New Irish classics: A recipe for homemade jambons, how to make turnip sexy, and more

Irish food is having a revolution at the hands of chefs who are using the produce that we grow on the island and pushing the envelope 

New Irish classics: Try these recipes that put a twist on Irish food

Irish food in 2023 isn’t about boiled bacon and cabbage. It’s not focused on colcannon, champ, or boxty — delicious though all those things are. There are chefs and cooks throughout Ireland looking at great Irish ingredients in a new light and cooking with them in innovative ways. Spicing up traditional soda bread, elevating a deli-counter standard, making the ubiquitous turnip into something desirable, or showcasing the best of Irish pork in a taco — these dishes all have local ingredients at the core, but are enhanced by people who bring their own life experiences, flavours, and traditions to the kitchen. While keeping an eye on Irish food heritage, there’s also an eagerness to look beyond this island and incorporate new ideas.

Whether you’re a vegetarian, a fan of Indian spices or Mexican ingredients, or celebrating Irish dairy, there’s a place for you here. It’s the way that we all cook now, pulling inspiration from a myriad of sources including recipe books, restaurants, spice shops, and social media. Pull up your chair to a table that features these new Irish classics — it’s a most delicious place.

Soda bread with a twist

“Traditional Irish baking with modern twists.” That’s the subtitle of Graham Herterich’s debut cookbook, Bake, and he delivers in every way. The book is a celebration of classic Irish bakes such as brown soda bread, tea brack, and apple tart, including exemplary recipes for those dishes, but each classic is followed by a non-traditional alternative: Rye, ale & honey bread; malted coffee, chocolate & pecan brack with a variety of toppings and flavoured brack butters; and a Dingle gin, lemon, and fuchsia tart inspired by what Herterich calls “the fuchsia-lined boreens of West Kerry.”

For Herterich, who opened The Bakery in Rialto in 2018, Irish food is “memory. Remembering. It’s not just a type of food, it’s a feeling of sitting around the kitchen table, that warmth and cosiness. I don’t want to say bacon and cabbage or tea brack, it’s more the warmth and emotions of a lovely time”.

Growing up as one of five children in Athy, Co Kildare, much of his cooking is inspired by the women around him as a child. His mother, sister, grandmothers, aunts, and family friends, all named at the start of the book, instilled a real grá for baking that comes across in his writing. Endlessly creative — when we talk, he waxes lyrical about a recent version of chicken and waffles that he made, substituting a soda farl for the waffle element — he loves the fact that “traditional Irish baking is fast and cheap. Two hours after you have an idea, you’re eating the result”.

His playful and inventive attitude in the kitchen has seen Herterich reinventing classic teatime treats such as Mikado and Kimberley biscuits and purple Snacks. He recently started a subscription-based brack club, the first of which involved China rose tea and prosecco-soaked sultanas, along with dried strawberries, rose petals, white chocolate, and pink peppercorns.

Herterich’s love of spices — “a hobby of mine is going into spice shops. I like to pick up a bag of something different, research the living daylights out of it and figure out how I can incorporate it into traditional Irish foods” — led to the development of the panch phoron soda bread recipe that graces the cover of Bake. Inspired by Sunil Ghai’s goat keema pao from Dublin’s Pickle Restaurant, Herterich pairs lamb keema with a vibrantly-flavoured soda bread that incorporates turmeric and a spice blend called panch phoran. “Soda bread is fast and it’s a great carrier of flavour,” says Herterich. Since the book was published, “lots of people have tried it and are loving that idea of sharing a loaf of bread and a pot of curry”.

Panch phoron soda bread with lamb keema curry

Graham Herterich’s love of spices led to the development of the panch phoran soda bread recipe

Servings

4

Preparation Time

 10 mins

Cooking Time

 1 hours 10 mins

Total Time

 1 hours 20 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• For the panch phoron soda bread:

• 4 tbsp vegetable oil

• 1 medium onion, halved and thinly sliced

• 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

• 2 tbsp panch phoron, plus a little extra to sprinkle on top

• 1 tbsp ground turmeric

• 500g plain flour, plus extra for dusting

• 1 tsp bread soda a small bunch of fresh coriander, leaves and stalks finely chopped

• 1 tsp salt

• a pinch of freshly ground black pepper

• 350ml buttermilk

• 1 medium egg, beaten

• For the lamb keema curry:

• 2 tbsp vegetable oil

• 1 medium onion, halved and thinly sliced

• 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

• 2 fresh red chillies, deseeded and finely chopped

• a thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated

• 500g minced lamb

• 2 tbsp panch phoron

• 2 tbsp curry powder (mild or hot – your choice)

• 1 tbsp ground turmeric

• 1 x 400g tin of chopped tomatoes

• 200g frozen peas

• 2 tbsp natural yoghurt

• a small bunch of fresh coriander, leaves and stalks finely chopped

Method

1. To make the bread, heat the oil in a frying pan on a medium heat. Add the onion and cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onion is golden. Add the garlic, panch phoron and turmeric and cook for another 2–3 minutes to allow the spices to release their flavour. Take the pan off the heat and allow to cool.

