Champ (Poundies): Irish Mashed Potatoes with Green Onions and Butter

Champ: A great and simple Irish dish
Photo by Adrian McGrath

By Adrian McGrath

The Irish and potatoes go together. There are many dishes where the potato is prominent, but this one is really a wonderful and easy one to make. It tastes great, is inexpensive, and is probably pretty nutritious. It is called Champ. (The Irish also refer to this dish as Poundies.) It is really a side dish, but it can become a main dish depending on what you add to it.

Most likely it would make a great side dish along with sausages (or "Bangers") or maybe a steak or a chop. (See my earlier article on Bangers and Mash.) It makes excellent Pub Food across the USA.

To make it you just need Irish potatoes or baking potatoes or any type of potato you prefer. Then milk, butter, and salt and pepper. And most importantly you need lots of green onions (or scallions). You can also add the cheese of your choice.

I made some by using the following items: baking potatoes, canned milk, cheese (Monterrey Jack and some Blue Cheese crumbles), salt and pepper, butter, and lots of green onions.

Basic ingredients for Champ
Photo by Adrian McGrath

As per usual, I do not give a precise recipe because I feel people can best make their own version just by giving the basic ingredients and basic plan.

I simply cut up and boil my potatoes, with the skins on. I do not peel them. Drain and then mash the potatoes. Add milk, cheese, butter, and chopped green onions. Save some of the green onions to add to the top of the dish as a garnish. Mix everything up and serve hot.

That is it. Simple and great.

If you grill a sausage, a pork chop, or a hamburger steak and add a salad or a favorite vegetable, you will have a great meal.

Some recipes might call for "scallions" instead of "green onions." These are similar items, but they might not be exactly the same. Some sources say green onions and scallions are the same thing by a different name. Other sources say "scallion" means a broader category of "onion" to which green onion is just one part. So, there is some debate on this fine point. But either one will do for our purposes.

I am using lots of green onions because they are easy to find at my local grocery and are inexpensive. Plus, I like the taste of green onions and their bright green appearance.

Bord Bia, the Irish Food Board from the Irish government, has a recipe for Bacon, cabbage, and Champ. "Bacon" for the Irish is similar to what we call in America, Canadian Bacon. But you could probably use ham too.

So, why not give Champ a try the next time you want a nice and easy Irish potato dish.

Sources and further reading:
Wikipedia article on Champ; Irish Food Board, Bord Bia for bacon, cabbage, and Champ.

Colcannon: Make It Easy

Colcannon, the easy way. With Cole Slaw, butter,
Green onions, turkey bacon, instant potatoes, and milk.
Photo by A. McGrath

By Adrian McGrath

I have never made Colcannon before. I have made Champ, which is similar and which I like very much. But I never made Colcannon. So, I decided to make some; but I wanted it now and did not want a lot of cooking and effort.

So, I devised this shortcut version. If you want a traditional Colcannon and have a lot of time on your hands, go somewhere else. But if you want a quick and easy Colcannon which still resembles real Colcannon pretty much and does indeed taste great, you have come to the right place.

Here is how I made it. You can vary it as you choose, and you will have a nice meal.

My main ingredients for easy Colcannon --
Instant potatoes, Cole Slaw, green onions,
Turkey bacon, canned milk, butter or margerine.
Photo by A. McGrath

You need 1. Instant potatoes, 2. Canned milk, 3. A premixed Cole Slaw without any dressing or mayonnaise on it (just shredded cabbage and carrots, etc), 4. Green onions or scallions, 5. Bacon (I used turkey bacon, but use whatever type you want), 6. Salt, pepper, and a pinch of brown sugar.

In a big pot (I used a Chinese Wok) add some olive oil and saute the bacon after chopping it up a bit. When cooked, add the Cole Slaw or shredded cabbage. Saute until soft. Add a pinch of brown sugar and salt and pepper.

In a separate bowl, mix the instant potatoes to instructions plus add milk. I used canned milk. Add the sliced green onions to the potatoes and mix.

Now mix the pototoes with the bacon and cabbage mix. If not still hot, put it in a microwave.

Mix it all up and put it in a big bowl. Make a hollow in the middle of the Colcannon mix and pour in some melted butter.

And that is it. It is done.

It is quick, easy, inexpensive, tasty, and filling. It is probably pretty nutritious too.

