Cooking Irish can be found at PETITCHEF and Pinterest.
I have loved Welsh Rarebit since I was a child and called it Welch Rabbit. Legend has it that Welsh peasants, who were not allowed to hunt rabbit on the estates of noblemen, served this melted cheese dish as a substitute. Thus the name. This appears to be only a nice story though. My piano teacher Elizabeth Murphy introduced my family to this recipe. It was one of her favorites. I had a wonderful Welsh Rarebit at a little place I discovered in Dublin on St. Anne's Place, The Shrimp Wine Bar.
My daughter Erin and son Eli on O'Connell Street Bridge over the River Liffey flowing through Dublin on a cold, raw, windy day in 1985. I hope we were shopping for more warm clothes!! I can still feel the chill to the marrow of my bones.
Eli and Erin in front of an Irish mail box in Dublin near St. Stephen's Green. If you look closely at the Irish posts, you will see the English crown and other English insignia. When the Irish won independence from England, they simply
painted every British red mail box green--a typical Irish way of dealing with a situation. I love it!!!
Elizabeth Murphy, born in the 1880s, lived with her three unmarried sisters in the homestead next door to our home. At that time it was still not unusual for Irish siblings to never marry and live their lives together in the family ancestral home. The three Hurley's lived across the street as well. Margaret Murphy was the oldest and was head of the Board of Education. Today, the Kindergarten Center is named after her. Frances was a first grade teacher and the cook, and it was believed she could teach a tree to read. We need more teachers like her today. Helena was the fashionable one and worked in a local upscale clothing store. Elizabeth taught classical piano, and my sister Paige and I took lessons from kindergarten through high school graduation. She was a no nonsense kind of teacher, educated at Yale and the Sorbonne--rare for a woman at that time. She always wore the most beautiful handmade sweaters and woolen skirts to match--even in the heat of the summer months. The four sisters would sit around at night after their day's endeavors and knit. Frances would make dinners for us and every week a cake would appear at the back kitchen door of our house. My favorite was Elizabeth's favorite--the Welsh Rarebit. It was truly spectacular.
I was exploring in Dublin one day in early winter of 1985 when my children were in school. I would often take the bus into the city from our home in County Meath and spend the day visiting museums, galleries, restaurants, shops, etc.--just being a typical tourist. I usually spent some time in St. Stephen's Green, a 22-acre greenery landscaped with flowerbeds, trees, fountain, lake, and bandstand with free summer concerts. On this particular day, I found a little restuarant on St. Anne's Place called the Shrimp Wine Bar. I walked in and felt like I was transformed to a seaside cafe only because it was such a drastic change from the dismal, Irish January weather outside. It was a tiny place--all greens and pinks and whites: little tables for two, flooring, linens, fresh flowers. It was definitely a woman's cafe. I instantly fell in love with it. I went there several times not because the food was so great, but because of the atmostphere and decor. It was very relaxing and quiet, and I could get away from the bustle and dreariness that was sometimes Dublin. One day the regular chef was not there, and I asked if someone could make Welsh Rarebit which was not on the menu. Since it is such an easy dish to prepare with few ingredients, I was obliged. It was the best meal I ever had there. I don't think the restaurant is still open as I cannot find any reference to it online.
St. Stephen's Green is an inner-city public park within Dublin's city center, and it adjoins the nearby shopping area of the same name, which is located on Grafton Street, Dublin's main shopping area. It is one of three ancient commons in the city, and its current layout owes much to the restorations of the 1800s. The grounds are roughly rectangular and are centered on a formal garden.
One of the more unusual aspects of the park lies on the northwest corner of the central area--a garden for the blind with scented plants, which can withstand handling and are labelled in Braille. Further north and spanning much of the length of the park is a large lake. Home to ducks and other waterfowl, the lake is fed by an artificial waterfall, spanned by O'Connell bridge, and fronted by an ornamental gazebo. To the south side of the main garden circle is more open heath surrounding the bandstand, and often frequented by lunching students, workers, and shoppers on Dublin's sunnier days.
