Ireland

STAPLE FOOD 

• Potato
• Cabbage

Bacon and Cabbage

A 3-4 lb Loin of Bacon or Corned Beef Brisket
2 Onions
2 Carrots
1 Stick of celery
I Cabbage
A small pat of butter
Tablespoon each of honey and wholegrain mustard
Good pinch of ground cloves

Place the meat in a large saucepan of water and bring to the boil. From here things vary according to the meat you use.

Corned Beef: Add the onions, carrots and celery, all roughly chopped, and allow the meat to simmer for about 25-30 minutes per pound.
Bacon: Bring to the boil. If a white scum (it’s salt) rises to the top, drain off the water, replace with cold water and bring to the boil again. Repeat until there is no scum. Then add the vegetables as above and simmer for 15 minutes per pound plus 15 minutes over.

In either case once the meat is cooked, remove it from the water, dry it lightly with some kitchen towels. If there is a thick fat cover on the bacon I generally cut it off at this point – though that is sacrilage to some people! Retain a cupful of the cooking water – discard the vegetables, they were there for flavour and have done their job.

Mix together the honey, mustard and ground cloves and smear it all over the bacon. Leave it, covered, to ‘rest’ and let the honey mixture soak in for about 20-30 minutes – or several hours or even overnight if that suits you better.

Before serving, put the bacon into a moderately hot oven, about 400ºF (200ºC/Gas Mark 6) for about 20-30 minutes. This gives you plenty of time to prepare the cabbage.

Remove the outer leaves of the cabbage, cut it into four and remove the stalk. Then finely shred it.

Put half a cupful of the bacon water in a saucepan, add the butter and bring to the boil. Then add the cabbage and stir it constantly until it wilts and becomes slightly soft. It will take about 5 minutes to cook. The water and butter will disappear – partly coating the cabbage, partly steaming away – so you will not need to drain it at all.


Donegal Oatmeal Cream

15 fluid ounces milk
1/2 cup pinhead oatmeal
1 pinch salt
1 large egg, beaten
Grated rind and juice of 1 orange: a bitter Seville orange is best if you can get one
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 ounce gelatine
2 tablespoons water
8 ounces heavy cream, whipped
The fruit sauce of your choice (any slightly thinned fruit jam works well) 

The night before: Scald the milk (i.e., heat it to just before boiling but do not let it boil) and remove from heat. Add the oatmeal and the pinch of salt: stir, cover, and soak the oatmeal overnight in the milk.

The next day, reheat the oatmeal and milk mixture just until it boils. Simmer for another 3-4 minutes: then remove from heat.

Pour the mixture into a bowl and add the beaten egg, grated lemon rind, and sugar to taste. Dissolve the gelatine in the orange juice and water. Add this to the mixture when it's cooled, and then carefully fold in the whipped cream.

Pour the whole mixture into a single glass bowl, or into individual parfait glasses, and leave to set. (You may want to stir the contents gently once or twice while they're setting, to keep the oats from sinking to the bottom.) Serve with more whipped cream and 3-4 tablespoons of your chosen fruit sauce on top.

Another more parfait-like approach to this dessert: allow the whole recipe's worth of oatmeal cream to set in a single bowl. Stir gently as above, so that the oatmeal is evenly distributed through the mixture when it's set. Then spoon it into parfait glasses, alternating layers of oatmeal cream with more whipped cream and drizzles of fruit sauce. If you want to cut back on the calories a little, you could also substitute creme fraiche or beaten low-fat sour cream for the whipped cream.