Irish Cuisine

We subscribe to two cooking magazines: Saveur and Cook's Illustrated. I prefer the latter because it tends to have more traditional American dishes, like pot roast and deep-dish apple pie. Savuer provides recipes from all over the world, like Bazhe (chicken with walnut-pecan sauce) and Manti (Turkish dumplings with yogurt sauce). Given my food fear, this is the magazine that usually causes me to break into a sweat when it arrives. Inevitably, Darren finds a recipe he wants to try, which means I am going to be forced to try it with him.

This month's country of choice is Ireland. Bless those Irish folk - they like meat and potatoes. When asked once what my favorite food was, my answer was beef stew. I could eat beef stew every day. I love beef stew. Beef stew is worthy of being eaten every day. Beef stew is what I love. (Sorry, I was channeling Hemingway.) Anyway, the Irish like meat and potatoes and so do I. This month's issue and I are in sync.

Tonight we had a modified versions of Champ (mashed potatoes with scallions) and mashed carrots and parsnips (substituting parsnips with rutabagas) with broiled flat iron steak. It was fantastic. Chunks in mashed potatoes aren't my favorite but the scallions did add a really nice flavor to the dish. Rather surprisingly, we both appreciated the mashed carrots and rutabagas. Hell, throw some butter, salt and pepper in there and how can you not like it? Of course, we capped off the meal with perfectly brewed Guinness.