Irish Soda Bread

Having lived in Ireland, I've tasted some mighty fine soda bread. It's tough to find an authentic loaf here in the US.

Soda bread is made without yeast and this one is made with both baking soda and buttermilk. It's about as authentic to traditional Irish as it can be. It's crusty outside and moist but dense inside. This recipe is adjusted from SimplyRecipes.com.

I soaked a cup of dried raisins in Jameson's Irish Whiskey to plump them (for about a day.) I then drained them in a colander an hour or so before adding them to the dough.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Grease a baking sheet or cast iron skillet.

Mix 4 cups* of all-purpose flour with 1 T sugar, 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp of baking soda. *Keep the flour handy to add more if needed when mixing the dough into a round.

I grated 4 T of good, cold butter (Kerrygold or Kirkland or one of the good European brands). The cold grated butter is easier to work into the flour. 

In a larger work bowl, and using your hands (using thin plastic gloves work well) mix the dry ingredients and the butter, grinding the butter with your fingers. The SimplyRecipes instructions call for thoroughly mixing until the flour is the consistency of cornmeal. I'd say that the flour is a bit shy of being cornmeal, but it does feel different than just plain flour. Make sure the butter is mixed in well. Add the raisins and mix to coat them. 

Whisk a large egg and 1-3/4 cups of buttermilk together and pour it into a well of the flour/butter. 

At this point, you can continue mixing with the gloves on to make things easier, or you can use a wooden spoon. Whatever  you do, do not overmix. The goal here is to have a wet dough but no dry flour at the bottom of the bowl. Pour this mixture out onto a floured board and gently and quickly form somewhat of a ball of shaggy, wet dough. Overmixing makes for a tough bread.

I, in fact. added a small scoop of flour to the dough as I was shaping it and then poured the dough out of the bowl onto a greased griddle and formed it into a ball, shaping the edges into a round shape mounded on the griddle. I then placed a large 10" greased cheesecake pan round (without the flat bottom) around the dough so that it formed a nice round loaf when baking. You can use a greased cast-iron skillet instead.

Traditionally, Irish soda bread is cut with an X or cross with a serrated knife about 1-1/2 inch deep. 

I did not wash with milk or egg, but might next time. You can also sprinkle the milk or egg with crusty baking sugar. 

Place the skillet or griddle in the center of the hot oven. At the end of 30 minutes test for doneness with a skewer. Add 5 minutes and test again.  Repeat as necessary. It should be crusty and golden. 

Serve warm! The bread is great toasted with butter the next day.

All Things Lemon Gourmet

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Aperitif - Janice

Lemon Drop Martini

Prosecco

White & Red Wine (dinner)

 Nancy Garfield

Shrimp Ceviche w/plantain chips

 JoAnne Barone

Lemony Pearl Barley Soup

 Deb Zyduck

Lemon Ricotta Pasta w/Chicken

Katie Deeg

Lemon Brussel Sprouts Salad

Charlotte Canelli

Five-Ingredient Lemon Bars 

w/Canelli homemade pistachio ice cream

March's Gourmet Dinner in Verandah at Janice's home was absolutely delicious from the martinis to the homemade limoncello. Hosted by Janice and Deb Zyduck, it was simply a delightful evening. Janice supplied us with take-home containers for leftovers.

Nancy added diced cucumber to her recipe. The StayAtHomeChef also adds that you can add diced avocado. It was delicious and I brought some home to Gerry who scarfed it down at 9:30 pm!

JoAnne's soup was also a hit. It's a NYT Cooking recipe so I won't link it to NYT  (due to the paywall), but have posted the recipe on this blog, linked above. Gerry also enjoyed the soup when I got home.

Katie's delicious salad was ooohh'd and aaaah'd over. In fact, I made it at home the very next day!  It's a Costco Recipe of the Month and one I'll be making again and again. Note that you can add prosciutto bits or bacon which I did for a main-dish salad.

The Lemon Ricotta Pasta from Lemon Tree Dwelling was perfect, just enough to finish the meal. Deb and Janice put it together for our main dish, fresh from the cooktop.

