Irish Soda Bread

observe the bread

it's hiding but you can still see it

the one picture we took while baking. i hope you observe the copious amounts to alcohol

This wonderful bread substance has been my contribution to the St. Paddy’s effort every year. I like baking much more than cooking and substantially more than cooking meat so it is really all that is left. I have come to the conclusion that Irish Soda Bread tastes more like a really delicious scone than bread. So here is a recipe (and story) for scone bread. Enjoy.

Soda bread was not introduced into Ireland until the 1800. Some of the sources I have read say that the method of using baking soda or acid to leaven bread was introduced to the world by the Native Americans. Columbian exchange, anyone? Anybody? Nobody. The Irish were somewhat excited by this revelation because not only could they make good leavened bread, but they could make it without using an oven. They made it on a cast iron skillet over a fire. I did not use this method. Although both northern Ireland and southern Ireland adopted this “poor man’s bread,” they prepared it differently. In northern Ireland, the bread was flattened into a round disk and then cut into four triangles, and each was cooked on a griddle. In southern Ireland, it was made into a round shape and then a cross was drawn on the top to ward off the devil. It was eaten with butter as it obviously should be eaten.

Ok so here is the Irish-American version that we always make. Because as you and I have learned we apparently can never be truly Irish. I have, however, included a link for the traditional Irish Soda Bread recipe here.

Ingredients:

• 5 cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 ½ teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ cup unsalted butter (a stick, you should know that) cut into cubes, room temperature
• 2 ½ cups of raisins
• 3 tablespoons caraway seeds
• 2 ½ cups buttermilk
• 1 large egg

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (or you can try the skillet over a fire method and tell me how that goes)
2. Butter with a lot of butter a 10-12’’ oven proof skillet
3. Whisk the first five ingredients together in a bowl
4. Add the chunks of butter and then with your fingers make the dough crumble, I really hope you understand what I mean by that
5. Stir in raisins and caraway seeds
6. In a different bowl whisk the buttermilk and egg together and then pour this mixture into the dough
7. Stir this with a wooden spoon (I haven’t figured this reasoning out but it worked)
8. Put this dough into the skillet and then pound it a little and then cut an x into the center
9. Put it in the oven and hope that you did it right
10. Wait and hour and fifteen minutes
11. Now you are done. Eat it with butter.

This meat has surely been boiled

For one day a year we pretend to be Irish. I mean some of us are Irish all of the time, so they just act extra Irish on that day. Or the American version of Irish. You do this by: dressing in green, drinking all the alcohol, and eating corned beef.

Corned beef is a salt cured beef product. It’s corned beef because of the salt kernels. During WWI and WWI it became incredibly popular because it was rationed. During WWII most all of the corned beef was imported from Uruguay. Corned beef became industrialized during the British Industrial revolution and they sold it in cans like this. Yum yum. Corned beef production worsened the effects for the Irish to eat during the Potato Famine because most of their land was used to produce beef for the people of Britain, leaving little land to produce food for themselves. Most historians say that is was not until the huge wave of Irish immigration to the United States in the early 1900s that corned beef became associated with the Irish. Only in America and Canada is corned beef associated with St. Patrick’s day. WHAT?!? We are fakes. In Ireland they eat bacon and cabbage. That is odd because you would think those things would be switched.

So being the good Irish Americans that we truly are, we made corned beef with cabbage and carrots. Here is what we did.

Ingredients:

• 4 lb corned beef brisket
• 3 large carrots cut into large chunks
• 6 to 8 small onion
• 1 teaspoon dry English mustard
• large sprig of thyme and some parsley stalks (tie them together with string or...other)
• 1 cabbage
• salt and pep as my grandmother would say

Directions:

1. Put the brisket in a saucepan covered with carrots, onions, mustard, and the bonded herbs.
2. Cover with cold water and heat to a simmer that ish for 2 hours (make sure it is covered)
3. Get rid of those pesky outer leaves of the cabbage and then add them to the pot too
4. Cook for 1 to 2 hours more until the meat looks like how you want to eat it and then you can eat it
5. Serve cut into slices and with all of the veggies and stuff
6. yum. not irish

   

   
   

    
   To understand the reference in the title watch at 4:42. To watch an amazing movie start at the beginning. I am sharing with you a gem.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

This is before the hike. We did not look like this afterwards. Or at least I didn't.

