With National Heritage Week currently under way and running until August 20, people around Ireland are being encouraged to celebrate Irish culture and traditions. And what better way to celebrate Irish heritage than with comforting Irish food.
Irish food is more traditionally associated with the colder months, with warming stews and hearty root vegetable dishes at the heart of our national cuisine. This makes it tricky to come up with tasty traditional recipes that can be eaten during summer, when National Heritage Week falls.
To help incorporate traditional Irish recipes into summer menus, Hannah Duxbury, head of culinary at HelloFresh Ireland, has provided tips and recipe spins to do just that.
Here are her top tips to put a summer spin on traditional Irish recipes.
Turn colcannon into a potato salad
“Colcannon is an Irish classic, but a hot, filling potato dish doesn’t exactly work well in a heatwave. Instead, simply deconstruct your colcannon to make a delicious potato salad. Boil and season your potatoes and leave to cool, use uncooked spinach leaves instead of cabbage and toss in a garlic butter dressing. Finish off with a sprinkle of bacon chunks. It’s a perfect summer side dish,” Duxbury said.
Make the most of Irish seafood
“In Ireland, we’re so lucky to be surrounded by some of the best seafood in the world, so of course using this in summer recipes is an absolute must. Hake in particular is a great summer ingredient which can be sourced fresh from the likes of Galway Bay. While hake is favoured a lot in Spanish tapas due to its ease and versatility, this Irish salt water fish is the perfect nod to tradition with a twist. I recommend cooking hake in a herb butter (using freshly grown Irish herbs of course ) on the barbecue or in a pan for a perfect summer main.”
Barbecue Irish beef
“Homemade Irish beef burgers are already delicious in their own right, but when they’re cooked on a barbecue? Wow! Because of the high quality meat we have access to here, it’s so easy to cook really succulent, juicy meat dishes. And that juicy texture can be elevated even more so when cooked over charcoal. I like to make a really easy homemade beef burger by adding a splash of Worcester sauce and mustard to a beef mince and breadcrumb mix, squashing it into patties, and popping it on the grill.”
For more recipe ideas from HelloFresh, visit www.hellofresh.ie/recipes/irish-recipes