2. Preheat the oven to 180°C fan. Prepare a baking sheet by lightly dusting it with a little plain flour.

3. Place the flour and bread soda in a large bowl and mix well using a table knife. Make a well in the centre of the flour, then add the cooled spiced onion, chopped fresh coriander, salt, pepper and the buttermilk. Mix gently before starting to incorporate them into the flour using a table knife. Bring the dough together, then tip it out onto a lightly floured surface and gently knead and shape the dough into a 20cm round.

4. Put the bread on the baking sheet and cut a deep cross on the top, then brush with the beaten egg – try not to get any egg into the cut lines – and sprinkle with a little more panch phoron. Bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes, then turn the bread upside down and cook for a further 10 minutes. To check if the bread is baked, tap the bottom – it should sound hollow when fully cooked. Wrap in a clean tea towel while it’s cooling to stop the crust getting too hard.

5. To make the curry, heat the oil in a frying pan over a medium heat. Add the onion and cook for 8 minutes before adding the garlic, chillies and ginger. Cook for another 2 minutes, until everything has softened.

6. Turn up the heat to high before adding the lamb and breaking it up gently with a spoon. Cook for about 10 minutes but try not to overmix or move the lamb too much at this stage, allowing it to get a nice fried colour before moving it around again.

7. Add the spices and cook for a further 2–3 minutes, then add the tinned tomatoes and half a tin of water and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

8. Add the frozen peas and yogurt and simmer for another 10 minutes. Stir in the coriander just before serving with toasted slices of the panch phoron soda bread.
   
   Bake by Graham Herterich (€25) is published by Nine Bean Rows. ninebeanrowsbooks.com

Bake by Graham Herterich (€25) is published by Nine Bean Rows. NineBeanRowsBooks.com

Jambon, but not as you know it

It’s all about the produce for chef Niamh Fox. Having worked at Rochelle Canteen in London, Ard Bia and Kai in Galway, she has foraged her own seasonally-led path since moving to Co Clare. A veteran of festivals and pop-up food events — barbecuing at The Big Grill, serving low and slow feasts at the West Cork Food Festival, producing locally sourced and foraged dinners on Inishbofin — as well as catering for yoga and self-build retreats, Fox has consistently worked with the best of local ingredients.

Fox grew up on a farm on Inishbofin, off the coast of Connemara, with a grandmother who used to make the butter for the island. When she thinks about Irish food, she — unsurprisingly — focuses on what’s native to Ireland. “We are lucky to have the soil and land to support great vegetables, dairy and meat, some fine fish in our seas too.” Fox also acknowledges the importance of looking back to our not-so-plentiful past: “Even in times of famine, for an impoverished population we’ve done well to endure and still have a surviving history of the cultivation of butter, herding animals, resourcefulness.”

Her jambon first appeared in Milk by John and Sally McKenna. Fox developed the recipe because she wanted to put this classic of the hot deli counter on her menu: “It’s something that had the capability of being deeply tasty,

simple to make, well-loved and easily recognised.” While the word jambon means ham in France, these hot flaky pastries filled with creamy, cheesy sauce and flecked with bits of its savoury namesake have, in recent years, become identified as quintessentially Irish. Fox acknowledges the role that the hot deli has played in everyday eating: “The chicken fillet roll fed a nation, spawned the boom — and still survived! The jambon has done equally well and I wanted to give it a chance to stand up to quality ingredients and really show what it could do.”

This is where Fox’s love of Irish produce shines through: “Ideally it would be a ham you have cooked yourself, [cut into] lovely thick slices. If you can’t do that then I’d be giving Fingal Ferguson and the Gubbeen gang a shout to get some of their delicious ham or try your local butcher’s ham.”

Cheese is important too and Fox recommends “something with a good melt factor.” She likes “a fine farmhouse Cheddar like Hegarty’s, I also like to do a bit of a mix so I could go for a mature Gubbeen or even a bit of a fridge clear-out and go for a few cheesy odds and ends.” Make sure you bake plenty of these savoury mouthfuls as they’re always a winner: “You can see people are giddy with enjoyment as they break into the pastry and see the cheese and Béchamel oozing out.”

