Colcannon

Ingredients

• Potatoes — floury variety1.2 kg
• Cabbage or kale500 g
• Spring onions8
• Milk250 ml
• Butter150 g
• Cream100 ml
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Boil the potatoes in their skins in salted water until completely soft, twenty-five minutes.

   28 min

2. 2

   Warm the milk and cream with the sliced spring onion until hot and leave it to infuse ten minutes.

   14 min

3. 3

   Shred the cabbage and cook it in half the butter for eight minutes, until soft.

   10 min

4. 4

   Peel the potatoes hot and mash them with a masher, never a blender.

   10 min

5. 5

   Strain the hot milk into the mash and work it smooth, then season.

   8 min

6. 6

   Fold in the cooked cabbage and the infused spring onion from the milk.

   5 min

7. 7

   Mound it up, make a well in the centre and put the remaining butter into it.

   4 min

About the dish

The milk is warmed with the spring onion and infused, then strained into the mash. The onion gives its flavour to the milk; raw it would be harsh.

The cabbage is cooked separately and folded into the finished mash. Boiled with the potato it releases water and the mash turns grey and loose.

The well of butter in the centre is not decoration. Every spoonful of mash is dipped into it, and in Ireland colcannon without the well counts as wrongly served.

Worth knowing

• — A blender turns potato into glue. Masher or ricer only — that holds for any potato mash.
• — The milk has to be hot. Cold milk seizes the starch and the mash turns dense and gluey.
• — At Hallowe'en a ring and a coin were hidden in colcannon to see who got which. The custom survives, but warning the guests is still wise.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

420 kcal

Protein

8 g

Fat

26 g

Carbs

42 g

More from Ireland

• Irish stew — Lamb with potato and onion, stewed without browning. The meat is never seared, and that is the whole point.
• Soda bread — Bread on bicarbonate and buttermilk, with no yeast and no proving. Three minutes from mixing to oven.
• Beef and stout stew — Beef braised three hours in dark stout with onion and root vegetables.