St. Pat’s Day

There is nary a hint of Irish in me, but boy do I love St. Patrick’s Day. It is a harbinger of spring with its pots of gold and rainbows. Its Shamrocks and little Leprechauns and wearing o’ the green. It’s a feast day for the Saint that’s said to have driven the snakes out of Ireland and purportedly raised people fromithe dead. He somehow has usurped the lovely Saint Brigid who founded the guild of nuns of Kildare, or purportedly they did it together. But at any rate, it’s a feast day that existed long before the Catholics. It was Ostara, a celebration fo the Spring Equinox, which is just 4 days away from this celebrated feast day. The pagans, you know people who lived with the seasons and honored the cycles of the earth, celebrated the goddess Eostre during this time (Easter anyone??) the goddess of spring and new beginnings. But that’s a post for April.

I do love a good feast day and St. Patrick’s is no different, no matter its sordid beginnings. My husband’s family used to hold the most wonderful St. Pat’s dinners. Tables were set all over the living room at my husbands grandmothers house and all kinds of family joined in the feast, my mother in law took over once Besta could no longer do the chore. The menu always stayed the same:

Corned Beef Brisket with a crusty Brown Sugar Mustard Crust

Boiled Cabbage and Potatoes served with Malt Vinegar and Sour Cream

Fried Chicken for the unadventurous

Soda Bread

Mile High Strawberry Pie

Creme De Menthe Pie

And Dewars Scotch Whiskey was always served

For one reason and another those dinners no longer come together with all the folks that used to attend, and I even typically spend St. Pat’s Day by myself these days. But if I have a hankering, which I always do, no matter who is or isn’t in attendance, I will spend the day making up a Lamb and Guinness Stew and a few loaves of Soda Bread too. I will blast a playlist of Irish tunes and sip on Irish Whiskey. I will probably make a lemon curd to celebrate the coming on of eggs. I will most definitely have the doors open to celebrate the first 50 degree days. I will decorate the countertops with yellow daffodils. I will find real live cultured buttermilk, to make my soda bread with. I will make or buy some really good butter to slather on warm, thick slices of that bread. I will buy a shamrock plant, or two. I will light candles. I will decorate for spring!

This is a rough sketch of how I make my lamb stew, I cannot devise a recipe because so much is dependent on the cut of lamb I use, or which root veggies I use. It’s a dance with the flavor and ingredients, dependent on how bitter the beer is, how sweet the veggies, how maillard the meat.

I begin by choosing a bone in style of lamb, it’s dependent on what I can quickly find, or how my lamb came cut that year as I’m typically at the whim of my butcher even if I ask for specific cuts. I strip the meat from the bones.

The bones go in a pot with many branches of Rosemary, a few branches of Sage, several twigs of Thyme, a couple Bay Leaves, half an Onion, a few Garlic Cloves. This steeps away as I prep my vegetables and meat.

I typically make a mirepoix of chopped Onion, Celery, and Carrot. I small dice all of these and set them aside.

I chunk up a few Potatoes, a few Carrots, and possibly a Parsnip, Turnip,and/or Rutabaga or two, depending on what I have or depending on my mood.

I set these aside.

Then, I dredge the meat pieces through a mixture of flour seasoned with salt and pepper.

I then cube the meat into ½ to 1 inch pieces.

I warm a stockpot on the stove, add olive oil once it’s nice and hot, then add the coated stew meat in single layers, crisping the crust that forms on the meat. I remove the meat to a platter.

I deglaze that meaty oily mess with a bit of the simmering lamb broth and add my mirepoix.

I gently sautee the mirepoix with a bit of broth, instead of adding more oil, until the vegetables are tender, adding just little amounts of broth as needed so that the mixture doesn’t burn.

I add the meat back to the pan.

I add the broth.

I add a can or bottle or two of Guinness.

Do I need more salt?

More pepper?

More Rosemary?

Does this batch need a bit of Worcestershire sauce to add to the meaty-ness?

Does it need a bit of Onion powder to create some depth?

Does it need a bit more garlic?

Is it too bitter?

Should I add a hint of sweet, or perhaps the carrots will add the sweet that it needs.

I add the vegetable chunks.

I fill the pan with broth. I taste.

I turn the heat to low, go out to the yard to do the year’s first weeding, and wait for the ingredients to meld together.

I taste again before serving, asking myself the same questions as I did before.

It’s probably perfect, so I’ll just dig in, dipping warm buttered Soda Bread into the stew as needed.

I have been tinkering with my soda bread recipe for oh so many years. Every year the ingredients from the stores seem to change. Some years the soda seems dormant, without flavor or activity, some years it's wildly active and overpowering. Sometimes I can find real raw living cultured buttermilk, and sometimes I can find none. During covid I had to use the reconstituted powdered variety. My flour choices are different each year. I’ve been using local whole wheat varieties and they tend to soak up the flavor, so I need more salt and more sugar, but less soda, somehow. The wilder the cultures in the buttermilk the more the soda activates, and the more the bread rises. It’s a dance of ingredients that used to be consistent from year to year, but that is the pleasure of cooking, of exploring new sources for ingredients, and to investigate the nuances of new things! So here is this year's version, which seems to work for me, but it might not for you, so adjust accordingly.

These loaves are so quick to throw together, I often make several batches. I make some plain, and some seeded, some fruited, some with nuts, you never know what you might cut into!

Donata's Soda Bread

3 cups flour

1teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar

1 ½ cups Buttermilk add ins: 2 tablespoons Caraway Seed and/or 1/2 cup Currants, or one tablespoon Dill. I have even added sunflower seeds, grated carrots, and grated zucchini a time or two. This dough is incredibly forgiving, the cooking time may just need a bit of adjusting if you add wet ingredients like grated vegetables.

*Sift the dry ingredients together.

*Add the Buttermilk.

*Mix gently with a fork until the dough forms a ball

*Knead loose flour mixture from the bottom of the bowl, add a little more milk as needed.