Irish Blue Cheese Potato Cakes

In case all the shamrocks plastered all over everything haven’t clued you in, this Sunday is the day we (Irish and other folk) celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day. As I may have mentioned, I’ve been collecting Irish cookbooks for quite a while, and wow, have they improved in recent years! The old standards are still there—Irish stew, Colcannon, boxty, corned beef and cabbage and the like—but also great seafood dishes and wonderful cheeses have appeared.

And don’t forget potatoes! I was trolling through a book of regional recipes collected by Margaret Johnson and came upon the recipe for potato cakes with blue cheese, that originated in a vegetarian restaurant in Cork. I wish I could say I’d been there, but every time I’ve driven in Cork city I get lost. I’ve never stopped to eat anything there.

But this recipe sounds both creamy and tangy, with assorted herbs and spices added, and it would make a great side dish.

Blue Cheese Potato Cakes

Ingredients:

1/2 pound baking potatoes, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces

2 Tblsp unsalted butter

2 Tblsp minced fresh chives

1 Tblsp minced garlic

Salt and pepper to taste

2 Tblsp fresh dill, minced

2 Tblsp fresh flat-leaf parsley, minced

1 cup (4 oz.) Cashel Blue cheese, crumbled

     (or any other blue cheese you like)

1 egg yolk

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 eggs beaten with 1/2 cup milk

1 to 1-1/2 bread crumbs (you can add dried herbs, salt and pepper)

1 to 1-1/2 cups canola oil

Instructions:

Cook the potatoes in boiling salted water for 12-15 minutes, or until tender. (Note: be sure to use baking potatoes, which have a coarse texture when cooked and will hold together well.)

Drain and mash the potatoes.

Butter, garlic and chives

In a small skillet, melt the butter over low heat. Cook the chives and the garlic for a minute or two, until they are just soft. Stir the herbs into the mashed potatoes. Then stir in the salt, pepper, dill and parsley. Remove from the heat and let cool completely. 

Stir in the cheese and egg yolk (the cheese can remain lumpy).

Form the potato mixtures into cakes and refrigerate for 10 minutes to firm up. Dredge the cakes with flour and coat with the egg/milk mixture, then coat with the bread crumbs.

The crumbs make these nice and crispy

In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the cakes and cook for 3-5 minutes on each side, until they are browned.

No, the potato cakes are not gigantic--that's a Cornish
game hen on the left!

You can eat them right away, or save them until the meal. If you do save them, place the cakes on a baking sheet and reheat in a 250-degree oven for about five minutes.

Serve with a dollop of sour cream or crème fraiche if you like (but there are already plenty of flavors in the cakes).

I'm still polishing the next book, which doesn't have a title yet. I keep thinking "The Hole in the Wall Gang" (my homage to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid), but it doesn't really fit, even though there is a hole in the wall in the story which plays an important part. Stay tuned!

www.sheilaconnolly.com

Quick and Easy Curry

by Sheila Connolly

Everybody needs a go-to dish when you want something flavorful and fast, and this is one of my favorites.

Let me say up front that I don't cook Indian food. This recipe originated on the can of my favorite curry powder. It wasn't a very big can, so you can imagine how short the recipe was. Of course, I've changed it over the years, and it's one of those recipes to which you can add whatever you have on hand.

Before I jump in, a word about curry powders. One of the few things I have learned about Indian cooking is that each curry powder is different, and I'm not even going to touch the idea of blending your own. I grew up with McCormick's version, which is very mild, and which my mother used sparingly, so it provided just a hint of flavor (I still have a sneaking fondness for it mixed into scrambled eggs). I have a current favorite that is easy to find in grocery stores, but you'll have to try a few until you find one that suits your taste–and you can always add spices to it, if you find that the balance is off.

So here's the recipe:

Quick and Easy Curry

Chicken, onions, tomatoes and yogurt

2 cups protein. Most often I use left-over cooked chicken, cut up, but you can just as easily use skinless chicken breasts, or lamb (a rarity, at least in our market) or shrimp. Hey, for all I know it works just as well with tofu–I've never tried it.

2 large yellow onions, sliced lengthwise

1 clove garlic, chopped or crushed

3 Tblsp curry powder of your choice (it seems like a lot but it isn't)

1 14-oz can diced tomatoes (you can use fresh if you have them)

1 cup creamy yogurt

Salt and pepper, to taste

Peanut oil for sauteing


Chop all your ingredients before you start, because the cooking doesn't take long.