Some recipes for Colcannon use leeks instead of cabbage. So, you can try that too.

Sources and further reading:
Irish Cooking by Ruth Bauder Kershner.
Weathervane Books, 1979.

Irish Potato Cakes

Irish Potato Cakes
Photo by Adrian McGrath

By Adrian McGrath

After I wrote my recent article on Champ (Irish mashed potatoes with green onions), a friend of mine who is a citizen of the United States but is originally from County Clare in Ireland, told me about another potato dish that was very popular in Ireland when he was young. It is Irish Potato Cakes. (I later learned a variant of this is called "Farl" which is typically from the north of Ireland which is made by flattening the cake, cutting into squares, and serving with butter.)

So, I decided to try my own version of the Irish potato cakes. Mine are round and a bit thick. But you can get the general idea from the pictures I included and design your own, as you choose.

I used only a few ingredients -- large Irish baking potatoes, canned milk, flour, a bit of baking powder, and cooking oil. You will also need butter and the spices of your choice for flavoring. I used a Creole spice, since I'm from New Orleans, and parsley.

As per usual I do not give a precise recipe since I think people can best concoct their own version at home, using a little imagination from the list of ingredients and pictures.

Basin ingredients for Irish Potato Cakes:
baking potatoes, milk, flour, spices -- Creole spice
and parsley. Photo by Adrian McGrath

To fix the cakes, cut up the potatoes with the skin on and boil in water until soft.  Drain, mash, and mix the potatoes with enough milk to moisten the potatoes. Add flour to the potato mix, in proportion of five potato to one flour, and maybe a little baking powder, if desired. Form the potato cakes into balls and smash down into cakes.

Fry the cakes in a little butter or oil for about five minutes on each side. When done, serve with butter and season to taste.

And that is it. It is a very simple and flavorful dish.

The Irish Food Board called Bia Bord has a recipe and description of the cake here . They use a different type of potato and different spices from those on my cakes, but nothing is written in stone. Use whatever variant you like.

By the way, if you cannot find a New Orleans Creole spice near where you live, you can make your own. There are many ways to do this. But an easy way is to just mix in a bowl ground black pepper, white pepper, and a very small amount of red cayenne pepper. Cayenne is very powerful. Add salt, garlic powder, and onion powder.

Irish Potato Cakes can be a great addition to any meal -- breakfast lunch, or dinner.

Why not give them a try.

Sources and further reading:
Crispy Potato Cakes at Bia Bord; Wikipedia article on Irish Potato Cakes ; Wikipedia article on Farl .

Full Irish Breakfast a la New Orleans Creole

"Full Irish Breakfast a la New Orleans Creole"
Photo by Adrian McGrath
My own concoction -- clockwise from top left,
Boudin, New Orleans French bread, fried tomatoes,
Andouille, turkey bacon, ham steak, strawberry
preserves, fried eggs, fried mushrooms, and baked beans

By Adrian McGrath

A traditional Irish breakfast, often called a Full Irish Breakfast, was, and still is, a very large meal indeed. In the past it was eaten on working days; but today it is more of a special occasion meal, morning or night. You may wonder how this huge and very filling dish came about? And why I decided to make my own unusual version of it?

My father, whose background was half Irish and half German, grew up in a small town in Wisconsin on a little dairy farm. He told me that when he was young the family would get up very early every day; and before going to work on the farm, they would have a huge meal. It could consist of eggs, breakfast meats like bacon or ham, pancakes, biscuits, jam, butter, maybe toast, coffee, and maybe oatmeal  -- but certainly not grits. He only later in life discovered grits (a ground cornmeal gruel) when he came to Louisiana and specifically to New Orleans just before World War 2. He was serving in the US Army then during the Louisiana Maneuvers, a very large military exercise to train US soldiers to fight Nazi Germany.

My father's large, farmer's breakfast may have had some fruits and vegetables too, but I am not sure. Being on a dairy farm, his family most likely had lots of dairy products -- milk, eggs, butter, etc. Even during the Great Depression when he was young, they could have traded or bartered dairy products for other food items.

My father from
Highland,
Wisconsin, Master
Sergeant John N.
McGrath, US Army, circa
1943 (Family photo)
Yes, he ate a large
breakfast as a young farmer in
Wisconsin, just like the
farmers in old Ireland.