The first stop on the way to our hike. I'm not really sure what mom is doing with Caroline's head.

 Lucy and Maggie collecting materials to make a fairy house.

I am lovingly stroking a tree evidently.

Rusty looking fine.

I have no explanation for my appearance. Apparently I did not get the "lets look cute" memo.

Alcohol. Scandalous.

My father looking ridiculous while making pancakes.

While it looks like I am attempting to strangle my mother, I am actually giving her a hug.

The coolest kids in the house. We take fashion to another level.

In the end it all comes down to food.

This was the first year that my wardrobe contained enough green to not be pinched on St. Paddy’s day. Usually, though, I can avoid pinching by making the Irish Soda Bread. It’s my contribution to our St. Paddy’s day tradition.

My mom’s side of the family is Irish. That means that half of me is allowed to say “Kiss me, I’m Irish,” and the other half has to wait for Oktoberfest to get any action. A couple of years ago when I was in sixth or seventh grade, my mom got a call from our cousin’s who were having a St. Paddy’s day party in Atlanta. Everyone was congregating at my cousin’s Nicole’s house, and evidently my mom was jealous because after that phone call she gave us ten minutes to pack, then we got in the car for the six hour drive and arrived just in time for the corned beef. Ever since then we have been rotating houses every year on St. Paddy’s day. (Three years ago everyone came to my house, allowing my friends to witness the magic. Apparently my cousin, Frank, who lives here in Lexington had a similar thought because he brought two of his friends. One of them was unfortunate enough to be seen as weak in the eyes of my somewhat merciless friends, and they chased him around the block until he cried. I, however, did not participate because I can not go on a high speed chase after eating so much corned beef.)

This year it was just us and Caroline and Noelle and their families. We decided to meet in the middle this time, because six hours or driving for a short weekend trip is somewhat draining I am told. Apparently, our middle is Robinsville, NC which one can only get to by taking a road called “Tail of the Dragon”. A road frequented by motorcyclists, it’s 318 turns in 11 miles in enough to make anyone swear off the barbeque chips and DQ blizzard they had had an hour before for good. The trip got better after that sickening ride, although the nausea did seem to stay with me for longer than I expected. We chilled in our motorcycle adorned cabin, hiked in the Smoky mountains, made beautiful breakfasts and a delicious Irish dinner in our cramped kitchen, played Cards Against Humanity near the fire pit, and ping pong and pool in a garage full of Chuck Norris posters.

Best food: Irish Soda Bread

Best laugh: During Cards Against Humanity--my sister is the judge--she pulls “How did I lose my virginity?” she chooses “the entire Mormon tabernacle choir.” I think that indicates something.

Best memory: When cousin Maggie went inside and made us all “You are cool” post it notes and I wore it on my head while I played pool.

Worst food/laugh/memory: When I accidentally poured buttermilk into my earl grey and drank my tea, thinking there was something terribly wrong with it, and understanding what it was when I saw the chunks at the bottom.

Eating--A Day In the Life of Sophia: The National Boulangerie

what Annie and I ate for lunch. not to shabby

this is the best picture of Lusi and me at National. unfortunately, I look bald

 lookin' classsy

she asked me to take this

my selfie at engineering day next to a t shirt from the dam exhibit

the starbucks chronicles: me and my giant water

the starbucks chronicles: our ship

the starbucks chronicles: my struggle

 towards the beginning.                              then our plan for them.

our struggle not to be noticed when a friend came over to chat with them. and then when we discovered that they just met

the next day Annie bc I don't have a picture of her that day.

