Farmhouse Notes From an Irish Table

Irish Cooking Without Vegetable Oil

Coddle simmered low, colcannon folded with kale, soda bread leavened with real buttermilk. Every recipe here is built on butter and honest dripping, the way Irish kitchens have always cooked.

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Green cliffs and pasture along the Irish coastline

The green that shows up in every good colcannon.

Im First Im is the Irish word for butter. It goes in the pan before anything else, and vegetable oil never gets near it.
Geir Kept Geir means dripping. Whatever fat renders from bacon or a roast is strained, saved, and used again, never poured down the sink.
Bláthach Bread Bláthach is buttermilk. Soda bread only rises properly with the real thing, never a shortcut carton or a powdered substitute.

The Recipe Box

Six Dishes From the Irish Kitchen

A meat pot, a fish supper, a bowl of greens, a soup, a loaf, and something sweet for the end of the table. Tap a tab to open the full recipe.

Dublin coddle stew with sausage, bacon and potato in a bowl
1 hr 45 minTotal time
6Servings
EasyDifficulty

Dublin Coddle

A gentle Dublin stew of sausages and bacon layered with potatoes and onion, simmered low until the broth turns rich and the kitchen smells like a Saturday night in the Liberties.

Ingredients

  • 6 pork sausages
  • 200g thick cut bacon rashers, chopped
  • 1 tbsp salted butter
  • 4 large potatoes, thickly sliced
  • 2 yellow onions, sliced
  • 2 carrots, sliced
  • 3 cups chicken or ham stock
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 tsp dried thyme
  • Salt and cracked black pepper
  • Chopped parsley, to finish

Method

  1. Melt the butter in a heavy pot over medium heat and brown the sausages and bacon in batches, then set both aside.
  2. In the same pot, soften the onions and carrots for a few minutes in the fat left behind.
  3. Layer half the potatoes over the onions, then the sausages and bacon, then the rest of the potatoes on top.
  4. Tuck in the bay leaves and thyme, season well, and pour in stock until it just covers the layers.
  5. Bring to a gentle simmer, cover, and cook low for about an hour until the potatoes are tender and the broth has thickened.
  6. Rest for ten minutes, scatter with parsley, and serve straight from the pot with soda bread.
Butter basted salmon fillet plated with vegetables
20 minTotal time
4Servings
EasyDifficulty

Butter Basted Irish Salmon with Dillisk

Wild Atlantic salmon basted in foaming butter until the skin turns lacquered and the flesh stays silken, finished with a scatter of dillisk for a taste of the shoreline.

Ingredients

  • 4 salmon fillets, skin on
  • 3 tbsp salted Irish butter
  • 1 tbsp dried dillisk or dulse, crumbled
  • 1 lemon, half juiced and half in wedges
  • 2 sprigs fresh thyme
  • 1 clove garlic, lightly crushed
  • Sea salt and black pepper
  • 1 tsp ghee, for the pan
  • Steamed greens, to serve
  • Flaky salt, to finish

Method

  1. Pat the salmon dry and season both sides with salt and pepper.
  2. Warm the ghee in a heavy skillet over medium high heat and lay the fillets skin side down.
  3. Cook undisturbed for four minutes until the skin is crisp, then flip.
  4. Drop in the butter, garlic, and thyme, and once it foams, tilt the pan and spoon it over the fish for about two minutes.
  5. Squeeze in the lemon juice, remove from the heat, and let the fillets rest in the pan for a minute.
  6. Plate over the greens, scatter with dillisk and flaky salt, and serve with lemon wedges.
Bowl of buttery colcannon mashed potato with greens
40 minTotal time
6Servings
EasyDifficulty

Colcannon

Buttery mashed potatoes folded through with soft curly kale and spring onion, the dish every Irish table turns to when the weather turns cold.

