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Irish Boxty

Maya hasn't shown an interest in potatoes, which is astonishing to me. I love potatoes in any form: French fries, baked potatoes, tatertots, home fries and pretty much any preparation. A few years ago, I went through a phase where I tried to make perfect hash browns from scratch, even getting a mandolin in the process, though I could never match the packaged variety. If I was going to be stranded on an island with any food, potatoes would be my likely pick. Maya is somewhat indifferent to potatoes, despite the fact that she loves pasta. However, I believe that she has a latent potato gene that will eventually turn on and I can't think of a better time than St. Patrick's Day to try and flip the switch.

Since I was going to cook some Irish food for her this week, I wanted to start with a potato based dish and Boxty seemed like a good choice since it's well known. While there are many varieties of Boxty, the basic recipe is an even mix of mashed potatoes, grated potatoes and flour that is made into a mix and fried, baked or boiled.

Boxty is often mentioned with the following ancient saying which goes “Boxty on the griddle, / Boxty in the pan, / If you can't make boxty, / You'll never get a man.” (Almost sounds like an Irish rap song, doesn't it?) I'm surprised that this relatively simple food could become so culturally important, though clearly it is relevant even today. A chain of restaurants in Ireland called Gallagher's Boxty House clearly reveres this dish and emerging chefs are using basic Boxty recipes and putting their own spin by adding other ingredients like meat and cheese.

There doesn't appear to be universal agreement about the origin of Boxty. The name, for example is variously described as a derivation of the Irish word for “poor” (from 'The Country of Cooking of Ireland' book) and a derivation of the Irish word for “grilling over an open flame" (from irishcultureandcustoms.com). Boxty is generally attributed to north of Ireland or sometimes the mid-north and because there are so many different types of preparation, this food is variously described as dippity, stompy bread, and poundy. These names should only be said with a heavy Irish accent, while picking clovers.

Yup, I'm also drinking Irish beer as I make this

To make the Boxty, I followed a recipe from 'The Country Cooking of Ireland' cookbook. Since I didn't have any leftover mashed potatoes, I had to make some from scratch, which was simple enough. After I peeled and grated another potato, I had all the main ingredients for Boxty: mashed potatoes, grated potatoes, flour and baking soda. Once I combined the ingredients, I had thick dough that was relatively dry but still held together well enough. Other recipes like the one from Gallagher's above, use milk and thus produce a mixture more similar to pancakes versus my ingredients which produced something more akin to bread dough.

I then rolled the dough out to 3/4th inch thickness and used a floured cup to cut uniform disks and fried each piece for 3-4 minutes on each side, as the recipe suggests, until the surface was golden brown. The last pancake was misshapen and craggy, since I had to peice it together from the leftover dough.

Uniformly round, with help of a cup

I wondered if the Boxty would be flavorful enough, given that salt and pepper was the only spice. Sure enough, the taste was relatively bland or at least similar to plain bread, with the taste of potato and salt most apparent. That said, the experience was enjoyable because the outside had been crisped during to the frying and the inside felt substantial as I was chewing, if somewhat dry. The real magic came when I added jelly to the top, creating a sweet and salty taste that was no longer dry.

Since Maya was asleep when I completed the recipe, I could only let her try it the next morning, which was fitting since that was St. Patrick's Day. I fed her some after her Cheerios, cereal and banana because I wasn't confident that she would eat it. I had saved the cooked patties in the refrigerator and heated them up in the microwave for a few seconds so they were lukewarm. I also applied some jelly and cut the Boxty into pea sized pieces. To my amazement, she loved it and immediately jutted her arm toward the counter and grunted, which is her way of asking for more. Her chewing was loud and sounded sticky, probably because of the dryness and the jelly. I thought I saw the smile that she only gives when trying a new food that she likes, but I could not be sure. Possibly, she was responding more to the sweetness of the jelly than the Boxty, I don't know. However, she ate more potatoes in this sitting than I had ever seen before. Welcome to the world of potatoes Maya.

