In the mood for Irish!

I blame it on Mannix. It all started with his newsletter for St.Patrick's day. I was drooling all over the keyboard by the time I'd finished reading it. So I knew that once hubby gets home, I must try something Irish.

It wasn't really difficult to justify trying any of these dishes. Even though I don't like any kind of beer, I've been toying with the idea of trying Nigella's choc-guiness cake for ages. However, Mannix's seemed equally tempting and simple and I couldn't resist - sorry Nigella :) I used a bigger tin (22cm) because I wanted a less formal-looking cake and it was fantastic! Super moist, oh-so-chocolatey, simply what many people would call moreish, I think ;) The whipping cream and the whiskey toffee sauce complemented it perfectly - to the greatest pleasure of my pregnant friend, who could justify having some booze at least in this form LOL


We love savoury bits now and then and as we had a few friends coming over for the evening, the beer and cheddar scones looked just perfect for the occasion. It was the first time I made scones so am not sure if the dough turned out too sticky and soft because I added too much beer or it was supposed to be like that. I didn't use cheddar because of its revolting price, only a similar one - I guess the taste would have been more characteristic with cheddar, but anyway, we could hardly stop eating these!


Passing Saturday in an Irish mood didn't satisfy me completely, so I planned some more Irish for Sunday as well. But this time, however inspired by Mannix's Guiness braised beef, I turned to an Irish stew recipe from the good food site, simply because I had some neck of lamb in the freezer to use up. Ok, confession time: I couldn't deny my Hungarian roots and seeing how pale the stew looked - at least for me it looked a bit sickly pale - I added some paprika paste LOL It ended up looking very-very similar to our goulash but the taste was different due to the lamb and the spices used, and refreshingly light compared to our hearty, fat stews. It felt right to eat for dinner which wouldn't be the case with our traditional stew - unless you are not concerned about your weight, of course.


I made some rye bread to go with the stew on Sunday morning. I had leftovers from different flours, so I added all and the recipe looked like this:

300g strong flour
100g rye flour
50g semolina
150g plain flour
360ml tepid water
1-2 tsp salt
1 tsp honey
20g fresh yeast or corresponding amount of instant

The dough got to be kneaded by the bread machine, then let to prove for 20 minutes, then kneaded again. I took over from here. I shaped the dough and cut it across and let it prove for about 20-30 minutes, then transferred to a hot oven (200 degrees C) for 10 minutes. Then I turned it down to 180 degrees and baked for another 20 minutes or so, brushing it with water once mid-baking time. Nice, not too crusty bread, lovely with the stew.