Ingredients

  • 1.5 kg floury potatoes, peeled and quartered
  • 200g curly kale, stems removed and shredded
  • 6 tbsp salted butter, plus extra for the well
  • 2 tbsp butter for cooking the kale
  • 1 cup whole milk, warmed
  • 4 spring onions, finely sliced
  • Splash of cream, optional
  • Salt and white pepper
  • Grated nutmeg, a pinch
  • Chopped chives, to finish

Method

  1. Boil the potatoes in salted water until tender, about twenty minutes, then drain well and return to the dry pot.
  2. Meanwhile, melt two tablespoons of butter in a pan and wilt the kale for four to five minutes until soft and dark.
  3. Mash the potatoes while still hot, then beat in the warm milk and remaining butter until smooth.
  4. Fold in the wilted kale and most of the spring onions, season with salt, white pepper, and a scrape of nutmeg.
  5. Spoon into a warm serving bowl, make a well in the centre, and drop in an extra knob of butter.
  6. Scatter with the remaining spring onions and chives and serve while the butter is still melting.
Creamy potato and leek soup in a white bowl
45 minTotal time
6Servings
EasyDifficulty

Irish Potato and Leek Soup

A quiet, comforting soup built on butter softened leeks and floury potatoes, finished silky with a swirl of cream and a crack of black pepper.

Ingredients

  • 4 tbsp salted butter
  • 3 large leeks, white and pale green, sliced
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 900g floury potatoes, peeled and diced
  • 1.2 litres vegetable or chicken stock
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1/2 cup cream, plus more to finish
  • Salt and white pepper
  • Snipped chives, to serve
  • Warm soda bread, to serve

Method

  1. Melt the butter in a large pot and sweat the leeks and onion over low heat for ten minutes until soft but not coloured.
  2. Add the potatoes, stock, and bay leaf, and bring to a simmer.
  3. Cook for about twenty minutes until the potatoes fall apart when pressed with a spoon.
  4. Remove the bay leaf and blend the soup smooth with a stick blender directly in the pot.
  5. Stir in the cream and warm gently without boiling, adjusting the seasoning to taste.
  6. Ladle into bowls, swirl in a little extra cream, and finish with chives and black pepper.
Round loaf of Irish soda bread on a wooden board
50 minTotal time
8 slicesServings
EasyDifficulty

Traditional Irish Soda Bread

A four ingredient loaf leavened with buttermilk instead of yeast, baked until the crust cracks and the kitchen fills with that unmistakable warm, tangy smell.

Ingredients

  • 450g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tbsp cold salted butter, cubed
  • 400ml buttermilk (bláthach)
  • 1 tbsp honey, optional
  • 1 tsp caraway seeds, optional
  • Extra flour for the cross cut
  • A little melted butter, to brush the crust

Method

  1. Heat the oven to 200C (400F) and dust a baking tray with flour.
  2. Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt into a bowl and rub in the butter until it looks like coarse crumbs.
  3. Make a well in the centre and pour in most of the buttermilk, mixing quickly with your hand into a soft, shaggy dough.
  4. Turn onto a floured surface and shape gently into a round without kneading, adding more buttermilk if it feels dry.
  5. Place on the tray, cut a deep cross into the top with a sharp knife, and dust lightly with flour.
  6. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes until deep golden and the loaf sounds hollow when tapped underneath.
  7. Brush with melted butter and cool on a rack for at least 15 minutes before slicing.
Slice of Irish apple cake on a plate
1 hr 15 minTotal time
8Servings
MediumDifficulty

Irish Apple Cake with Buttered Custard

A dense, buttery cake studded with soft cooking apples and a whisper of cinnamon, the kind that always turns up at the end of a Sunday dinner with a jug of warm custard.

Ingredients

  • 225g salted butter, softened, plus extra for the tin
  • 200g caster sugar
  • 3 large eggs
  • 300g self raising flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 3 cooking apples, peeled and diced
  • 2 tbsp milk
  • 1 tbsp demerara sugar, for the top
  • Warm custard, to serve

Method

  1. Heat the oven to 180C (350F) and butter and line a deep round cake tin.
  2. Cream the butter and caster sugar until pale and fluffy, then beat in the eggs one at a time.
  3. Fold in the flour, baking powder, and cinnamon, then stir through the diced apples and enough milk to loosen the batter.
  4. Spoon into the tin, level the top, and scatter over the demerara sugar.
  5. Bake for 55 to 65 minutes until a skewer comes out clean, covering loosely with foil if it browns too quickly.
  6. Cool in the tin for 15 minutes before turning out onto a rack.
  7. Slice while still warm and serve with a generous jug of buttered custard.

We keep the Irish kitchen honest: butter in the pan, buttermilk in the bread, and patience at the stove. Dasjen Cistin collects the dishes Irish families have always cooked at home, tested and written down so they turn out the same way every time, with real fat and no shortcuts.

The Dasjen Cistin Kitchen