Irish Soda Bread

To get into the spirit of things today, St. Paddy's Day, let's start by listening to a cover song (originally done by The Dubliners) that Jeremy and his buddy Andrew -- otherwise known as The Celtic Clash -- have produced: "I Knew Danny Farrell."

Okay, now!!!

Since I'm 1/4 Irish, you can imagine that St. Paddy's Day is a big deal for me even without the green beer (since I don't usually drink, other than an occasional glass of wine, and have always loathed beer even when it wasn't looking putrid).

I usually make corned beef 'n' cabbage, except that it's not vegetarian and so I can't cook it where I'm currently staying; but there's always just happy indulgence in a plateful of potatoes ... maybe a buffet of mashed, roasted with garlic, fried ... :) Don't worry -- I'll throw some protein (perhaps some salmon?) into the mix!

But the key ingredient to my celebration is my Brown Soda Bread, served with beloved Dubliner cheese ... sigh. Really, I don't need very much else to make me happy.

I've been baking this bread for so long that I don't even know where I found the original recipe, which has been tweaked so many ways that I now call it my own. I know it didn't come from my paternal grandmother, born Mary Brigid (Maie) Collins - is that a great name for a redheaded Irish girl, or what? - who never wrote down recipes and simply cooked and baked instinctively. But beyond that, I'm clueless.

I should make this more often because it's so easy; and yet, it seems to just be an annual celebratory food at my house. Some things are more special when only served occasionally, after all.

Irish flours tend to be more like our whole grain flours; so, for greater authenticity, you need to use whole wheat rather than only white varieties. It's not a sweet bread, despite the currants, and it's also very crumbly and scone-like.

I once saw a recipe for soda bread that contained yeast, which is kinda missing the point of it being a quick bread that relies upon baking soda for leavening. And I've also seen recipes containing caraway seeds; but as my father, the son of my Irish grandmother, always says with utter disgust: "Caraway seeds don't belong in soda bread." He has spoken!

So be sure to take some time while your corned beef is simmering to bake this simple, nutritious, beautifully rustic, and exceptional bread. And don't be shy about slathering it with butter -- St. Paddy's Day is a day for festivity, after all, but there's no need for imbibing or drunkenness ....

Brown Soda Bread

1-1/2 cups unbleached white flour
4 cups white whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 cup quick oats
3 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1 cup currants, softened (you can also use raisins or dried cranberries or blueberries)
2-2/3 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Sprinkle a bit of flour onto 2 baking sheets, and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the white flour, white whole wheat flour, salt, oats and baking soda. Add the butter and mix it in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles meal. Stir in the raisins and the buttermilk to form a wet dough.

Knead the dough until it is cohesive. Divide the dough in half and shape each half into an 8-inch round; place one dough round onto each of the prepared baking sheets. Slice an “X” into the top of the dough.




Bake the breads for 30-35 minutes until they are golden brown. Let cool completely before serving.

Makes 2 loaves.

Bloomsday

Today, for those who don't know it, is yet another of the odd and sundry holidays that I celebrate at my house.

Among others, there are the standard ones (Christmas -- cookies and more cookies!), the Jewish ones (Rosh Hashanah -- the new year, Chanukkah -- the festival of lights), the secular ones (New Year's Eve, Hallowe'en), the ethnic ones (St. Paddy's Day), and the literary ones (Robby Burns Day -- January 25 -- in honor of Scotland's favorite poet). I'll celebrate virtually anything -- as we already know, it's all about the food!!!

But today, June 16, has a special place in my heart: today is Bloomsday. It is the day featured in the great novel Ulysses, by my beloved James Joyce.

I first read Joyce as a college freshman, like so very many both before and after me. My Freshman Comp teacher encouraged my writing, and as he got to know me realized that I would undoubtedly find a kindred spirit in an author from Ireland (I'm 1/4 Irish -- my paternal grandmother was born and raised in Cork), who had been raised Catholic (13 years in Catholic schools, God help me!), and who had become disillusioned with the Church (I now consider myself a secular Jew). I found a copy of Dubliners, a collection of stories ending with the extraordinarily beautiful and poignant "The Dead," and immersed myself for the entire next night in reading the book. I have been a Joycean ever since.

Ulysses follows a day in the life of Leopold Bloom as he meanders in an Oydssean fashion through Dublin on June 16, 1904. In real life, it was on this day that Joyce went on his first date with the woman whom he would eventually marry, Nora Barnacle (originally Norah). She was instrumental in his life in so many, many ways; and God knows she put up with a lot living with a genius! What a singularly unique and romantic way of commemorating such a critical date (and person) in one's life -- using it in one of the greatest works of English literature!

The book was considered obscene, so many publishers refused it. Yeah, there's language issues, bathroom talk, infidelity, some activities that are rumored to make a person go blind ... and its stream of consciousness was radical at the time, so many people didn't understand the book or what purpose it might serve.

So an expatriate American living in Paris, Sylvia Beach, originally published it in 1922 through her bookstore Shakespeare and Company. (And I cannot tell you how thrilled -- thrilled! -- I was to find a framed photo of the place years ago at a street art show! It now has a proud place in my library-themed half-bathroom, so that all can see it and worship.) The book wasn't published in the United States until 1933, after a trial(!) and a judgment by U.S. District Judge John M. Woolsey that it wasn't pornographic.