She seems to like it.  Note the green for SPD.

Irish food and random history leading up to St. Patrick's Day

“When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet still is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.


People everywhere brag and whimper about the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty; the shiftless loquacious alcoholic father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests; bullying schoolmasters; the English and the terrible things they did to us for eight hundred long years.”

Frank McCourt, Angela's Ashes

St. Patrick's Day is coming up and I've decided to cook some dishes inspired by Ireland. I've got an indeterminate amount of Irish in my blood and I would eventually like to learn more about the history and culture of Ireland, so that I can teach Maya at some point. I did some scattered and random research on the history of the region recently, as a way of better understanding the country.

I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't realize that Northern Ireland was part of England and that Ireland was a completely separate entity. This is an incredibly abbreviated, and probably deficient, timeline of what happened:

• In ancient times, Ireland was subdivided into 5 different provinces, which eventually became four (listed from North to South): Ulster, Connacht, Leinster & Munster.

• Ireland was then further subdivided into 32 counties.

• The Irish War of Independence occurred in 1919-1921 and was a fight between the British and the Irish, after several hundred years of English involvement in the country. The upshot was that six of nine counties in Ulster became Northern Ireland and was a country ruled by the British, while the rest of the counties became the independent sovereignty of Ireland.

• Unfortunately, the Irish Civil war occurred after the War of Independence from 1921-1922 and was a fight between supporters of the agreement with England and those who opposed it. The treaty eventually ended up standing.

• Southern Ireland was called the Irish Free State from 1922-1937 and then just Ireland after a new constitution was signed in 1937. Ireland has been relatively peaceful since this time.

• Unfortunately, Northern Ireland was not as lucky. In the early 1960s, there was a 30 year period called “The Troubles” which was a fight between Protestants that supported England and Catholics that wanted Northern Ireland to join with the rest of Ireland (which is overwhelmingly Catholic). This was a complicated struggle, but the gist is that Catholics generally felt mistreated and protested, while the Protestant government struck back with force. Some of the Catholic protests were inspired by the Civil Rights movement in the US, which were largely non-violent protests.

• “The Troubles” officially ended with the Belfast Agreement in 1998, which for the most part brought peace to the region. However, there has been some sporadic violence since the signing of this agreement.

Why is this important for understanding the food? Well, Ireland has historically had a poor reputation for food and my theory is that the political instability mentioned above is at least part of the reason.

At various times, the country has also gone through some horrific food shortages. The Irish Potato Famine, which occurred in 1845-1852 and killed over 1 million people. However, there were actually several famines over time, which was caused by the over reliance on potatoes. Before the famines, some people subsisted solely on potatoes, which helped the Irish population grow, but also struck the population hard when growing potatoes became unreliable.

Recently, the food culture in Ireland has started to flourish. To gain perspective on how much things have changed, I checked out two books from the library.

One of the books is called 'A Taste of Ireland' by Theodora FitzGibbon and was published in 1969. The book is a series of recipes accompanied by quaint black and white photographs of Ireland in the 1800s. Most of the recipes are relatively simple preparations for, say fish or potatoes, while others seemed completely unappetizing to my probably over-sensitive modern sensability. A few of these include: Kidneys in their Overcoats (pg 1), Drisheen or blood pudding (pg 79), Cruibin's or Pig's Feet (pg 83), and Pig's Liver Casserole (pg 86). Granted, my assessment of the food at this time is probably being influenced by the fact that this book is old and not very artfully illustrated compared to modern publishing techniques, however, nothing in the cookbook really looks remotely appealing.

The other book that I got, however, is called 'The Country Cooking of Ireland' by Colman Andrews and was published in 2009. This book discusses a food culture that has emerged in the last few years, which celebrates artisanal purveyors and local ingredients, much like the trend in the US and is beautifully illustrated, with a wide variety of color photographs and also a number of sidebars on a range of historical topics. Of course, the recipes and Irish food in general seems more appealing as a result.

