The Darina Allen Column

This month Darina revels in the traditional food that the spring always reminds us of, thanks partly to the focus of St Patrick’s Day, and enjoys a new book written by an American city girl who took to life in rural Ireland like a duck to water - and wasted no time in becoming a household name …

For me St Patrick’s Day is all about Bacon and Cabbage and Parsley Sauce with a big bowl of champ and a generous lump of Irish butter melting into the centre - the ultimate comfort food.

Despite the atrocious weather earlier this spring, our rhubarb was growing enthusiastically by mid March, so it was a juicy rhubarb tart for pud on the day, with lots of soft brown sugar and Jersey cream.

But if you’d rather ring the changes on traditional dishes next time St Patrick’s Day comes around (or any other time), how about Bacon and Cabbage Pot Stickers with soy dipping sauce. This is just one of the tempting recipes in Imen McDonnell new book Farmette Cookbook which documents her recipes and adventures on an Irish farm.

Imen will be very familiar to the Irish Farmers Journal readers for whom she’s written a food and lifestyle column for many years. She’s also a contributing editor to Condé Nast Traveller and Irish Country Magazine.

In a former life, she spent her days working in Los Angeles, happily going about her business in a successful broadcast media career. Then fate intervened, she met a dashing Irish farmer in Minneapolis and fell instantly in love.

In short order, Imen found herself leaving behind her career, her country, her family and friends, to start a life from scratch on a centuries-old family dairy farm in County Limerick.

When she’s not cooking, writing, weeding or photographing, you’ll find her in the farmyard with her husband and son, milking cows, feeding calves and chickens, or loving up their two donkeys and amusing Airedale terrier, Teddy.

Imen highlights farmhouse skills such as butter and cheese making and the use of local, wholesome ingredients. Here are a few of Imen’s modern Irish recipes for you to enjoy.

RECIPES from The Farmette Cookbook Recipes and Adventures from My Life on an Irish Farm
© 2016 by Imen McDonnell; reproduced by arrangement with Roost Books, an imprint of Shambhala Publications Inc., Boulder, CO. www.roostbooks.com] (Available in Ireland from bookshops and online from Easons http://www.easons.com/ €29.99)

Imen McDonnell’s Boxty

Serves 4

6 medium potatoes
¼ cup (38 g) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 tablespoon butter (or sunflower oil)
Fresh herbs, chopped, for garnish

Peel the potatoes. Line a colander with cheesecloth and place over a large mixing bowl. Using a box grater, grate the potatoes into the colander. Gather the corners of the cheesecloth together and squeeze the liquid from the potatoes into the bowl. Put the dry grated potato in another bowl
and discard the liquid.

Add the flour and salt to the grated potato and mix gently. Melt the butter in a heavy iron pan, and pour in the potato mixture to make an even layer, about ¾ to 1 inch thick.

Cook over medium heat until nicely brown on one side, about 15 minutes; flip the whole boxty cake and cook on the other side for another 15 minutes, or until brown.

It’s much better to cook the boxty slowly than too fast. It should be crisp and golden on the outside and cooked through on the inside.

Remove from the heat, cut into quarters, garnish with herbs and serve with crème fraiche, apple sauce, or just on its own.

Imen McDonnell’s Sweet Caraway Seed Cake

Serves about 8

¾ cup (175 g) butter, softened
1½ cups (175 g) superfine or granulated sugar
3 large eggs
About 1 tablespoon milk or water
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1½ cups (225 g) all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon fresh caraway seeds

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Line the base of a 7-inch springform pan with parchment paper; set aside.

Cream the butter in a mixing bowl with a wooden spoon. Add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy.

Whisk the eggs, milk or water, and vanilla together, and gradually add to the creamed butter and sugar.

Fold in the flour in batches; mix the baking powder in with the last addition of the flour.

Gently mix in the caraway seeds. Pour into the prepared cake pan.

Bake for 50 to 60 minutes. The cake is done when a toothpick comes out clean. Remove it from the oven, and let cool in the pan on a wire rack.

Cool completely before slicing.

Farmer’s Sunday Cake

Makes 2 loaves

¾ cup (170 g) butter, softened, plus more for greasing the pan
6¼ cups (800 g) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 cup (200 g) superfine sugar
1 cup (150 g) golden raisins
1 cup (150 g) dried currants
2 tablespoons glacé cherries
½ cup walnuts
2 tablespoons candied citrus peel, finely chopped
Grated zest of ½ lemon
2 eggs, beaten
2½ to 3 cups (600 to 720 ml) buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 450°F (230°C). Lightly grease two 9-inch loaf pans; set aside.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and sugar in a large bowl, and mix well. Rub in the butter with your fingers until the mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs. Add the raisins, currants, cherries, walnuts, candied citrus peel, and lemon zest. Mix well.

Make a well in the center of the flour mixture, and pour in the eggs and 2½ cups (600 ml) of the buttermilk. Stir into the flour mixture, working in a spiral motion from the middle toward the sides of the bowl, and adding a bit more buttermilk if necessary to make a moist but cohesive batter. Do not overmix.

Spoon the batter into the loaf pans and bake for 15 minutes

Reduce the temperature to 400°F (200°C) and bake for another 20 to 30 minutes.

Remove the loaves from the oven and let them cool in the pans for 10 minutes. Turn the loaves out and cover with tea towels until ready to serve.

This cake will keep for up to a week in an airtight container or bread box.
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If you haven’t already done so, get booking the Kerrygold Ballymaloe Literary Festival of Food and Wine 2016. Taking place over the weekend of 20-22 May 2016, it promises to be another ‘knock out’! www.litfest.ie

 '30 Years at Ballymaloe' - Bord Gáis Avonmore Cookbook of the Year 2013

Good Food Ireland Cookery School of the Year 2012/2013

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Once again, the Ballymaloe Cookery School in East Cork has a great programme of cookery courses for all interests and abilities running throughout 2016. Ranging from a relaxing visit to sit in on an afternoon cookery demonstration to a week long ‘Intensive Introductory Course’.

Sitting in the middle of a 100 acre organic farm the Ballymaloe Cookery School provides its students not only with a life skill learnt under the expert tutelage of their very capable teachers but also a place to relax and unwind from the stresses and strains of normal everyday life. The cottage accommodation available onsite for residential courses consists of a collection of delightful converted outbuildings which have been transformed over the years by the Allens, and other accommodation is available locally for the short courses.

www.cookingisfun.ie