In a skillet, heat the peanut oil and add the onions, garlic and curry powder. Cook at medium heat until the onions are softened. (Adding the curry powder now really brings out its flavor.)

Add your protein. If you're using leftovers, just toss to warm through and coat with the curry-onion mixture. If you're using uncooked meat or shrimp, saute at medium-high heat for a couple of minutes.

Add the tomatoes, stir, cover, and cook on low heat for 5-10 minutes (you'll note that everything in this is already cooked, so this is just to blend the flavors).

When you're ready to eat, add the yogurt and blend well over low heat, just enough to heat up the yogurt–you don't need to cook it. Yogurts vary widely in consistency, so if you want the end result to be creamy, you'll have to experiment. The less creamy yogurts may look a bit curdled when cooked, but the dish still tastes good.

Serve over steamed rice. (I like to pep up my rice by adding some cardamom seed pods while the rice cooks.)

IRISH STEW

by Sheila Connolly

We’re celebrating Easter Week here at Mystery Lovers Kitchen, and I realized that my family had few if any food traditions for the holiday.  We always dyed eggs, and my grandmother would arrive from New York with bags full of exotic candy for baskets.  Among these were little rabbits dipped halfway in dark chocolate.  I adored them, and luckily for me no one told me they were made of marzipan, which is made of almonds—because if I’d known there were nuts involved I would have said, “oh, ick”, and refused to eat them.  (I still have reservations about peanut butter, but that’s because I ate a peanut butter sandwich every day during my freshman year in high school—and it was not a particularly happy year.)

My father was born to Irish parents, so I grew up eating lamb.  My husband, raised in the Midwest with lots of beef, has never warmed up to lamb, so I’ve been known to indulge myself in lamb chops when he’s out of town.  But he is fond of a lamb stew recipe that I’ve been making for decades.  I found it in a British cookbook which dates to 1974, but of course I’ve changed it over time. The recipe is very forgiving in terms of proportions—sometimes lamb chunks are hard to find (including in my town, which according to census records has a population of which 25% have Irish ancestry).  And the Easter tie-in is that the new lambs are ready for market at this time.

Let me add that there is no one kind of Irish stew in Ireland.  Some include carrots or cabbage, others add Guinness.  Those aren’t bad (although in the hands of some cooks you end up with a watery mess of overcooked veggies and tough lamb chunks), but to my mind this is the classic recipe, with nothing more than lamb, potatoes and onions.  It’s simple to make, if you don’t mind slicing (which is very easy with a Cuisinart and slicing blade), and you do have to allow time for it to cook in a medium oven—at least an hour, and an hour and a half is better.

This was the last dish we made in our cottage in Ireland last month (believe me, I know this recipe by heart), and I’ve made it since my return, since I can do it sitting down nursing my bum ankle (on the way to recover!).

CLASSIC IRISH STEW

3 lbs. stewing lamb (you can use less)

6 large potatoes (not baking potatoes, which are too soft)

2 yellow onions

2 Tblsp. finely chopped parsley

1 tsp. thyme (fresh if you have it)

1 tsp. salt

Freshly ground black pepper

2-3 cups chicken broth

1 1/2 Tblsp. butter, softened

1 Tblsp. flour

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Cut the lamb into cubes. If you buy it cubed, trim off the fat and chewy stuff (which my daughter calls “squidgely bits”).  Peel the potatoes (oh, heck, you can skip that step—a little potato skin never hurt anyone) and onions and cut them into slices.  A Cuisinart is great for this part, but use a thicker blade (4mm), because otherwise the sliced potatoes and onions will be reduced to mush before the lamb is tender).

Mix the parsley and thyme together (you can also chop all this together in the Cuisinart).  Butter a casserole with a lid, or use cooking spray.

Arrange a layer of 1/3 of the potatoes on the bottom of the casserole.  Cover with a layer of lamb, then a layer of onions.  Season with the herbs, salt and pepper.  Repeat to form 3 layers, seasoning between each layer and ending with the onions.  Add the broth (add enough so that the contents of the casserole are nearly covered but not submerged—the contents will shrink a bit while cooking).

Cover the casserole and cook in a 350 degree oven for 1 1/2 hours until the lamb is tender.

Combine the butter and flour in a small bowl and evenly distribute dollops of the paste to the casserole.  Cover again and ontinue cooking 5 minutes until the juices are thickened.

If you have any left over, this is even better the second day.