Other notable features include: Traitors Gate at the Grafton Street corner which commemorates the Royal Dublin Fusliers who died in the Second Boer War, a group representing the Three Fates inside the Leeson Street gate which was a gift from the German people in thanks for Irish help to refugees after WWII, the William Butler Yeats memorial garden with a sculpture by Henry Moore, a bust of James Joyce facing his former university at Newman House, a memorial to the Great Famine of 1845-1850 by Edward Delaney, and many memorials, statues, and busts of various eminent Irish political figures.
Sculpture of the Three Fates in St. Stephen's Green in Dublin
My favorite memories of St. Stephen's Green are feeding the ducks with my children and laughing with them at all the Irish with their umbrellas. It is a common sight to see an Irishman walking down the street and begin changing directions every few feet trying to prevent the wind from taking the umbrella or turning it inside out. Eventually, when the umbrella was ruined, it would be abandoned on the street. Discarded broken umbrellas were not a rare sight on the streets of Dublin.
I wish I had Frances Murphy's recipe for this dish because she was such a wonderful cook, but I was young and not yet cooking when she died so I have lost all her recipe treasures, and it is a great loss. This recipe is a combination of two from my mother's cookbooks. One is from Cheese, a cookbooklet written by Bobbe Wooldridge in 1981 and published by Wellspring in Hellam, PA. The second is from Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book: Revised and Enlarged. This is the open cookbook I keep in the bookholder in my kitchen today. In the front of this cookbook, my mom wrote that it was a Christmas gift from her mother-in-law in 1956. It was her bible, but she loved cookbooks and collected them as souvenirs in all her travels. She had so many she had a closet made into an enclosed bookcase for all her beloved cooking tomes. In the warmer months she loved to sit on her screened porch or patio and in the cold Adirondack winter months she sat in a wicker chair in the sunny den window pouring over her recipe collections. Her very first cookbook, America's Cook Book compiled by The Home Institute of The New York Herald Tribune in 1940, was also from her mother-in-law given as a Christmas present eleven years earlier in the first year of her marriage to my dad. My grandmother, Mary Anne Abry, must have wanted to be sure her son was fed properly! She was a great cook, a German woman who had some wonderful recipes. I will include some of them in future posts. And one last thought on my mother's cookbooks--I love looking through them because she used them to store her treasures. In each one, there is an anniversary card from my dad speaking of his love for her, a birthday card from my sister Paige when she was 8, a handmade Christmas card from me when I was 6, a letter from my sister when she was away at college her first year, or a note from me asking about purchasing a white blouse for school while I was vacationing on Long Island for a few weeks during the summer when I was 12. Combined, it is a veritable treasure chest of memories.
Irish Welsh Rarebit
Ingredients:
½ cup of stale beer [An open beer container will become stale in a few hours.]
2 egg yolks
16 oz. of extra sharp yellow Cheddar cheese, grated [Be sure to use an extra sharp cheddar.]
2 tbsp. of butter
1 tsp. of Worcestershire sauce
½ tsp. of dry mustard
1⁄8 tsp. of black pepper
Pinch of salt
½ cup of heavy cream
4 thick slices of buttered toasted artisan bread
Preparation:
Beat the beer and egg yolks together. Place the cheese and butter in top of a double boiler [or in a pan over boiling water making sure the water does not splash into the top pan] and stir until melted and well-blended. Add the seasonings. Slowly add the beer and egg mixture, stirring just until hot. Last, add the heavy cream, again stirring until just hot. Remove from the heat. Pour over warm toast and serve. Some variations: place a thick, ripe garden tomato slice on each toast before covering with the cheese sauce. A bacon strip, bacon crumbles, anchovies, or sausage links could also be added on top of the cheese. Betty Crocker® suggested substituting ginger ale for the cream. I am a purist when it comes to Irish Welsh Rarebit, but that is just a personal preference. And Stouffer's® will forever have to take a back seat to this recipe.
