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books2023-02-18 11:41 pm
ysabetwordsmith) wrote in books2023-02-18 11:41 pm
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Review: "The Complete Irish Pub Cookbook"
The Complete Irish Pub Cookbook from Cottage Door Press
The sections are Introduction, Appetizers & Snacks, Entrees, Vegetables and Sides, Desserts & Drinks, and Index. The introduction is not even a whole page. However, the book is filled with pictures of Ireland being green and gorgeous, along with Irish food looking delicious. It's pretty enough for a coffee table book.
A lot of the recipes are long and fussy, which is not really what I expect of pub grub; I'm used to that being "dump it in a pot and ignore until done," with the exception of a few things like shepherd's pie. My partner Doug hypothesized that people could cook while the pub was closed and then serve the finished food in the evening, which I found plausible. So there were parts where I skipped a lot, but I marked a bunch of bread recipes which I usually don't, because in addition to Irish soda bread there are lovely fruit-filled breads like barm brack and molasses bread. There's a recipe for potted crab with a thick layer of butter. I couldn't help thinking of a tadka, where you infuse spices into a fat; you could do that and then strain it to create a layer of highly flavored fat instead of bland fat. The filling of the winter vegetable cobbler didn't impress me but the cobbler topping did. I found a couple of promising cabbage recipes, like the sweet & sour red cabbage and red cabbage with mushrooms, nuts, & bacon. The chocolate and stout ice cream sounds very interesting; we'd be making it with nonalcoholic Guinness.
Many of the recipes are alcoholic, so if you like that sort of thing, this cookbook is a good bet. If you don't, the easy substitutions are NA Guinness for stout and fresh cider for hard cider. Substituting for wine or whiskey is harder. All the beverages are alcoholic, which is disappointing given that apples are so Irish -- the cookbook mentions that repeatedly -- but there's no wassail or mulled cider, which can be plain or alcoholic as you prefer.
Recommended.
The sections are Introduction, Appetizers & Snacks, Entrees, Vegetables and Sides, Desserts & Drinks, and Index. The introduction is not even a whole page. However, the book is filled with pictures of Ireland being green and gorgeous, along with Irish food looking delicious. It's pretty enough for a coffee table book.
A lot of the recipes are long and fussy, which is not really what I expect of pub grub; I'm used to that being "dump it in a pot and ignore until done," with the exception of a few things like shepherd's pie. My partner Doug hypothesized that people could cook while the pub was closed and then serve the finished food in the evening, which I found plausible. So there were parts where I skipped a lot, but I marked a bunch of bread recipes which I usually don't, because in addition to Irish soda bread there are lovely fruit-filled breads like barm brack and molasses bread. There's a recipe for potted crab with a thick layer of butter. I couldn't help thinking of a tadka, where you infuse spices into a fat; you could do that and then strain it to create a layer of highly flavored fat instead of bland fat. The filling of the winter vegetable cobbler didn't impress me but the cobbler topping did. I found a couple of promising cabbage recipes, like the sweet & sour red cabbage and red cabbage with mushrooms, nuts, & bacon. The chocolate and stout ice cream sounds very interesting; we'd be making it with nonalcoholic Guinness.
Many of the recipes are alcoholic, so if you like that sort of thing, this cookbook is a good bet. If you don't, the easy substitutions are NA Guinness for stout and fresh cider for hard cider. Substituting for wine or whiskey is harder. All the beverages are alcoholic, which is disappointing given that apples are so Irish -- the cookbook mentions that repeatedly -- but there's no wassail or mulled cider, which can be plain or alcoholic as you prefer.
Recommended.