The beloved jambon

A classic of the hot deli counter, Niamh Fox developed the recipe because she wanted to put it on her menu

Servings

12

Preparation Time

 15 mins

Cooking Time

 1 hours 10 mins

Total Time

 1 hours 25 mins

Course

 Baking

Ingredients

• Rough puff pastry (Note: you can skip this part and buy it pre-made from the supermarket if you prefer)

• 225g strong flour, plus extra for dusting work surface

• 2.5ml (½ tsp) fine sea salt

• 250g butter, cold but not rock hard, cut into small cubes

• 150ml (¼ pint) ice-cold water

• Roasted red onion

• 4 red onions, cut into quarters

• splash of extra virgin olive oil

• salt pepper

• sprig of thyme, picked

• a small sprinkling of brown sugar

• For the creamy, dreamy white sauce:

• 50g butter

• 50g plain flour

• 500ml full fat milk

• 500g cheese, grated (I use a mix of Templegall, Gubbeen, Coolea, of course you can use a good Cheddar or bits and bobs from your fridge too.) Reserve a little to sprinkle.

• pinch of nutmeg pepper and sea salt to taste

• 400g of the best free-range ham you can get your hands on, cut into little cubes

• 1 egg, beaten with a splash of milk, for brushing

Method

1. For the pastry, sift the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl. Stir the butter into the bowl until each piece is coated with flour. Add water to the bowl, working quickly to bring everything together to a rough dough. Gather the dough in the bowl, and then turn it onto the work surface. Squash the dough into a fat, flat sausage, without kneading. Wrap in clingfilm then chill the dough in the fridge for 15 minutes.

2. Lightly dust the work surface and the pastry. Roll out the pastry until it’s about 1cm thick and three times as long as it is wide. Straighten up the sides. Try to keep the top and bottom edges as square as possible.

3. Fold the bottom third of the pastry up, then the top third down, to make a block or a book. Again trying to keep corners nice and square. Press the edges of the pastry together with the rolling pin. Chill for 15 minutes.

4. Roll out and fold the pastry again, repeating this four times in all to make smooth dough, with buttery streaks here and there. If the pastry feels greasy at any point, or starts to spring back as you roll, then cover and chill it for 10 minutes before continuing. Chill the finished pastry for an hour, or ideally overnight, before using.

5. Next make the caramelised onions: mix everything together and pop in an oven set around 200°C for 30 minutes, then mix and cover and continue to cook for 15 minutes. Allow to cool.

6. To make the cheesy sauce, melt butter at low heat, stir in the flour and mix well until a dough starts to form. Gradually pour in the milk, mixing really well so that there are no lumps in the sauce. Once all the milk has been added, add the grated cheeses and a pinch of nutmeg & pepper and salt. Mix well until you get a thick cheese sauce. Add the finely cubed ham to the sauce, allow the mixture to cool.

7. To assemble the jambon, cut out squares from the pastry and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper.

8. Put a scoop of the cheese mixture in the centre of each square and a little of the caramelized onion, on top. Fold the corners to the centre and make sure they overlap (to avoid the ham & cheese from pouring out of the pastry). Pinch together the edges where needed. Brush the egg mix over the pastry and sprinkle the final bit of cheese on top, and repeat for the other squares.

9. Place the tray in the oven at 200°C for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.
   
   Niamh Fox’s jambon recipe is from Milk by John and Sally McKenna (Estragon Press) guides.ie

Niamh Fox is on Instagram at @little_niamh_fox

Taking turnip to new heights

Making turnip sexy. That’s what Denis Cotter achieved at Cork’s Paradiso restaurant when he put this braised turnip galette on the menu. It’s a recipe that he came up with “one quiet evening in the Paradiso kitchen when I was trying to do something that would make people think differently about turnips”.

A vegetable that grows well in the Irish climate, turnip often plays a supporting role in a meal but is rarely the star. Cotter, who has always focused on cooking vegetables — rather than vegetarian cooking — literally looked at the root in a new way, “seeing different shapes within the haphazard and misshapen outer form”. By trimming and cutting a turnip into thin sheets, slowly braising them in the oven and layering them with a mixture of mushrooms, chestnuts, and cheese, he transformed a humdrum ingredient into something that has remained a much-loved staple of the Paradiso menu for many years.

The reaction from customers — and from cooks who have made the recipe at home — has always been positive: “People who eat it for the first time usually can’t believe it is a turnip dish, with its combination of elegance and rich, comforting flavour. That makes it a hugely pleasurable experience for both the diner and the cook.” It even sounds sexy: braised turnip galette of chestnut and portobello with beetroot port gravy. Who could possibly resist?

