Irish Soda Bread

The Joy of Cooking should be in every kitchen -- although some of the techniques and recipes are extremely outdated (I don't know anyone who really needs instructions on how to properly skin a seal and save the blubber) most of the information is relevant to the modern cook. It's especially helpful if you're looking for a basic recipe to build upon: their soup chapter, for example, is fabulous and offers unlimited opportunity to tweak and refine, which is something I often do in the kitchen. I'm especially partial to their chapter on Breads and Coffee Cakes, especially the Quick Breads section. In fact, most of their baking instructions are both simple and methodical, offering opportunity to experiment but retaining the essentials. Baking is basically chemistry, and I'm always concerned that a key part of my experiment will go awry if I deviate too much, but nothing that I've ever made from this cookbook has turned out wrong.
I mentioned their Quick Breads section, and I have to say that I'm quite averse to using yeast in doughs. It's not because I don't like it, per say, it just seems kind of frightening to me. I've branched out a bit recently: I've been making some pizza dough with surprising success that contains yeast, and I'm going to try a real loaf of bread at some point in the near future. I must conquer my fear of baking with yeast! I love baking, though, and I love breads, so I've made a whole slew of these quick breads from Joy. They're easy, fast, and most of them don't include yeast. Score! I always have success with their Zucchini Bread, and their Banana Bread recipe is great (although a bit boring, considering that there are banana breads out there that sound much more enticing. Ones with candied ginger and coconut. Hold me!) I have yet to try many of these quick loafs, however: honey bread, Sally Lunn (described as light and brioche-like) or Gugelhupf (which has white raisins in it!)
Last year for St. Patrick's day we made their quick Irish Soda bread, and it was both simple and fantastic. We'll certainly make it again this year, but with a few minor tweaks: I recall it being a bit bland. I will probably use a combination of butter and shortening instead of just shortening and I'll put in an extra pinch or two of sugar and salt. Also, this time I'll use real buttermilk: I have a habit of mixing white vinegar with regular milk to make buttermilk (did you know this trick? It works, but it's not as great -- at all -- as pure buttermilk. Simply add 1 tablespoon of vinegar to each 1 cup milk and stir. Allow it to sit on the counter for 10 to 15 minutes until the milk thickens: instant buttermilk!) I'll probably throw in an extra handful of raisins (which the recipe calls for instead of currants, a more traditional ingredient in Irish soda bread) and a few more caraway seeds for good measure. On the whole, though, this bread was extremely easy to make and has a wonderful texture. It's pretty hearty, and the recipe makes a gigantic loaf, so I might split it in half this time around: an 8-inch-round loaf that rises a few inches is a lot of bread for two people.

Quick Irish Soda Bread
Begin by preheating the oven to 375º and greasing an 8-inch round loaf pan. I always use a springform pan when I bake, not because it's any easier to deal with (although it is much easier to remove the bread from the pan!) but because I own three of them, in varying sizes. They were on sale and cost less than just buying one! How fortuitious. I recommend using a springform pan if you have one, because as I said before: it makes removing the bread extremely easy, but it's not necessary: a normal loaf pan should do just fine. Keep in mind, though, that the traditional way to serve Irish soda bread is in a round. I'm not sure why, exactly, but it's the traditional shape. Most likely because it's an easy shape to make. In case you were wondering, there are two types of traditional Irish soda bread: the round, which is crossed on the top in order to allow the loaf to expand, and a flat variety, called farl, which is found only in Northern Ireland.
As the oven preheats, mix together the following dry ingredients: 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour, 1-1/2 teaspoons double-acting baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1 tablespoon sugar. As I said above, I may tweak this a bit, adding an extra pinch or two of the sugar and salt the next time around. I'm not sure, though -- I'm always afraid to mess with recipes like this! It's hard for me to tell what parts of it are integral to the "chemistry" aspect of baking and what parts are more malleable.
The next part of this recipe calls for chilled shortening, which is always a bit of a bugger. I keep my shortening in the pantry -- cool, but not chilly, by any means. So when I have to chill it, I simply measure the amount I need and pop it in the freezer for a few minutes until it's cold. In this case, I'll measure out 1/4 cup of shortening. After it's sufficiently chilly, cut it into the flour with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles cornmeal. As you probably guessed, I use my KitchenAid stand mixer for this and have never had any issues. What a great friend that little monster is! After the dough looks crumbly enough, add 1/2 a cup to 1 cup raisins (err on the side of too many, folks) and 2 teaspoons caraway seeds -- again, maybe 2 heaping teaspoons. On the side, mix together 1 egg and 2/3 a cup of buttermilk. Add to the dry ingredients and combine, but do not overmix. Overmixing causes the dough to be tough, resulting in a funny texture. Once the mixture is just combined, place the dough on a surface and knead, lightly, until the dough is smooth (or as smooth as it can possibly be, what with all the raisins and caraway seeds that are in there.) Place the dough in your greased pan and press down so it fills the pan entirely. With a knife, cut a "bold cross" in the top of the loaf -- this helps the bread expand and prevents cracking -- and brush the entire top with milk. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the loaf has risen and is lightly browned.
This bread is an excellent accompaniment to stew or soup and is a delightful morning treat. It has to be eaten fairly quickly -- within two or three days -- due to the small air pockets in the loaf (formed by the reaction of the baking powder with the buttermilk, which has lactic acid in it) but you can stretch its life by toasting slices for breakfast.

