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Hey, this is the archive section. Pick a year, pick a month, have a nosey.Shortie
Rainy Days
29-03-2010Pretty crap start to the week. It's Monday morning, the sky has opened, it shows no signs of slowing down or easing of and I am umbrellaless sitting at my desk with a blow heater trying to try off. The glamorous life I lead.
It might not be so dull and dreary if I wasn't so tired. The weekend was jam packed. I had my mum and sister down for a visit on Saturday. We spent the afternoon scouring the streets of Dublin and generally being tourists. That night I cooked us all a home made Thai green curry - delicious if I do say so myself - and we stayed up until the very wee hours in the morning talking, drinking wine and generally catching up. It was really lovely.
They headed home on Sunday but not before we baked some soda bread, or soda farls to give them their correct title. You see my Granny was a wizard in the kitchen, she baked at least once a week, apple tarts, scones, ginger bread, you name it. The one really strong memory I have from my childhood, and it's one of my favourites, is standing on a chair in her kitchen at the bench with her making soda farls. She never used weighing scales or measuring cups, she didn’t need to. It was always handfuls, pinches and dashes. Proper baking. The aroma was intoxicating. The bread was baked on a griddle and was always eaten before it even had time to cool. Trust me, home baked soda farls eaten just hot from the griddle with some butter, its heaven.
Since she past away last year myself and my sister have taken up the odd bit of baking. Trying to remember something from your childhood isn’t as easy as you would think. I remembered handfuls of flour but had no idea how many, I remembered pinches of salt but had no idea how big or small, so I tended to stick with recipes for things I found online.
My sister on the other hand actually went out an invested in a griddle and was determined to some day make soda farls like our Granny did. The first few batches were interesting to say the least. She found some recipes online but they needed some adjusting. The recipe itself is simple, straight forward with only a few steps but some were too salty, others too sticky and one even produced bread that was as hard as the road.
But she persevered and on Sunday the two of us baked soda bread, with a combination of some measuring, some handfuls, dashes and pinches. The smell of the bread baking was a good sign we were on the right path.
Sticking to tradition we got some tea ready, we got the butter out and we tucked in before it had time to cool.
It was good. Better than good it was perfect. Tasted just like Granny’s.
So we sat, we ate and we reminisced.
That I guess is one consolation on this god awful wet and miserable Monday morning. I get to go home and tuck into some soda farls this evening. Culchie of me? Yes. But to be honest I really don't care
Recipe:
3 cups / 1lb of flour
1 pinch of salt
300 mls of buttermilk
Sieve the flour into a mixing bowl. Add a small pinch of table salt.
Slowly stir in 300mls of butter milk until mixture is doughy.
Lightly dust a workspace with flour and place the mixture on top.
Dust the dough with some more flour to ensure it doesn't stick to the worktop and knead for several minutes.
Add extra flour as necessary before rolling the dough into a ball.
Dust a rolling pin with flour to ensure the dough doesn’t stick. Roll into a circle about half an inch thick.
Heat the griddle on the hob at the lowest temperature
Cut the dough into four quarters (farls) and place flat down on the griddle.
Bake for 5-8 minutes on each side until golden brown.
Bake on each side for 1 minute. Stand to cool. Enjoy.
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