I have loved Welsh Rarebit since I was a child and called it Welch Rabbit. Legend has it that Welsh peasants, who were not allowed to hunt rabbit on the estates of noblemen, served this melted cheese dish as a substitute. Thus the name. This appears to be only a nice story though. My piano teacher Elizabeth Murphy introduced my family to this recipe. It was one of her favorites. I had a wonderful Welsh Rarebit at a little place I discovered in Dublin on St. Anne's Place, The Shrimp Wine Bar.
My daughter Erin and son Eli on O'Connell Street Bridge over the River Liffey flowing through Dublin on a cold, raw, windy day in 1985. I hope we were shopping for more warm clothes!! I can still feel the chill to the marrow of my bones.
Eli and Erin in front of an Irish mail box in Dublin near St. Stephen's Green. If you look closely at the Irish posts, you will see the English crown and other English insignia. When the Irish won independence from England, they simply
painted every British red mail box green--a typical Irish way of dealing with a situation. I love it!!!
Elizabeth Murphy, born in the 1880s, lived with her three unmarried sisters in the homestead next door to our home. At that time it was still not unusual for Irish siblings to never marry and live their lives together in the family ancestral home. The three Hurley's lived across the street as well. Margaret Murphy was the oldest and was head of the Board of Education. Today, the Kindergarten Center is named after her. Frances was a first grade teacher and the cook, and it was believed she could teach a tree to read. We need more teachers like her today. Helena was the fashionable one and worked in a local upscale clothing store. Elizabeth taught classical piano, and my sister Paige and I took lessons from kindergarten through high school graduation. She was a no nonsense kind of teacher, educated at Yale and the Sorbonne--rare for a woman at that time. She always wore the most beautiful handmade sweaters and woolen skirts to match--even in the heat of the summer months. The four sisters would sit around at night after their day's endeavors and knit. Frances would make dinners for us and every week a cake would appear at the back kitchen door of our house. My favorite was Elizabeth's favorite--the Welsh Rarebit. It was truly spectacular.
I was exploring in Dublin one day in early winter of 1985 when my children were in school. I would often take the bus into the city from our home in County Meath and spend the day visiting museums, galleries, restaurants, shops, etc.--just being a typical tourist. I usually spent some time in St. Stephen's Green, a 22-acre greenery landscaped with flowerbeds, trees, fountain, lake, and bandstand with free summer concerts. On this particular day, I found a little restuarant on St. Anne's Place called the Shrimp Wine Bar. I walked in and felt like I was transformed to a seaside cafe only because it was such a drastic change from the dismal, Irish January weather outside. It was a tiny place--all greens and pinks and whites: little tables for two, flooring, linens, fresh flowers. It was definitely a woman's cafe. I instantly fell in love with it. I went there several times not because the food was so great, but because of the atmostphere and decor. It was very relaxing and quiet, and I could get away from the bustle and dreariness that was sometimes Dublin. One day the regular chef was not there, and I asked if someone could make Welsh Rarebit which was not on the menu. Since it is such an easy dish to prepare with few ingredients, I was obliged. It was the best meal I ever had there. I don't think the restaurant is still open as I cannot find any reference to it online.
St. Stephen's Green is an inner-city public park within Dublin's city center, and it adjoins the nearby shopping area of the same name, which is located on Grafton Street, Dublin's main shopping area. It is one of three ancient commons in the city, and its current layout owes much to the restorations of the 1800s. The grounds are roughly rectangular and are centered on a formal garden.
One of the more unusual aspects of the park lies on the northwest corner of the central area--a garden for the blind with scented plants, which can withstand handling and are labelled in Braille. Further north and spanning much of the length of the park is a large lake. Home to ducks and other waterfowl, the lake is fed by an artificial waterfall, spanned by O'Connell bridge, and fronted by an ornamental gazebo. To the south side of the main garden circle is more open heath surrounding the bandstand, and often frequented by lunching students, workers, and shoppers on Dublin's sunnier days.