Red Lentil Soup

On a cold day like today, the only thing I want to do is sit on the heat vent in my apartment and eat hot soup. Unfortunately, I don't have that luxury and I have to tromp around in the snow, but if I had a choice? That's where I'd be. One of the major problems with most bean soups is that you need to soak the beans overnight, which means that you have to plan the meal ahead of time. Not so with lentils: they're so small and absorb liquid so readily that there is no need to soak them, making it an ideal bean to work with on short notice.
I buy my lentils at Whole Foods in bulk, which allows me to get the precise amount that I desire, rather than purchasing too many or too few. They also have a nice assortment, but I prefer red lentils for their vibrant color. We're jar-savers, and nothing is cuter than an old jar full o lentils. The one downfall of the lentil bean is that it is very small, and sometimes a stone or two makes its way into the lentils as they're sorted in the lentil factory. You do have to sort through the beans to make sure there aren't any stones in there, but that has never happened to me: perhaps it's just because pebbles were more prevalent in the '70s, which is the year that my cookbook was published.
I'm using a Joy of Cooking recipe (1973 edition) and this page has to be the most ratty one in the book because I've made this soup so many times. It's stained and kind of hard to read the ingredients, but that just means that it must be a really great recipe. You can make it with any type of lentil, but I prefer red; however, the color tends to melt away after it is cooked.

Red Lentil Soup
Wash 2 cups of dry lentils very well and drain. Be sure to be on the lookout for any small stones that may have gotten mixed in with the lentils. Boil 10 cups of water and add to the lentils. Add a hunk of salt pork, or ham if you can't find any salt pork. I haven't been able to find any since I moved to Chicago, but I never had a problem finding it back East. Is it an East Coast food, or am I just not looking in the right place? I even asked the butcher for some. He looked at me like I was insane. Ham works fine -- you're just looking for some nice flavor. You can even just leave the ham out and make it meat free and vegan friendly, if you wish.
Simmer for 3 hours. While the soup is simmering, sauté one large minced onion, 1 minced carrot, and 1 minced stalk of celery in 1 tablespoon of butter (or in some salt pork drippings, if you prefer -- yum!) Throw a bit of salt in with the mixture -- it helps these aromatic vegetables sweat off some of their liquid, allowing them to cook faster.
Recognize those ingredients? That's a mirepoix, another traditional building block -- as a matter of fact, the holy trinity -- of French cuisine. The last "building block" I talked about on this blog was the bechamel sauce, used in the Layered Macaroni and Cheese recipe. A mirepoix is traditionally a mixture of onion, carrot, and celery in the ratio of 2:1:1 in French cooking, but it can be adapted to fit your dish. For example, if you are making a light-colored soup, you'll want to use a parsnip instead of a carrot in order to preserve the coloring. It can also be adapted to cuisine type: a Spanish dish, for example, may use a mirepoix made from onion, garlic, and tomato.
Enough of my food rambles: where's the rest of the soup recipe? Basically finished, that's where. After your soup has simmered for 3 hours, add the mirepoix and stir. Allow the soup to cook for 20 minutes more or so. You can serve it chunky (which is how I like it) or you can puree the soup to make it smooth. In order to puree, though, you have to bind the soup; otherwise, the liquid will separate from the solids and it won't keep well at all.
To bind the soup, there are a number of methods. My favorite is to just make a roux: blending 3 tablespoons of butter with 3 tablespoons of flour over medium heat is very easy and will work well for the amount of soup you have here. It takes about 1 tablespoon of each ingredient per three cups of soup. Just blend in to the soup when it is all combined, then stir through and boil for 10 minutes or so to make sure it is properly bound.
If you're opposed to flour, you can grate a raw potato directly into the soup. You'll only need about 6 tablespoons of raw grated potato for this amount of lentil soup. Simmer for 15 minutes to thicken. I've never tried it with the potato binding, but it seems like it would work, since potatoes are starchy.
This is such a great soup, I can't get over it. I wish we weren't all out of lentils at home because I'd be making it tonight. Alas -- we'll probably "settle" for some onion soup. We made enough of that to freeze a container; this recipe will make enough for two frozen containers, most likely -- I believe the containers are 2.5 cups each. D likes to pour a bit of sherry in his; I prefer to eat mine plain. It is fabulous either way.

