimes in the bit of cooking liquid we'd get. Memorable! (Sadly those days ended just as the Covid shutdown of our church functions started and have never again resumed.)

As far as soda bread, our church cook's wife used to make this for our St. Patty's and it is was so great, even cold, with KerryGold Irish butter...rich and simple. Wish I had that recipe, too...

Now if anyone has the recipe for "Beef stew with Guinness in it" I'm all ears...

Hint hint StillLivin....

Superesse,

Beef stew with Guinness sounds amazing. I have never made it but I can check on Pinterest and see what I can find. I make a MEAN shepherd's pie with ground lamb. I dont make it the traditional way anymore, though. I played around with seasonings, etc. and now I've perfected it. I use the normal thyme, and other traditiinal spices and herbs, but then I add just a hint of saffron, Sumac, mint, and basil. I also use a couple of parsnips in the potatoes for a little bit of sweetness.

If I find a good recipe for the stew, I'll come back and post it. Im making my corned beef tomorrow. It will be gone by St Patrick's Day, but i want to try a fee of these other suggestions too before March is over.

I bought an Irish baking soda bread from Sprouts. OMG it was great. They put Caraway seeds in it and it gave it a hint of brightness and sweetness in the flavor. I had never heard of Caraway seeds in it before, but now I think I'm going to try recreating it with some good Irish Gold butter. Now I want a Guinness dammit.

[This message edited by StillLivin at 1:26 PM, Wednesday, March 11th]

Making me hungry is what you are good at, StillLivin! I actually have a package of ground lamb in the refrigerator that needs to be used. Was thinking of trying some little empanadas with lamb and ?? even though I have never made any kind of dough pies, for a breakfast bite. But now that you talk about Shepherd's Pie with potatoes and turnips, I think we need that recipe! Do you use peas, too?

What about using mashed potatoes mixed with mashed parsnips? We have some big fat parsnips waiting to be roasted.

Superesse, Yes, I meant to say parsnips. I thought I did. Maybe I typed it in wrong or that damn autocorrect got me if infat fingered it.
And make sure you use a potato ricer instead of mashing. It incorporates the potatoes and parsnips better.
I use all the basics for the ground lamb: onions, garlic, bay leaf, thyme, parsley, coriander seed, salt, pepper, a pinch of nutmeg, worcestershire sauce, tomatoe paste, rosemary, and then a tiny bit of saffron and Sumac, along with finely chiffonade mint and basil. As for vegetables, yes I love peas, but also carrots, parsnips, corn, sometimes if I'm in mood, even celery. Then I steam or boil parsnips and potatoes. Once, I used sweet potatoes instead of potatoes, another time purple potatoes (Korean). I like to experiment sometimes. I have even added cumin chili flakes and declared the meat with a splash of red wine a few times for a little extra.

Thanks! It was a middle of the night post and I must have been thinking of those turnips my Scots-Irish inlaws used to grow. Parsnips are underappreciated! I gotta do this one. Although no sumac in the house, isn't that a Middle Eastern spice?

[This message edited by Superesse at 3:43 PM, Wednesday, March 11th]

Sumac is a highly underrated spice.I love it on vegetables. It adds a bright citrusy taste. Worth adding to your spice rack IMO.

And yes parsnips are also underrated. Love roasting them with carrots.

I’ll be making the world’s smallest corned beef and cabbage (and carrots) in a couple days :-)