The evening ended with the lemon bars*, homemade ice cream,and Janice's homemade limoncello on the Cartwright's Magnolia Isle Drive lanai in beautiful Verandah here in Fort Myers. 

*The lemon bars were nicely lemony and the recipe was simple. If I were making them again I would use a larger baking dish (other than 9x9 suggested - perhaps a 12x9 or 12x10) so that the layers of shortbread and lemon were thinner. 

Lemony Pearl Barley Soup from NYT

Photo credit New York Times

Here's the soup that JoAnne made for the March 2024 Gourmet All Things Lemon dinner. The recipe is from NYT Cooking by Hetty Lui McKinnon.  

Don't forget the garnish! Yogurt or crème fraîche and half the dill plus a bit of drizzled olive oil. (You could use Dill infused oil from any of the olive oil shops such as Fort Myers Olive Oil at Cypress Lake in Fort Myers, Florida or Ripe from the Vine on Route 6 in Marion, Massachusetts.)

Ingredients

• Extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 yellow finely diced onion
• 2 finely chopped garlic cloves
• 2 thinly sliced celery stalks
• 1 cup of chopped fresh dill leaves AND stalks (half for soup and half for garnish)
• Sea salt and ground pepper
• 1 cup (6 oz) of pearl barley
• 6 cups vegetable stock
• 3-4 T freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 2 oz. baby spinach
• Greek yogurt or Crème Fraîche to serve

Heat a large pot over medium-high heat and add 1-2 T of the olive oil first, adding the onion and cooking until softened (always stirring) - about 2-3 minutes. Add the garlic, celery, half the dill and 1/2 tsp. salt.  Stir until fragrant about 1-2 minutes.

Add the pearl barley and the stock and bring to a boil.  Cover and reduce the heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally until the barley is swollen and tender, about 25-30 minutes.

Turn off the heat, adding the lemon juice and seasoning with salt and pepper. Taste!

Stir in the spinach, letting it wilt in the heat of the soup.

Ladle the soup into bowls and top with yogurt or Crème Fraîche, the remaining dill and drizzle with olive oil.

Italian Stuffed Pepper Soup

We had a late lunch with our friends Sharon and Jim in Upton, MA on Tuesday, February 20th - a few days before leaving New England and the late winter behind. What a perfect meal with the Campbells!

Sharon's Stuffed Pepper Soup was so good that I asked her for the recipe. She replied with a list of the ingredients that she throws together. I tried duplicating it and it was almost as perfect as hers. We had Tim and Julie over on a breezy, warm evening in Verandah here in Florida.  Everyone loved this bowl of comfort served with fresh bread, red wine and a salad.

Sauté some shallots and chopped sweet onions in a bit of oil in a Dutch oven (or any other pan.) Add 12 sausages (out of the casings) and use a spatula or other utensil to break them up as they cook. Add 4 cans* of fire-roasted tomatoes. Sharon added some tomato sauce, but we were unfortunately out of tomato sauce so I added the *fourth can of tomatoes. Add some Italian seasoning and dried thyme, a generous T. of fennel seed, a tsp. of dried thyme, and a bit or garlic salt. Add three multi-colored peppers, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces. When the peppers are just cooked, if the Dutch oven is big enough, add 8 cups of beef broth and about 2-4 cups of cooked brown rice.

Or add everything to another pot that will hold everything. (I actually cooked the 2 cups of rice in 4 cups of beef broth until almost done and added everything to a crockpot. I cooked on high four about 3 hours.) If not soupy enough, add more beef broth.

Serve with warm bread, a salad, and a bowlful of freshly grated Parmesan/Pecorino/Romano cheese.

So good!

If you'd like a recipe with more exact ingredients, I found a ton of them online. Just search Stuffed Pepper Soup. Here's one I found while I was uploading Sharon's recipe.

Roasted Yellow Beet Fresh Pasta with Sage Butter

 Today I made roasted yellow beet pasta by adding only 1 whisked egg to the flours and a few tablespoons of pureed roasted yellow beets. I added water to the dough in the pasta machine until it was the consistency of dried peas.  This was a bit tricky, but it worked.