Simple Banana Bread

This one is a cinch to make and it tastes fabulous. It does take a little time -- an hour total in the oven, about -- but it's well worth the wait. We usually make a loaf and freeze half of it. It's a good alternative to the scones we eat every morning because it has a lot less butter; in fact, you don't use butter at all. Shortening is the key in this recipe, because it gives the bread a moist chewiness that you can't really get with just butter alone.
We haven't made this bread in awhile, but now that I'm looking over my recipe book, I want to make it right this second. I might do just that -- what a nice way to start a Saturday. I got the recipe from the Joy of Cooking, 1997 edition, and it seems to me like the breads and coffee cakes section is very similar to the 1975. For example, they suggest making this bread in a tin can: so that they slice prettily for tea." If you decide to use a can, opt for a 6-oz all metal can and only fill them about 3/4 of the way. This gives the bread enough room to expand. In addition, you'll want to cook it for less time, because the breads will be smaller than if you made just one loaf.
You should also plan on eating this bread soon after making it, as it tends to dry out quickly: "they wither young," the cookbook admonishes. It also mentions that these types of bread slice better if you wrap them in foil after cooling and refrigerate for about 12 hours. We have never done that, and slicing them has never been an issue, but that may only be because I don't really care if the slices are a bit jagged around the edges. That's fine by me, but were I serving a fancy tea, I might heed that advice. I do like to eat this bread with tea, though -- it's a great alternative to scones on a weekday morning.

Simple Banana Bread
Begin by bringing all your ingredients to room temperature -- 70º or so -- and preheat the oven to 350º. Sift together 1-3/4 a cup of sifted all-purpose flour, 2-1/4 teaspoons double-acting baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon salt.
Blend in a separate bowl 1/3 cup shortening, 2/3 a cup of sugar, and 3/4 a teaspoon grated lemon rind. The acidity of the lemon makes the bread taste sweeter after it bakes. Beat in 1 large egg (or two small eggs) and 1 to 1-1/4 cups ripe mashed banana. This part is quite variable, because it depends on the size of the bananas you have, but two should be enough to make a moist and tasty bread. You can use nearly over-ripe bananas for this, making it ideal for baking near the end of the week, when your fruit has nearly spoiled and you're not interested in eating it plain. Just mash them with a fork before adding to the other ingredients.
Add the sifted ingredients in stages -- so it is easier to mix -- to the wet ingredients and beat the batter after each addition until it is smooth. You can opt to fold in 1/2 cup broken nutmeats, such as walnuts or cashews, and 1/4 cup chopped dried apricots. We made it with just the nuts -- no dried fruit -- and it was fantastic. You could also throw in some raisins if you'd like, but personally I am not a fan of dried fruit in my bread.
Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan (about 8x4 or a bit larger) and bake for about one hour, until done.
The recipe says that it needs to be cooled before you slice it, but you can eat it hot. It's tastier that way, I think!