Genuine homemade Irish Christmas recipes

It’s the time of year when talk around the office turns to our favourite festive treats and tipples. Given it’s the season of giving, we decided to share some of the team’s top home-grown recipes with you all. Try them out, tuck in, and bring a little of Ireland to your Christmas table this year!

Miriam’s potato bread

Miriam says: “I’m old enough to remember going to Mass at Christmas fasting, then coming home to a large Irish breakfast which included potato bread (as it was called in Cavan).”

Miriam’s potato bread!

Serves 4
Preparation time 10mins
Cooking time 30mins

Ingredients

• 4 potatoes
• 1 cup of white flour
• Pinch of salt
• Knob of butter

Method

1. Boil potatoes and then mash them with salt and butter
2. Knead in flour to make a soft dough
3. Divide into two dough balls and roll out to form two 10″ circles
4. Cut circles into quarters
5. Fry in butter until lightly browned on both sides

Karl’s Fry in a Pie

Karl says: “There is no recipe – it’s just a fry – in a pie! “

Serves 10 (hungry people!)
Preparation time 1hr
Cooking time 45mins at 180 degrees (until pastry is cooked)

Ingredients

It’s real! It’s a fry in a pie

• 12 sausages
• 12 rashers of bacon
• Half a black pudding
• 10 hash browns
• 1 punnet mushrooms
• 1 packet of shortcrust pastry
• 1 tin beans
• 6 eggs, boiled
• 3 tomatoes, sliced

Method

Fry in a Pie

1. Grill (or fry) the sausages, bacon and black pudding, and oven cook the hash browns
2. Slice and fry the mushrooms
3. Roll out your shortcrust pastry, enough to cover the base and sides of a deep springform cake tin (remembering to keep some for the lid)
4. Layer everything in however you like (no need to cook the beans beforehand as they’ll heat up when you put the pie in the oven)
5. Cover the top with the remainder of the pastry, and coat with egg wash to achieve a nice golden top. Bake in the oven at 180 degrees for about 45 minutes or until the pastry is nicely cooked

Can be enjoyed hot or cold – just tuck in and savour the taste sensation that is the fry in a pie!

Sarah’s Mrs Hanrahan’s sauce

Sarah says: “I have no idea who Mrs Hanrahan is, but Mrs Rogers (my mum) knows her way around Christmas cooking and this is a family institution. If this wasn’t on the table there would be uproar! It accompanies the Christmas pudding, but can also be snuck onto the top of mince pies, and anything else that you fancy.”

Sarah’s Mrs. Hanrahan’s sauce!

Preparation time 10 mins
Cooking time about 5 mins

Ingredients

• 4 oz butter
• 8 oz soft brown sugar
• 2 ½ fl oz port
• 2 ½ fl oz sherry (medium)
• Whipped cream

Method

1. Melt the butter, and then stir in the sugar
2. After a minute or so of cooling, whisk in the port & sherry
3. To serve, mix with whipped cream
4. You can keep the boozy base for quite a while in the fridge, but it needs eating once it’s been added to the cream!

Aileen’s awesome spiced beef

Aileen says: “Spiced beef is a Christmas staple at home in Kerry, and I served this version as a starter with a warm beetroot and pear salad at a recent mini-Christmas party – it stole the show!”

Preparation time 20 mins (beef needs to marinate for a week)
Cooking time 3 hours

Spiced beef

Ingredients

• 6 lbs silver side of beef, trimming off as much fat as you can
• 3 bay leaves, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon ground mace
• 6 ground cloves
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 teaspoon allspice
• 1 teaspoon crushed black peppercorns
• 2 teaspoons molasses (or dark treacle)
• 2 ½ teaspoons brown sugar
• ½ cup salt
• 2 teaspoons saltpetre (not essential – it helps to preserve the beef for longer but is not necessary if you intend to eat it soon after making it)
• 1 can of Guinness stout

Method

1. Mix all the spices together with the bay leaves, garlic, molasses, salt and brown sugar
2. Place the beef in a large bowl and rub all over with the spice mixture
3. Cover and refrigerate
4. Rub in the mixture once or twice a day for a week; turn the beef as you repeat the massaging process. The meat will release a lot of liquid over time – leave this liquid and just turn the beef in the juice
5. After a week remove the beef from the liquid, tie it up firmly and place in a large pot
6. Rub in a last teaspoon of ground cloves
7. Cover with one can of Guinness topped up with cold water so the beef is just covered
8. Simmer gently for 3 hours, then allow to cool overnight in the cooking liquid
9. When cool, remove from the cooking liquid, place on a serving dish and cover with a weighted plate
10. Refrigerate until serving time
11. Serve cold, thinly sliced

David’s puddiníns

This recipe is a take on Nigella Lawson’s Christmas Puddini Bonbons but has been given an Irish twist using cocoa and Irish whiskey instead of dark chocolate  and sherry. We’ve called them puddiníns to give them an Irish flavour.

David says: “This recipe is perfect for any leftover Christmas pudding – by adding a few additional ingredients you can create the perfect festive treat, great if you need some sweet canapés for a Christmas gathering or they also make a lovely handmade gift for a friend!”

Serves 6
Preparation time 1hr
Cooking time 5 mins

Ingredients

• 200g cold, leftover Christmas pudding – place in a large mixing bowl
• 1 tbsp golden syrup
• 1 tbsp cocoa
• 1 measure of your favourite Irish whiskey (you can also use a double shot for an additional kick – hey it is Christmas after all!)
• 20g white chocolate 

Method

1. Add all ingredients together in a large bowl and mix thoroughly
2. Once the mixture is a moist/sticky texture, roll into small round bite-sized balls (should make approx 12–14. If the mixture is too crumbly and won’t stick, simply add a little more golden syrup
3. Leave to stand for 30 minutes
4. Cut two green and red glacé cherries into very small pieces (for decoration, to give the effect of holly on a traditional Christmas pudding)
5. Melt the white chocolate and dip each pudding ball halfway into the chocolate (when set this will look like white icing on a traditional Christmas pudding) and before it has solidified add a small piece of red and green cherry to each – leave to set
6. After topping added to all pudding balls you are left with Dickensian style mini-Christmas puddings which look and taste really great – like Christmas in one bite!