Irish Cuisine

Irish Alcohol

Irish are pretty well known for their booze or rather for drinking it in enormous amounts. But they created some of the most famous and finest alcoholic drinks.

Guinness

Guiness is probably one of the most popular beer manufacturers in the world alongside the likes of Pilsner Urquell, Heineken and Corona. It is an Irish dry stout is a top fermented beer without any added oatmeal or lactose which attributes to its rather drier or more sour taste come the name dry or standard stout than the sweeter stouts with something added.

Bailey's

Bailey's or rather Bailey's Irish Cream is an Irish alcoholic beverage with its unique coffee- ish taste. This liqueur with 17% of alcohol was invented by Tom Jago in 1971. Nowadays it's manufactured by Diageo, the same company which brews already mentioned stout Guinness. It has a nice smooth creamy taste and is compound of many drinks like favourite o'mine B52.

Irish Whiskey

Irish whiskey is an alcoholic beverage made by distilling fermented grain mash. The whiskey itself has a long history dating back to Mesopotamia, but the art of producing whiskey spread to Ireland in the 15th century.

Irish Stew

I guess when the name is ,,Irish Stew" you probably guess that it's a dish from Ireland. It is sometimes considered a Irelands' national dish. It is a simple traditional dish that is surprisingly delicious. It is a stew made from mutton or lamb meat, potatoes, onions, carrots and parsley. Of course the ingredients can differ according to where the person cooking it is from. It can sometimes include kid. It is cooked in one pot which adds so much flavour to the dish as the aroma of the different ingredients merge together. 

Dublin Coddle

Dublin Coddle is an Irish dish which is often made to use up leftovers, and therefore without a specific recipe. However, it most commonly consists of layers of roughly sliced sausages, rashers, potatoes, onions and herbs. It was reputedly a favourite dish of the writers Seán O'Casey and Jonathan Swift. The dish is braised in the stock produced by boiling the pieces of bacon and sausages. The dish is cooked in a pot with a well-fitting lid in order to steam the ingredients left uncovered by the broth. Sometimes raw sliced potato is added, but traditionally it was eaten with bread. The name comes from the verb coddle, meaning to cook food in water below boiling.

Irish Fish Chowder

The Irish Fish Chowder is one of many variations of a dish called Chowder. It is a very popular dish in the coastal regions of the English speaking world and especially in New York and New England in the USA. The word Chowder comes from the French ,,chaudière" which means cauldron. In Ireland it used to be regarded as ,,poor man's food" but in recent times this connotation has faded away and has made its way onto tables at many fancy food festivals and roster of festive dishes in Ireland. The Chowder in general is prepared from a broth-like base which is made of milk or cream and roux (fat and flour cooked together, used to thicken sauces, soups, etc.). 

Potato Dishes

Ireland is famous for their Potato production therefore it is quite logical that they would invent some iconic potato recipes. Potatoes are interestingly called a spud in Ireland.

Potato Farl

Colcannon

Boxty 

Boxty is a traditional Irish potato dish similar to pancake. It is mostly associated with the north midlands. Its origin is possibly from an Irish ,,arán bocht tí" which stands for ,,poor house bread" or from ,,bácús" meaning ,,bakehouse". The boxty is served for St. Brigid's day. 

Irish Breads

Ireland has to offer some pretty interesting twists on bread which is commonly known food all around the world.

Soda Bread

Soda Bread is a recipe of Bread that uses sodium bicarbonate instead of traditional yeast as a leavening agent.

Barmbrack

Irish Barmbrack or Báirín Breac, often shortened to brack, is a yeast sweet bread with added sultanas and raisins. It is regarded as a dessert and the bread is associated with Halloween and New Year's Eve in Ireland.

The etymology of Barmbrack is from Irish words ,,Báirín" - loaf and ,,Breac" - speckled, therefore Báirín Breac translates to speckled bread.

Usually sold in flattened rounds, it is often served toasted with butter along with a cup of tea. The dough is sweeter than sandwich bread, but not as rich as cake, and the sultanas and raisins add flavour and texture to the final product. In most recipes, the dried fruit is soaked overnight in cold tea or whiskey.

Shepherd's Pie

The Shepherd's pie or cottage pie is a dish I think everyone should try at least once in their life. It is one of my favourite meals and in my opinion one of the best. It is a hearty, warm and belly filling food which is associated with the celebration of St. Patrick's Day. In Irish it is called ,,Pióg an aoire" which basically translates to cottage pie.

It is made of minced meat. Could be beef, lamb, mutton - depends on your liking. It may seem basic but I prefer beef. Then you mix in some carrots but you can add other vegetables like peas or you can serve them as a slide dish. Then you put the meat mixture into some baking dish. On top of that you spread mashed potatoes. In which I recommend adding some Irish Cheddar cheese which elevates the flavour of the mashed potatoes. After that you put it in the oven, bake it and voilà it is ready to be served.

Gur Cake

This Irish dish commonly associated with Dublin is a bit of an odd type of a pastry confection. It used to be predominantly made by Dublin bakers. It is also known as stale bread, chester cake, flies graveyard, gudge or donkey's gudge in Cork. The name ,,stale bread" refers to a use of stale bread in mixture for the pastry part of the cake. In Ireland when you skip school you are ,,on the gur" and children who skipped school were referred to as ,,gurriers". And since the cake is made of ingredients affordable for children it was associated with those children and thus came the name gur cake.

It is mainly made from shortcrust pastry, cake crumbs, tea, orange juice, cinnamon, ginger and caster sugar. Overall from some leftovers or anything stale that you would have in your cupboard. The shortcrust pastry contrary to shortbread pastry is not beaten but rather the butter is carefully folded in.

Blaa Bread Roll

Blaa is a traditional Irish pastry which is associated with the port city Waterford in south- west of Ireland. It is usually eaten as a breakfast or lunch. There are many ways you can incorporate blaa in some delicious dishes or you can eat it as it is.

Black Pudding

Black Pudding is one of those dividive foods that you either hate or love due to its distinctive smell and strong flavour. It originated in Ireland but it's popular all around the UK. It's also known as blood sausage or ,,Marag dhubh" or ,,Putóg dhubh" in Irish. It is believed that the word ,,pudding" comes from the French word ,,boudin" which means small sausage. Back in the day at slaughters the animals bled really heavily so the best option to prevent the blood from going bad is making pudding with it. Obviously the pudding is made from animal blood (usually pig blood), fat and oatmeal. The completed mixture is then put in a casing.

White Pudding

White pudding is very similar to black pudding, but instead of being made with blood, it is made with suet, oatmeal, and other ingredients.  

Sources: 

Jiří Šimáček

Edited by SM