Happy Patrick's Day! Irish Boxty

In honor of my Irish heritage and about a thousand years of family tradition, we are celebrating the lovely holiday of St. Patrick's Day! Scott, Anya, and I are all wearing green and for dinner we are having a traditional Irish-American dinner, corned beef and cabbage (one of my favorite meals), and some genuinely Irish boxty (bacstaí or arán bocht tí in Irish meaning "poor house bread"). I spruced up the corned beef and cabbage with some other Irish staples: potatoes, carrots, and onions.

St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, used to be honored by people wearing blue instead of green. That has changed, obviously. He preached Catholicism to the native pagan Irish and used the three-leafed clover to depict how the Holy Trinity is. Pretty clever, I think. While I believe that the godhead is made up of three distinct personages, they all do have one purpose, and I think that the clover depicts an LDS view of the Godhead just fine too.

Irish Boxty Recipe

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups grated raw potatoes

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup leftover mashed potatoes

1 egg

1 tablespoon skim milk

salt and pepper to taste

1/4 cup olive oil

Procedure

1. Toss the grated potatoes with flour in a large bowl. Stir in mashed potatoes until combined.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg and skim milk; mix into the potatoes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

3. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Drop in the potato mixture, forming patties about 2 inches in diameter. Fry on both sides until golden brown, 3 to 4 minutes per side. Drain on a paper towel-lined plate. Serve warm.

I have also read that there are zillions of different ways to prepare these, from using different sorts of potatoes (garlic mashed potatoes, cheese mashed potatoes, etc.) to making them flatter like crepes and filling them with stuff (like beef and onions, lemon shrimp with a sauce) or just like this recipe except with stuff on top (one lady said that she always served them with ground beef and onions on top with chicken gravy). The main point is that there are tons of different ways to make this dish, but as far as I can tell, it's the Irish people themselves offering the recipes for the variations.

This particular recipe has been vouched for by MANY Irish people as "just like my mother/grandmother used to make" so I figure it's about as close as any to the real thing. It was found in a 1937 Irish textbook along with the poem:

"Boxty on the griddle,
boxty on the pan,
If you can't bake boxty
sure you'll never get a man."

Pretty fun, eh?

Beignets Recipe by Our Best Bites

Happy Mardi Gras! While Scott probably wouldn't ever let me cook up some crawdads (he's not a seafood sort of person), I would love to try these Mardi Gras pastries! Ever since seeing The Princess and the Frog, I have been on the hunt for some indication that these things are real. Last year, I stumbled upon more than just proof--I found the recipe! Thanks to Our Best Bites blog, I now have the recipe for these insanely simple and delicious puffs!

Beignets Recipe by Our Best Bites 
http://www.ourbestbites.com/2011/03/beignets-happy-mardi-gras/

Ingredients
 
1 c. whole milk
1/4 c. + 1 Tbsp. sugar, divided
1/4 c. vegetable oil
1 tsp. table salt
3 1/2-4 c. all-purpose flour
1 scant tablespoon dry active yeast
1/2 c. warm (about 105 degrees) water
1 egg
Peanut oil for frying

Procedure 

1. In a small saucepan, combine the milk, 1/4 c. sugar, vegetable oil, and salt.  Heat over medium heat until small bubbles form around the edges of the pan.  Remove from heat.

2. While the milk is heating, combine the yeast and 1 Tbsp. of sugar with 1/2 c. water.  Allow to stand for 10 minutes or until it’s very bubbly.

3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the heated milk and 2 c. flour.  Mix, scraping the bowl occasionally, until smooth (about 2-3 minutes).  Add the egg and mix until well-combined.  Add the yeast mixture.  Add enough flour to make a soft dough that slightly sticks to your finger.

 
4. At this point, you can either place the dough in a bowl sprayed with non-stick cooking spray and cover with a piece of sprayed plastic wrap and refrigerate the dough up to 1 day or you can roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface.  Either way, when you roll it out, roll it into a large rectangle about 1/4″ thick.  Using a pizza wheel, cut the dough into about 3″x4″ rectangles.  Slightly separate the dough pieces and cover with a clean cloth.  Allow to rise for 30 minutes.

5. When the dough has about 15 minutes left to go, heat 2-3 inches of peanut oil in a large skillet or saucepan to 325 degrees (just use a candy thermometer).  When the oil is heated, fry the dough pieces for about 90 seconds-2 minutes per side or until they are golden.  Carefully remove from the oil and allow to drain on a paper towel-lined baking sheet.

6. Place some powdered sugar in a fine-mesh strainer and sprinkle the powdered sugar generously over the beignets.  Serve immediately.  Makes about 24-30 beignets.