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Bake some Irish bread for St Patrick's Day

15 MARCH 2012

St Patrick’s Day on March 17 is as good excuse as any to have a pint or two of deliciously velvet-smooth Guinness.

And to wear anything green, maybe even an over-sized hat and, get baking!

St Patrick’s Day is a great time, though, to look across the water and remember just how fantastic Irish produce, recipes and chefs are – from Niall McKenna of James Street South in Belfast, Richard Corrigan of Corrigan’s of Mayfair and Bentley’s, and TV chef Clodagh McKenna. We’ve got a wealth of Irish food knowledge available to us.

And the food – with classics like Irish stew, bacon and cabbage, an amazing array of spankingly fresh seafood, colcannon and boxty, there’s no shortage of delicious Irish dishes to add to your kitchen repertoire.

So this year, tuck into some traditional Irish bread, blaas. 

You only need the following ingredients:

• 10g active dried yeast
• 10g caster sugar
• 500g extra strong white flour, plus more to dust
• 10g sea salt
• 10g unsalted butter

Read Niamh Shields lovely recipe for traditional blaas, Irish bread rolls from her area, Waterford in Kilkenny. The recipe comes from her fantastic book, Comfort and Spice, published by Quadrille.