So why did they eat so much food for breakfast in rural Wisconsin ? For the same reason the Irish farmers and workers would eat a huge breakfast. A person working in an agricultural or agrarian culture burned a tremendous amount of calories each day. There was intense physical work to do all day long. The farmers needed enough fuel to keep going without stopping. Hence, they needed a large, varied, and nutritious breakfast. Lunch and dinner were less important than breakfast.

On top of this, sometimes mornings could be chilly or cold in Ireland as in Wisconsin. Although winters in Wisconsin could be much colder than in Ireland with frequent freezing weather and even sub zero weather. A large, hot breakfast could help fight off the cold and chill.

Ireland was for a long time an agrarian or agricultural society. So, Irish farmers and workers needed hot, nutritious fuel to eat in Ireland like my father did in rural Wisconsin.

But the Irish people, of course, are essentially an exiled people. Much like the ancient Israelites, they have traveled and found new homelands across the globe. Most people with Irish blood in them live today mainly in one country -- and it is not Ireland. It is the United States. They live mostly in the North East, but they also live in every state in the union. They have adapted Irish ways to their new surroundings.

In that sense I have taken as an experiment this occasion to make my own version of the Full or Traditional Irish Breakfast adding foods from my part of the country -- New Orleans. The original cuisine of New Orleans was called Creole, which is a mixture of the French and Spanish cultures. Nearby New Orleans to the south and west is Acadiana which is usually called Cajun Country. This is a French Canadian culture which developed in the swamps and prairies of south Louisiana when the French Canadians were driven from Nova Scotia by the British during the French and Indian War. (In fact, Cajun history resembles Irish history in many ways.) 

So, I took the basic ingredients of an Irish breakfast and added a few Creole and Cajun items and removed a few traditional items too.

Full Irish version Breakfast
Photo from Wikimedia Commons
From Gus-DLC and Creative Commons

The basic Irish version is made of the following although it varies, of course, from place to place and cook to cook: fried eggs, rashers (Irish style bacon, something like what is called Canadian bacon in the USA), sausages, fried tomatoes, fried mushrooms, baked beans, and perhaps some type of potato, and maybe Irish soda bread.

The typical drink is hot tea and perhaps orange juice. Additionally, the Irish use something most other cultures do not have called "black and white pudding." This is not pudding like in the USA, but it is more like a type of sausage patty. Black pudding is made partly from animal blood, usually from pig, plus meat and spices. White pudding is a soft sausage sometimes containing oatmeal or some other grain.

Breakfast meats for my version of the
Irish breakfast -- L to R, Boudin, ham steak,
turkey bacon, Andouille
Photo by Adrian McGrath

I decided to change my breakfast and call it an Irish Creole Breakfast (or Full Irish Breakfast a la New Orleans Creole); but it also has aspects of Cajun food. My ingredients include the following: fried eggs, ham steak, American bacon (except I use turkey bacon instead of pork bellies), canned baked beans, fried Roma tomatoes, and fried mushrooms. I removed both the black and white puddings since they are hard to find here. In place of them I included two sausages very popular in the Cajun country -- Andouille (which is a French sausage) and Boudin.

More ingredients for my version:
baked beans, mushrooms, tomatoes
Photo by A. McGrath

Boudin is actually related to the Irish white pudding; both are soft sausages that contain grains. Boudin has cooked rice inside its casing along with meat and Cajun seasonings. Irish white pudding usually has oats. 

Instead of soda bread, I used New Orleans French bread. Instead of tea, I used a French roast New Orleans coffee. I also added some strawberry preserves -- strawberries being very plentiful and popular in south Louisiana. This produces a nice sweet and savory taste.

I kept in the tomatoes and the mushrooms, and I believe that is a very good Irish idea to include vegetables. I should have included some type of potato too, but I already had way too much on my plate. If I do it again, I will likely add some mashed, creamed potatoes with butter. Or perhaps add Champ or Irish Potato Cakes.

And that is it. 

Why not give it a try or use whatever local ingredients you have wherever you live to create your own version of an Irish breakfast. 

It is not traditional as in Ireland; but just as the Irish people adapted as they went to new lands, so too Irish foods can adapt and become something exciting and new as well.


Sources and further reading:
An article on the Traditional Irish Breakfast at discoveringireland.com; Full Breakfast article at wikipedia.com.