I'm going to try a few recipes in 'The Country Cooking of Ireland', try some store bought Irish foods and research a few topics. I'm hoping to let Maya taste as much as possible. The history lesson will have to come when she is older.

Cooking Chicken Chow Mein

     Maya doesn't particularly like vegetables or greens. A few weeks ago, I placed some small pieces of lettuce on her highchair tray. She considered the pile and then quickly shoved a handful into her mouth. I was encouraged for a moment, until her mouth opened and all the lettuce slowly dribbled out. Then she went back to eating her pasta and completely ignored the lettuce. She does this often with new foods.

     As a result, I've been considering new ways to prepare vegetables lately, with the hope that Maya will eat them more readily. Lisa got a book several months ago called First Meals: Fast, healthy, and fun foods for infants and toddlers.
In the 'Picky Eater' section, on page 111, there is a recipe for Chicken Chow Mein, which contains a variety of vegetables, including sugar snap peas and red pepper, which she had eaten sporadically in the past. I also thought the more exotic sauce would enhance the taste of the vegetables. So, I decided to make some for the family.

The preparation
     The only problem with the recipe was the number of ingredients: 12 for the main dish and 3 for the marinade. Toddlers feel no pressure to eat our cooking. The thought and effort behind the preparation is invisible to them. They become hungry, food appears, and they either eat it or complain until they get something they like. There is no guarantee that they will like or even try your food and they might just dump your cooking on the ground without an attempt to taste it. Occasionally though, you hit the mark, and you see the look of pure naive joy on your toddler's face. This is the excitement and frustration of feeding a toddler. As a result, I've learned to simplify as much as possible when cooking for Maya, as a way to reduce my risk.

     Instead of going by the explicit ingredients in the recipe, I bought chicken, shitake mushrooms, red peppers, sugar snap peas, whole wheat Chinese noodles and a pre-made Asian marinade that contains some of the ingredients from the marinade in the recipe. So I used 6 ingredients instead of 15. I cut up the chicken breast into thin slices and then sautéed it in the sauce. Then I sliced the vegetables into adult bite-sized pieces and pan fried them with oil, salt, pepper and garlic. At the same time, I cooked the noodles in a large pot with boiling, salted water. When everything was done, I mixed the chicken, vegetables and noodles in a large pot.

     Unfortunately, I didn't have quite enough sauce to completely cover the noodles and all these ingredients together were unwieldy and hard to turn. So, some sections of noodles had more sauce than others, but careful plating allowed me to disguise this unevenness. I put some chopped noodles in a small pink princess bowl for Maya and added small pieces of finely cut vegetables and chicken on top. Each piece was about the size of a Cheerio. I put the vegetables on top, so that she couldn't get to the noodles without also getting vegetables. I served much larger portions in large white bowls for me and Lisa.

The outcome
     Usually, we feed Maya in a high chair in the kitchen so that the food she drops lands on the easily cleanable hardwood floor. This time, we all sat around the table and pulled her highchair up, so that she could see us eating the new food she was about to try. Our family rarely eats simultaneously, unless we are in a restaurant, so this was a nice change of pace.

     Although Maya eyed her bowl tentatively when I first set it down on her tray, she dug in quickly after seeing me and Lisa eat. Then she proceeded to make a messy spectacle of her dinner, which was quite entertaining. We gave her a small fork but she ended up grabbing handfuls of noodles and stuffing them into her mouth, some of which hung there for the duration of dinner. We had a laugh at that. Eventually the noodles were every place. Her tray was completely covered and there were noodles all down the side of her high chair. (Cleaning tip: if you wait for noodles to dry, they become crisp and can be vacuumed more easily.) However, she was also clearly eating the vegetables, which seemed mostly gone after she was done.