There comes a moment in time when a girl feels she must drink coffee out of a bowl. Before, I had to fly to San Francisco to do something this classy and glamorous. Or make it at home, but as you know that is never the same. At the beginning of the year a restaurant/cafe opened at the end of our street. My dad was so excited about this that he posted on his facebook about it everyday for a month. This place is beautiful, and great, and incredibly exciting because it might hipster-fy my neighborhood.  I can not get over that possibility, though I am afraid my excitement keeps me from being a true hipster. One day I will do a post all about the cool stuff that goes down on National Ave inside of this fabulous building. (I will not do it today because I do not have any decent pictures. However my friends and I have a definite plan in the works to dress up like real hipsters, actually put on make-up, and hang out at National acting cool and aloof until we come up with something else that is hipster to do in Lexington. That day will come, and it will be grand.) Soon I will post about all they have to offer and how cool the National Boulangerie is. This is just a sneak peek.

Over the weekend I went there twice.

On Friday night my Bulgarian, Lusi, picked me up and we drove the block there. We did this because she got her license. I find this depressing because she is a full year and 1 month younger than me and I still have my permit. Basically, my laziness depresses me occasionally. We stayed there for an hour gossiping, drinking coffee from bowls, and trying to look sophisticated while surreptitiously taking selfies to commemorate the moment. Funny story: we wanted coffee in bowls so badly that I asked the lady at the counter which coffee came in a bowl to be sure we got what we wanted. She judged me hardcore. It was worth it. While gossip took up the majority of our conversation, as it usually does when I’m around, we also made our fifth (sixth? seventh? twenty-eighth?) plan of our trip to Europe. Our focus is normally Greece, but this time it was Paris in honor of our surroundings. Around six it looked like they were closing up but I was so sure that they stayed open till seven that we sat there for 15 minutes. I was wrong. It was awkward. However, it paid off because they gave me free bread. After going there once and not coming back with a baguette, my father was so disappointed and angry that he made me promise to never leave there without bread again. So obviously I stuck to my promise and asked for a baguette. They were out so they just gave me two loaves of 7 grain bread for free. If only Jean Valjean had them in his town, Les Mis would have never happened. It was an incredibly exciting moment in my life. Lusi and I came home and ate exorbitant amounts of bread with honey and cream cheese, and then more with asiago cheese. Ever since then I have been researching good bread recipes. That will be happening soon.

On Saturday I walked to Engineering day at UK while eating a piece of that free bread. After taking a selfie as evidence that I was there, Annie and I decided to go somewhere to work on our mentoring projects. She is writing a book!! I can’t handle how cools she is. Still reeling from getting free bread, I suggested we go to National. So we went. I ordered a breakfast pizza, with cheese bacon and a sunnyside up egg on it. It would have been delicious but it was just a little cold so the egg wasn’t an awesome addition. But I felt crazy cool eating it so… Annie got a pesto, mozzarella, and tomato sandwich and housemade chips. I was just a little jealous. We also split a pain au chocolat to go with our coffee and tea. We went all out. That kinda thing makes us feel like grown ups. Afterwards, we went to Starbucks to work but got nothing done because we spent the entire time shipping the two people sitting across from us. I have included some snippets of our conversation and our time there because they are hilarious.

Ok. I honestly did not mean for this to be so long. I think I rambled, however I enjoy it so it’s staying. I like talking about what happens when I eat food places. I promise I will post a real post next time.