To 1/2 cup of Italian butter in a hot pan, I added about 30 sage leaves of all sizes that I had picked from the herb garden. I turned the heat down to simmer and cooked it for about half an hour until the sage leaves had shrunk considerably in size.  I turned the heat up and watched it carefully until the sage leaves turned crispy and the butter turned light brown. 

Using a very small strainer, I strained the butter from the leaves. I then used the butter on the pasta after it cooked.

Spinach Fettuccini with Pine Nuts, Creme Fraiche, Bacon and Pecorino/Parmesan

Using the homemade fettuccini I'd made earlier, we had Julie and her family for dinner last night, I cooked the fettuccini for a few minutes and drained it in a colander, Because I was adding it to a heated sauce, I left it to cool. (Don't forget to save a cup of the pasta water!)

I had cooked bacon earlier and left the bits and some of the fat in the pan. To this, I added some good butter, a bit of pepper-flavored olive oil and about a cup of pine nuts. I tossed in some herbs d'provence and left these to simmer. Right before serving dinner, I added 1/2-3/4 cup creme fraiche*, a cup of cooked and crumbled bacon and one cup of finely grated Pecorino and Parmesan cheeses.  I added a bit of pasta water to thin it out and then added the cooked pasta to the hot sauce.

I served it immediately with chopped parsley on top and a bit more finely grated cheese.

We served this with grilled thickly cut tuna steaks, seasoned with Kinder's Butter Steakhouse and butter on top at the end.

Gerry made yummy St.Elderberry martinis and his famous guacamole. We had fresh ricotta bread, salad and a trio of ice creams for dessert. Happy birthday, Julie!

*My creme fraiche hack is 1/3 Greek yogurt, 1/3 Mascarpone cheese and 1/3 sour cream. Using blender or immersion blender to cream together.

Dirty Martini Pasta

Danish Creamery.com (Photo)

I found this recipe online and decided to purchase some large Martini glasses to serve it in. In looking again for the recipe I learned that it is a popular thing! I found the original recipe and tweaked it, having read that Castelvetrano olives are the very best to use. They are a beautiful green and the brine is lovely in the recipe.

The recipe I used was from Danish Creamery and asked to use Danish butter. I bought some Italian butter* instead and used it. I didn't use the crab meat recommended, but it might be pretty tasty with any kind of additional seafood, fish or meat. *I used some chilled American butter (Plugra) and it was just as good  

Cook and drain a pound of pasta. I made fresh Angel Hair pasta. Reserve 1 cup of the water!

Melt 2 T butter in a large skillet over high heat. Add 1 cup of torn pitted Castelvetrano* olives - reserve a few whole olives for garnish (see above photo) and 2 minced (or more) garlic cloves. Cook olives and garlic about 1 minute in the butter.  *Also reserve 1/3 cup of the olive brine.

Add 1/3 cup of gin and cook about three minutes until liquid is reduced by half. Tonight added one pkg. of quickly sautéed cubed prosciutto.  Last week I added about 1/3 pkg of cooked crumbled bacon. 

Whisk in the reserved brine, 1/2 cup of creme fraiche** and 1/2 cup of the pasta liquid. (Note: I whisked these three ingredients together before hand.) 

Transfer pasta using tongs into the skillet and toss. Cook until everything is nice and thick. Add in 3 T. cubed cold butter, zest of 1 lemon, 1/4 c. chopped fresh parsley, and half a cup of pecorino/parmesan. If using seafood, toss it in. Add another splash or two of the pasta water to loosen the sauce. Add salt and pepper, swirl into glasses, garnish and serve immediately with warm bread and butter|olive oil. 

**I made my own creme fraiche using 1/3 full-fat sour cream, 1/3 Greek yogurt and 1/3 mascarpone to make 1 cup and used half of that. You can add more if you feel it is needed.

Tonight I added a butterflied grilled shrimp or two to each filled glass.