Other notable features include: Traitors Gate at the Grafton Street corner which commemorates the Royal Dublin Fusliers who died in the Second Boer War, a group representing the Three Fates inside the Leeson Street gate which was a gift from the German people in thanks for Irish help to refugees after WWII, the William Butler Yeats memorial garden with a sculpture by Henry Moore, a bust of James Joyce facing his former university at Newman House, a memorial to the Great Famine of 1845-1850 by Edward Delaney, and many memorials, statues, and busts of various eminent Irish political figures.
Sculpture of the Three Fates in St. Stephen's Green in Dublin
My favorite memories of St. Stephen's Green are feeding the ducks with my children and laughing with them at all the Irish with their umbrellas. It is a common sight to see an Irishman walking down the street and begin changing directions every few feet trying to prevent the wind from taking the umbrella or turning it inside out. Eventually, when the umbrella was ruined, it would be abandoned on the street. Discarded broken umbrellas were not a rare sight on the streets of Dublin.
I wish I had Frances Murphy's recipe for this dish because she was such a wonderful cook, but I was young and not yet cooking when she died so I have lost all her recipe treasures, and it is a great loss. This recipe is a combination of two from my mother's cookbooks. One is from Cheese, a cookbooklet written by Bobbe Wooldridge in 1981 and published by Wellspring in Hellam, PA. The second is from Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book: Revised and Enlarged. This is the open cookbook I keep in the bookholder in my kitchen today. In the front of this cookbook, my mom wrote that it was a Christmas gift from her mother-in-law in 1956. It was her bible, but she loved cookbooks and collected them as souvenirs in all her travels. She had so many she had a closet made into an enclosed bookcase for all her beloved cooking tomes. In the warmer months she loved to sit on her screened porch or patio and in the cold Adirondack winter months she sat in a wicker chair in the sunny den window pouring over her recipe collections. Her very first cookbook, America's Cook Book compiled by The Home Institute of The New York Herald Tribune in 1940, was also from her mother-in-law given as a Christmas present eleven years earlier in the first year of her marriage to my dad. My grandmother, Mary Anne Abry, must have wanted to be sure her son was fed properly! She was a great cook, a German woman who had some wonderful recipes. I will include some of them in future posts. And one last thought on my mother's cookbooks--I love looking through them because she used them to store her treasures. In each one, there is an anniversary card from my dad speaking of his love for her, a birthday card from my sister Paige when she was 8, a handmade Christmas card from me when I was 6, a letter from my sister when she was away at college her first year, or a note from me asking about purchasing a white blouse for school while I was vacationing on Long Island for a few weeks during the summer when I was 12. Combined, it is a veritable treasure chest of memories.
Irish Welsh Rarebit
Ingredients:
½ cup of stale beer [An open beer container will become stale in a few hours.]
2 egg yolks
16 oz. of extra sharp yellow Cheddar cheese, grated [Be sure to use an extra sharp cheddar.]
2 tbsp. of butter
1 tsp. of Worcestershire sauce
½ tsp. of dry mustard
1⁄8 tsp. of black pepper
Pinch of salt
½ cup of heavy cream
4 thick slices of buttered toasted artisan bread
Preparation:
Beat the beer and egg yolks together. Place the cheese and butter in top of a double boiler [or in a pan over boiling water making sure the water does not splash into the top pan] and stir until melted and well-blended. Add the seasonings. Slowly add the beer and egg mixture, stirring just until hot. Last, add the heavy cream, again stirring until just hot. Remove from the heat. Pour over warm toast and serve. Some variations: place a thick, ripe garden tomato slice on each toast before covering with the cheese sauce. A bacon strip, bacon crumbles, anchovies, or sausage links could also be added on top of the cheese. Betty Crocker® suggested substituting ginger ale for the cream. I am a purist when it comes to Irish Welsh Rarebit, but that is just a personal preference. And Stouffer's® will forever have to take a back seat to this recipe.
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