What I thought would be dumplings became potstickers...

yum

the dough doin' its thing

I'm trying to keep up and failing miserably

all that goodness

the before and after shots

stir it all up and add enough spoons/chopsticks for each helper

me pretending to be a true blogger

mother and daughter action shot

is she judging or just watching? you can never tell

 take note. this is how this stuff works

one down, 119 to go

getting better

now i try (and do not do so well)

 carol shows me again

 like mother, like daughter

progress

artsy

 observe the cheekbones

official

and they become pot-stickers. MAGIC

beauty

I feel now that I have interviewed more than one person on cooking, that I have somewhat of an extensive base of knowledge on the subject. That means that I am now very aware that no one uses a recipe. If they are good enough they just know. Carol told me that some cooks can smell if they added too much salt. (And then I was reading Joy Luck Club a couple days after and my favorite character Lindo bragged about how she could smell if she added too much salt to her food. I mean wow.) However, while that is incredibly impressive, I find it rather difficult to write down a good recipe. But I am going to do so anyways. Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

DUMPLINGS (which can be made into potstickers if you just believe)

These delicious little morsels seem also to be known as jiaozi on the internets. From what I have gathered they are a tradition at Chinese New Year celebrations. Multiple places said that they were originally called “tender ears” because they were first made by a medicine man to treat frostbitten ears. Now they are eaten all year round. Those were the fun facts.

For the dough:

Ingredients

• 4 (ish) cups of flour
• 1 cup of water to 3 cups of flour therefore 1 ⅓ cups of water

Directions

• Use a bread maker or other automatic mixer
• pour all of your two ingredients in the bowl
• turn it on
• keep watch until it all sticks together and then let it mix for 40 minutes while you make the stuffing

For the filling:

    Ingredients

• over 1 lb of ground pork (just a package you can buy)
• chopped ginger (I’m gonna say a tablespoon)
• 4 finely chopped scallions
• 1 TB of dark soy sauce
• 1 TB of regular soy sauce (apparently there is a difference. if you, like me, are not that sophisticated I am sure that whatever you have will do)
• a pinch of pepper
• a pinch of garlic powder
• a sprinkling of chicken bullion
• a sprinkling of Chinese spice (I think it is the same thing as this)
• 1 TB of sugar
• just a lil’ bit of cooking wine
• 1 TB of salt
• a few tablespoons of olive oil
• some water
• vegetables--we used celery and cabbage (about 1 lb combined)

   

    Directions

1. For the meat put your pork in a bowl
2. Add the chopped ginger, scallion, soy sauces, pepper and garlic powder, chicken bouillon, Chinese spice, sugar, cooking wine, salt, olive oil, and water. (This means put all of the rest of your ingredients in the bowl.)
3. Stir with chopsticks counter clockwise and only that way
4. Let the meat sit while you deal with the vegatables
5. For the vegetable part of the filling chop up the cabbage and celery in the cuisinart until they are very very small little pieces (just look at the picture)
6. When they are the correct size add some salt
7. Then plop that stuff on a cheesecloth and squeeze out the water
8. Add your waterless vegetables to your meat and mix it (this time it can be mixed in any direction

For the dumplings:

    Ingredients

• premade dough
• premade filling
• flour

   

    Directions:

1. Cut your dough into about 120 little tiny balls
2. Roll these balls on a flat surface into tiny round, flat pieces of dough that are fatter towards the middle and thinner towards the edges. (This is a rather difficult task that involves a skill that is hard for me to write down because it was hard for me to do. Sorry about this. I warned you.)
3. Fill with around a teaspoon of filling. Basically you will be very aware if you have used too much because it will be hard to close the dumpling without it all spilling out.
4. Then pinch those suckers shut either with that area between your thumb and pointer finger or with the normal parts of your fingers that you use. I would try to tell you the fancy way to do it but I have found that it doesn't matter because they just need to be tightly shut so you can cook them and eat them.
5. Boil in water.
6. FOR POTSTICKERS: fry on a pan in oil

Serving suggestions: eat plain, with soy sauce, or with ketchup. Do not combine the two.

I understand that that recipe seems rather difficult to recreate. First let me say, I hope that I have relayed everything correctly. Now, here are two other sites (site one. site two.) trying to describe the same thing that I just did. They may have done it better, but I--as a person--am better and funnier.

If you do not feel up to trying to make these because it is difficult, but you still want an infusion of some culture, read Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. It is a beautiful compilation of interconnecting stories of four Chinese-born mothers and their four American-born daughters living in San Francisco. So there you go, culture.