As a vegetarian, Cotter believes that Irish food is more about “ingredients than specific dishes or any kind of tradition. Probably because of my own personal nostalgia, I’m very attached to potatoes, turnips, and cabbage. From three decades of working with an innovative grower, I also think of things like asparagus, artichokes, broad beans, squash, and loads more as essential to my idea of Irish food”.

In his first book, 1999’s The Cafe Paradiso Cookbook (Atrium), he was clear about his concept of Irish food:

“I said, rather optimistically, that Irish food is made with ingredients grown here and cooked in any style or perceived culture by people living here. It’s satisfying to see that come to pass. there is so much diversity in our food culture now.”

Cotter’s work with local growers and in putting Irish vegetables at the centre of the plate continues in collaboration with the current kitchen team, headed by chef Miguel Frutos. As Cotter celebrates 30 years in business this year — no easy task in the notoriously fickle restaurant world — the food at Paradiso continues to delight and excite.

Braised turnip galette of chestnut & portobello with beetroot port gravy

Making turnip sexy. That’s what Denis Cotter achieved at Cork’s Paradiso restaurant when he put this braised turnip galette on the menu.

Servings

4

Preparation Time

 10 mins

Cooking Time

 1 hours 5 mins

Total Time

 1 hours 15 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• For the galettes:

• 2 large turnips

• 4 tbsp butter

• 100mls white wine

• 100mls vegetable stock or water

• For the filling:

• 4 large Portobello mushrooms

• 100g cooked chestnuts

• 100g cream cheese

• For beetroot port gravy

• 600mls beetroot juice

• 300mls port

• 300mls tomato passata

• 1 small red onion, finely chopped

• 2 cloves garlic, chopped

• 1 stick celery or a small piece of celeriac, diced

• 2 cloves

• 80g cold, unsalted butter, diced

Method

1. First make the filling: Preheat the oven to 220°C.

2. Place the mushrooms on an oven tray, brush them with butter or olive oil, season with salt and roast until tender, 10-15 minutes.

3. Chop the roasted mushrooms coarsely and put them in a food processor with the chestnuts. Pulse to get a coarse puree. Remove to a sieve over a bowl and leave to cool, then fold the drained mushrooms into the cream cheese.

4. The turnips: While the mushrooms are cooking, peel and trim the turnips to get blocks from which you can cut square slices with sides of about 7-8cm and about 3mm thick - four slices per portion, sixteen in all. Take time to make sure they are of even thickness.

5. Lay the turnip slices in one or two oven dishes, slightly overlapping.

6. Melt the butter, wine and stock together in a small pan, and pour this over the turnip slices.

7. Lower the oven temperature to 160°C.

8. Season with salt, cover loosely with parchment, and place the turnips dishes in the oven for 40 minutes or more, until tender. The turnip slices should be soft enough to yield easily to a table knife but not fall apart.

9. Carefully remove the slices from the braising liquid and stack them in piles of four until later.

10. Beetroot port gravy: Simmer everything, except the butter, together for 20 minutes.

11. Purée and push through a fine sieve, saving the liquid. Return this to the stove and reduce it to half the volume.

12. Set aside until serving.

13. To finish: Place four slices of turnip on a parchment-lined oven tray and cover evenly with some of the mushroom-chestnut mixture, leaving a very narrow edge uncovered all round. Cover each with another turnip slice and repeat until each has four turnip layers and three of mushroom-chestnut. Press firmly to get a flat even top. Brush the tops with butter.

14. Place the galettes in the oven at 180°C to heat through for 7-10 minutes.

15. Finish the beetroot port gravy by bringing the beetroot liquid to a boil and whisking in the cubes of cold, unsalted butter to get a smooth thickened gravy.

16. Place a galette on each of four plates and pour a generous pool of sauce around.
    
    Denis Cotter, Paradiso. paradiso.restaurant

Denis Cotter is the founder and executive chef at Paradiso. paradiso.restaurant

Making the most of Irish pork

For Mexican chef, food writer and shopkeeper Lily Ramirez-Foran, Irish food means family. She has been married into an Irish family for more than 20 years and observed how the concept of Irish food has changed a lot since then. “It’s been a journey of discovery…The more I live and learn in Ireland, the more I understand the social and political contexts of food in this country.” The founder of Picado Mexican, Ireland’s first Mexican grocer and cooking school, in Dublin’s Portabello, Ramirez-Foran understands that food can act as an important connector for emigrants. “Irish food… Irish ingredients represent a bridge between my past and my present. I make Mexican food every day with beautiful Irish ingredients,” says Ramirez-Foran. “My pantry is a mixture of Irish and Mexican ingredients and I’m the better cook because of it.”

