Irish cuisine

Mm-hmm.

But if you want the same drink, but you want it with Irish whiskey, it's a Buckthorn.

[laughs]

Buckthorn? Blackthorn? Blackthorn.

It reached Spain in around 1570 and spread into Britain and Ireland before the century was out, arriving, as I said, as poor people's food.

Um, some folklore credits two famous men, uh, for the arrival of the potato.

Number one is Sir Walter Raleigh, um, who planted it on his Irish estate and then handed it to Queen Elizabeth I-

Mm-hmm

We serve a lovely version of this in the restaurant and then some Comey granola.

I know you can get lovely Irish made granola, which is lovely.

There's some lovely like foods of that kind.

And is it a

Then we're going to get about 12 ounces of parajotes.

So we're using parajotes in this.

We should talk about Flavin's, one of the oldest Irish companies.

They're just fabulous.

And a lot of these keep, like of course, our fresh basil pesto.

Doesn't it show how far the Irish palate has come? When I started training as a chef, I didn't know what a tagine was or a pesto was, you know, when I was a young lad.

This is a lamb tagine coming into the autumn and the winter using lamb shoulder.

The recipe's in there, isn't it? Absolutely.

Oh, yeah.

I think

Irish palate has in general.

When you think like tagine, like we've embraced cultures and spices.

I know.

Listen, Pat, doesn't it show the way the palate, uh, the Irish palate and the customer and consumer has changed? We've embraced cultures.

We've embraced spices.

I mean, like, if you'd have asked me 10 years ago, "A spice bag? What do you mean? What's a spice bag?" And that's using a key spice called Chinese five spice, which is absolutely delicious.

I love it.

I love my job, and I love...

And I see, as I said to you, Pat, been cooking from the age of 12 and just see the way the Irish palate and, you know, ev- even our customers coming to the restaurant, like the way we've changed.

Like, when we opened up first our restaurant, it was half a grapefruit with a cherry on top, chicken Maryland.

Ireland.

And what better way to get us ready with some fabulous Irish food? We are joined this morning by one of our Irish sisters, chef, cookbook author, Clodagh McKenna.

Clodagh, good to see you.

So good to see you.

For at least like another eight minutes.

Have you ever heard of an Irish spice bag?

Irish spice bag.

I think somebody called

me that once when they were driving by.

And it sounds like the most amazing thing in the entire world.

And I want it so bad.

Is this Irish cuisine? I believe so.

And it honestly looks pretty good.

Uh, boxty, meanwhile, is an Irish dish.

Oh.

Yeah.

What are colcannon potatoes?

Irish mashed potatoes with cabbage or kale and scallions.

Isn't that bubble and squeak?

That's, that's the dish.

Uh, actually, well, I'm just gonna give you the name of it here.

Champ mash is similar to, uh, colcannon, but just scallions.

So- The Irish call it champ.

I believe the Scottish call it skirly mash.