But anyway ... I am not the most devoted and erudite of Joyceans; I'm simply a sincere fan. And since virtually everything in my life revolves around food, I don't celebrate Bloomsday by taking a tour through Dublin that follows the book's storyline or by reading Ulysses again each year. I make traditional Irish food, though I'm not sure yet whether we're eating salmon or lamb, or whether I'll make rhubarb crisp.

I could, I suppose, make a meal in honor of Leopold Bloom's favorites:

Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver slices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencod's roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.

But I'm none too keen on any of these particular items myself ... not that I've actually tried them, but I kinda have a feeling! So I'll spare you a recipe for any of them, and devote my fingertips to a more suitable purpose: typing out my recipe for Brown Soda Bread.

I make this every St. Paddy's Day, and always say that it's so easy it should be served more often throughout the year. Well, here's the proper occasion! Honor Bloomsday -- a celebration of literature and of love -- by making this hearty bread which is fabulous just plain with butter, or served with jam or with cheese. "... yes I said yes I will yes."

Brown Soda Bread

1-1/2 cups unbleached white flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups white whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 cup quick oats
3 teaspoons baking soda
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, cold, cut into bits
1 cup raisins, softened (I prefer dried cranberries, but Jeremy likes raisins)
2-2/3 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 425 F. Sprinkle a bit of flour onto 2 baking sheets, and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, combine 1/2 cup white flour, whole wheat flour, white whole wheat flour, salt, oats and baking soda. Add the butter and mix it in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles meal. Stir in the raisins and the buttermilk to form a wet dough.

Sprinkle half of the remaining flour onto the countertop, and knead it into the dough; repeat with the rest of the flour until the dough is no longer sticky.

Divide dough in half and shape each half into an 8-inch round; place one dough round onto each of the prepared baking sheets. Slice an “X” into the top of the dough, and bake the breads for 30-35 minutes until they are golden brown. Let cool completely before serving.

Makes 2 loaves.

And check out this article in today's New York Times encouraging the humanities and, especially, the reading of Ulysses ... :)

St. Paddy's Day Feasting

I tend to be a traditionalist, but one who likes to play with the tradition as well.  So yes, I cooked Corned Beef 'n' Cabbage for St. Paddy's Day; but I didn't boil my cabbage along with the meat, and I didn't add carrots, and I didn't serve spuds.  For the sake of convenience -- since Tom was coming over for dinner, and Jeremy and his friend Mitch were headed to an evening party soon after I got home from work -- I plopped the corned beast into my Mama Bear crockpot (vs. the Baby Bear one for dips or the Papa Bear one for feeding crowds) and let it simmer all day long.  Ideally, it would have cooked in a good beer; but that was not an option with this group (Anonymous rules prevent my sharing specifics), so I immersed the main course in water.  I was told by the resident expert-in-all-things-corned-beast, Jeremy, that it was the best one I've made; so clearly, my new technique and boring choice of liquid balanced each other out.

Jeremy and Mitch didn't even bother eating a sample of each item offered; they went straight to making Reubens.  Jeremy had diligently bought the ingredients himself, and prepared the sandwiches to his own specifications.  I'd show you photos of what I'm told were phenomenal specimens ... of course, that would have required someone other than 19-year-old males being involved in this venture, because no signs of these Yeti-like Reubens can be found.  But I'm told they were amazing!

I ate only one bite of the meat because sodium nitrite gives me migraines, and I wasn't going to pay extortionist prices for chemical-free slabs; ours came from Kroger, personally chosen by Jeremy, which was just fine.  Instead, what captures my heart every St. Paddy's Day -- and which, truly, is incredibly seductive -- is my handmade/home-baked Brown Soda Bread with ... sigh ... Dubliner cheese.  If I had to pick a favorite cheese -- which, of course, would be such a taxing job that my brain would explode -- it might just have to be Dubliner.  It's dry like an aged Cheddar, not too strong, with hints of Parmigiano as well ... familiar in some ways, and yet absolutely its own distinctive and delicious entity.  It is sublime eaten simply on its own or with a lovely selection of fruit (fruit and cheese being among my many food-related weaknesses, and virtually a perfect meal -- breakfast, light lunch, tea-time treat, bedtime snack, whatever); but one might almost think it had been specifically created to be served with my soda bread, because the pairing is so astoundingly "right."  My soda bread is made with King Arthur whole wheat flour, oats, rich buttermilk from Calder Dairy, and raisins (Jeremy's preference) or dried cranberries (my own choice) -- it is hearty, almost scone-like in its crumbliness, not sweet, and absolutely addictive.  Slather some good butter on a slice of bread, add Dubliner cheese ... and find bliss.  If this might ever be my last meal, I could die grinning.

I also served the traditional cabbage with my corned beast, although Tom and I were the only ones who ate it; Jeremy will eat cabbage, but only if it's been transformed into either sauerkraut or cole slaw.  I can eat boiled cabbage, but prefer to do more interesting things with my vegetables than merely soak them in water.  So I melted a bit of bacon fat -- because bacon makes everything better, and is proof that there is a God! -- in a frying pan and cooked sliced cabbage and red onion until they were softened and caramelized ... probably over-cooked to most people's tastes, but perfect for mine.

I didn't drink any green beer or Guinness, not being a) a beer drinker, b) a stout drinker, or c) much of a drinker at all.  St. Paddy's Day isn't about being a lush (and am I the only one who thought A2.com's front-page touting of a contributor's day-long attempts at drunkenness was utterly inappropriate and revolting???) -- it's about celebrating one's Irish heritage (I'm 1/4 Irish) ... and, as always, feasting!