In her cookbook Tacos, published last year by Blasta Books, Ramirez-Foran uses the Mexican taco - a dish that Irish people have been enjoying a full-on love affair with over the last few years - to showcase a variety of techniques and recipes. For her first cookery demonstration in 2011 she used Irish free range pork to make pork pibil, a traditional Mexican dish from the Yucatan Peninsula, for an enthusiastic group of Irish food bloggers. It’s been a mainstay in demos ever since. “It’s Mayan in its origins and my version is adapted to the modern way of living and cooking as well to suit the ingredients we can get in Ireland.”

After years of cooking at home and for cookery demonstrations in Picado, she knows that this dish can win anyone over. “It was my calling card,” she says, “my way to say, hey, don’t be afraid of Mexican food, try this, not spicy and uber flavoursome dish! It opened many doors for me.” The only unfamiliar ingredient was achiote paste, a bright red spiced paste. This is made with annatto seeds - something that Irish people may have only encountered previously as a colouring in red cheddar - but achiote paste has now become more widely available.

For pork pibil, Ramirez-Foran takes the best of Irish ingredients and combines them with Mexican techniques and cooking methods to make a flavoursome feast: “it showcases some of the excellent pork meat we have in Ireland, but also our amazing cider vinegars, the tomatoes, onions, garlic all grown locally. It’s a win-win!” The distinctive result - juicy, orange-red meat with a spiced/sweet citrus flavour - is irresistible. “I recently served this dish in a crispy tostada, topped by a red onion pickle to an Irish Michelin-starred chef,” remembers Ramirez-Foran. “I will never forget the surprised look on his face. He could not believe how good it was. That reaction made my year!”

Pork pibil tacos by Lily Ramirez-Foran

After years of cooking at home and for cookery demonstrations in Picado, Lily Ramirez-Foran knows that this dish can win anyone over.

Servings

6

Preparation Time

 10 mins

Cooking Time

 3 hours 40 mins

Total Time

 3 hours 50 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• 1kg pork shoulder, skin left on, cut into three chunks

• 350g ripe tomatoes, cut into quarters

• 1 small onion, peeled and cut into quarters

• 5 large garlic cloves, peeled and left whole

• 1 x 7cm Mexican cinnamon stick

• ½ tsp black peppercorns

• 50g Mexican achiote paste

• 75ml apple cider vinegar

• juice of 1 large orange 1½ tsp flaky sea salt 80ml water

• For the tacos:

• 16 corn tortillas, warmed

• de árbol salsa roja

• red onion pickle

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 150°C.

2. Place the pieces of pork in a large heavy-based casserole, skin facing up so it doesn’t stick. Add the tomato and onion quarters, wedging them in between the pieces of meat and on the top. Set aside.

3. Place the whole garlic cloves in a hot, dry frying pan over a high heat, turning them every minute or so – the aim is to have lovely golden garlic with plenty of charred bits and a sweet smell. This will take about 6 minutes. Halfway through, add the cinnamon stick to the same pan and toast it for 2–3 minutes before adding the peppercorns and toasting for 1 minute more, until they are fragrant. The kitchen should smell beautiful by now.

4. Transfer everything from the pan to a blender followed by the achiote paste, apple cider vinegar, orange juice, salt and 40ml of the water. Blend until smooth, then pour the sauce over the meat in the casserole. Use the remaining 40ml of water to rinse any leftover sauce out of the blender and pour this into the casserole too.

5. Cover with a piece of parchment paper cut to fit your casserole and cover the casserole with its lid. Transfer to the oven and roast for 3½ hours.

6. Take the casserole out of the oven and uncover the meat. Everything should be soft so, using two forks, shred the meat and crush the tomatoes and onions, making sure to mix everything together – there should be enough sauce to coat everything well. I normally just carry the casserole to the table and let the meat rest and soak up all the flavours of the sauce while I get everything else together.

7. Set the table and bring over bowls of the de árbol salsa roja and red onion pickle to add a little heat. To assemble your tacos, add some pork to a warm corn tortilla, then spoon over some of the salsa and red onion pickle.
   
   Blasta Books #1: Tacos by Lily Ramirez-Foran (€15) is published by Blasta Books. blastabooks.com

Tacos by Lily Ramirez-Foran (€15) is published by Blasta Books. www.picadomexican.com