     I enjoyed the taste of everything together. Although the flavor was probably too bland for a restaurant, the salty taste of the marinade, which had soy sauce as the main ingredient, was satisfying. The crunch of the sugar snaps peas contrasted nicely with the springiness of the noodles, which were similar to spaghetti, but with a slicker texture and thus more interesting to me. I sat there feeling good about this meal as I ate. It didn't hurt that Lisa kept saying, “Maya, look what daddy prepared for us!” Most nights we just feed Maya microwave food and packaged mush, as we hover over her in the kitchen. There is nothing wrong with that, but this was better.

Smoothie with Maya

I was walking through a mall food court the other day and I was pushing my one and a half year old daughter Maya in her stroller.  She was curiously and apprehensively looking around at the people who were deciding what to eat.  I rolled her into Jamba Juice and ordered a fruit smoothie.  When the drink arrived, I found a seat and took her out of her stroller so that she could sit on my lap and we could share.  This is what I had looked forward to all day, the simple and seemingly banal act of smoothie sharing with my toddler.

            Once we were settled, I put the straw near her mouth and she began to slurp.  The drink slowly started to rise through the straw.  She was concentrating intently because she did not yet know how to judge the speed of the upcoming liquid.  The look on her face was serious and focused, as if she was assembling a delicate watch.  After she took a few sips, she paused and looked up at me with a satisfied smile, as if to say, 'I'm so glad this exists!'  Then, she re-attached herself to the straw and the liquid slowly started to rise again.

She took her first steps at her first birthday party and has been walking for several months now.  She's gone from tentatively moving between two fixed points, to constant motion, perpetually jogging from one room to the next.  So this is the only time that she'll be still for more than a few seconds all day.

We both use the time to relax and reflect.  I know she's only a toddler but I'm convinced that she's using the time to process the changes in her life:  the recently acquired skill of walking, all the new food that she is trying, her new daycare, etc.  She's not thinking in sentences obviously, more in images and feelings.  Toddlers don't really seem to relax without a que.  They run and eat and play and then crash when nap time comes.  This is the only time that she'll relax all day, which means this is the only time that I'll relax all day.  Although I'm not having a conversation with Maya as we sit there, we are bonding on some level, similar to when I have a beer with one of my friends.

People are looking at us and I'm wondering what they are thinking.  We get several smiles from strangers, mostly older women.  I'm sure we look adorable and people are thinking, 'Oh he's such a good dad'.  I hope so, but us siting there together doesn't really mean anything.  As I'm sitting there, I'm trying to think of things that I could buy myself in the mall.

Our first shared smoothie happened when she was about 8 months old.  I was in the grocery store with her and decided to get one for myself.  She saw me slurp on the straw and she gave me an anxious look, like she wanted some.  I lowered the cup below her mouth.  I wasn't sure what her reaction would be because she had never used a straw and I thought she might get frustrated.  Instead, she attached herself to the straw and the liquid started to rise slowly into her mouth.  Then she pulled away and took a few seconds to savor the cold fruit mush, smiled sweetly and then intently went for the straw again.

She's too young to really appreciate the concept of sharing and, honestly, she doesn't give up the straw easily.  When I do get a turn, she allows me a quick sip before clamoring for more.  But the fact that she allows me anything at all is beautiful and gracious, and I hope this seed of kindness develops. 

We pass the drink back and forth and the fuller she gets, the more I get to consume myself.  I'm not sure why the sharing of the smoothie rises above the other mudane tasks that we do all day.  Maybe it's the physical act of sharing or because she's still and calm for so long or that we are providing each other with food.  Whatever the reasons, this is a gratifying experience to have as a father, a reward for the less appealing aspects of raising a toddler.

When we are done, I throw the cup in the trash and put Maya back in the stroller.  After I strap her in, I push the stroller back into the fray of the mall.  She needs a new pair of shoes and I need to find myself something to read during her upcoming nap time.