Celebrating St. Patrick's with Ireland's celebrity chef

Irish celebrity chef Clodagh McKenna has fond memories of celebrating St. Patrick's Day while she was growing up in County Cork.

"We would be looking forward to it for weeks," she said in a phone interview from Dublin. "In school, we would be studying the history of Ireland, making Irish flags, then on the day before, we would make brooches with fresh shamrocks, blessed by the priest, and tied with a white ribbon," she said.

On St. Patrick's Day, she and her sisters would put on their best dresses for Mass with the family. And then there was the food.

"My mum would make beef and Guinness stew and pastry. We might do colcannon and leg of lamb, with little potato cakes with spring onion and shredded cabbage."

After lunch, it was off to the parade, with the bishop leading, lots of Irish dancers, Irish music, and, last of all, a truck throwing sweets to the children.

"I remember we would all try to position ourselves to be able to run and collect the most sweets," she said. "Those were such fun days!"

And as Ireland's own celebrations wound down, the family would settle in front of the TV to watch the American parades.

Those days are a world away from the food empire McKenna now heads, which includes a successful brand of products, Clodagh's Homemade; a cafeteria-style market, Homemade by Clodagh; and a full-service restaurant, Clodagh's Kitchen, in Dublin, not to mention her television series, on PBS here, Clodagh McKenna's Irish Food Trails, and her cookbooks, the fourth of which, Clodagh's Kitchen Diaries, is to be released this week.

McKenna, 38, did her share of Irish cooking growing up, with chores every day after school that often included peeling carrots and potatoes for the evening meal, and baking breads, scones, tea bracks, and rock buns every Saturday.

But her eyes were opened wide when, on a student-exchange program to the south of France, she stayed with a French family. The mother would "spend all day cooking, and I was in the kitchen with her, even though I didn't speak French."

McKenna got on so well with them that she returned every summer, and they became her second family.

"I learned much more than I realized, just being in that kitchen," she said. While the methods and dishes were different, the Irish and French kitchens were the same, in that everything was made from scratch, every soup, bread, and sauce.

In part, that was because ready-made products were not widely available and were considered too expensive, she said. That began to change when she was a teenager. She still remembers the day her mum brought home a frozen pizza, how excited they were to eat it. And how disappointed they were when they did.

After traveling abroad, studying at business school and cooking school, McKenna saw the opportunity in Ireland for homemade products and cafés serving fresh-made foods, and on that she has built her business.

One of her most requested recipes, and among the best-selling items in her restaurants and bakeries, is from her Aunt Muriel, a brown bread called Health Loaf.

While most of her products and recipes are not primarily Irish, they are always seasonal and locally sourced, influenced by years of growing up with a kitchen garden. Her cooking reflects her time in France and also three years living in Italy.

McKenna, in the United States for the St. Patrick's holiday, will do a pop-up Saturday at Untitled, the restaurant at New York's Whitney Museum of American Art. She will be serving traditional Irish recipes with an updated twist, like bacon and cabbage soup made with pork cheeks.

Since the holiday falls on a Sunday, we asked her to recommend recipes for a St. Patrick's Day brunch from her new book, Clodagh's Kitchen Diaries (Kyle Books, $27.95), and we've included the recipes for her menu here: Smoked Salmon Terrine with Dill and Lemon Cream (made with her Aunt Muriel's Health Loaf), Sausage and Tomato Baked Eggs, and of course, Irish Coffee.

Makes 2 loaves

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1 pound whole-wheat flour

2/3 cup wheat germ, plus extra for dusting

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/4 cups wheat bran

1 1/3 cups steel-cut oats

2 teaspoons brown sugar

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 quart buttermilk

For the topping:

2 teaspoons wheat germ,

plus the extra for dusting

2 teaspoons sesame seeds

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1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Pour all the dry ingredients into a large bowl and combine. Stir in the buttermilk to make a moist dough.

2. Divide the dough between two 2-pound greased loaf pans that have been dusted with wheat germ. Smooth the top, and make a cross on each one with a floured knife. Sprinkle with wheat germ and seeds.

3. Place in preheated oven for 10 minutes, and then reduce the heat to 250 degrees and bake for 1 hour.

4. When the loaves are baked, remove from the oven, and partly cool in the pans, then turn out and leave to cool completely on a rack.

Per serving (based on 20): 160 calories, 7 grams protein, 30 grams carbohydrates, 3 grams sugar, 2 grams fat, 2 milligrams cholesterol, 178 milligrams sodium, 3 grams dietary fiber.

Makes 1 serving

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2 tablespoons Irish whiskey

2 teaspoons brown sugar

1/2 cup good-quality, hot, strong coffee

Light cream, to taste

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1. Carefully warm a glass. Add the Irish whiskey to the warmed glass, and stir in the sugar.

2. Pour in the coffee, and using the back of a spoon, pour the cream onto the surface of the coffee.

- From Clodagh's Kitchen Diaries, by Clodagh McKenna (Kyle, 2013)

Per serving: 102 calories, trace protein, 6 grams carbohydrates, 6 grams sugar, 1 gram fat, 2 milligrams cholesterol, 4 milligrams sodium, no dietary fiber.

Makes 8 servings

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1 pound cream cheese, softened

1/3 cup heavy cream

Zest of 1 lemon

2 tablespoons lemon juice

3 tablespoons fresh dill, finely chopped

2 tablespoons capers, drained

1 1/3 pounds sliced smoked salmon

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

To serve:

1 bunch watercress, trimmed

Brown bread

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1. Make the dill and lemon cream. Place the cream cheese, cream, lemon zest, lemon juice, dill, and capers in a food processor, season with salt and pepper, and blend to combine.

2. Grease a 3x4x8-inch loaf pan. Line the base and sides of the pan with plastic wrap, allowing a 2-inch overhang on the long sides.

3. Trim any brown edges from the salmon. Cover the base of the pan with 1 layer of smoked salmon. Using a spatula, spread 1/3 of the cream cheese mixture over the salmon. Add another salmon layer on top, followed by another cream cheese layer. Repeat until the cream cheese mixture is used, finishing with a salmon layer. Fold the plastic wrap over the top, press down gently, and refrigerate overnight.

4. Before serving, turn the terrine out. Remove the plastic wrap, and trim the ends. Serve with watercress and homemade brown bread.

Per serving: 397 calories, 21 grams protein, 22 grams carbohydrates, 1 gram sugar,

26 grams fat, 87 milligrams cholesterol, 2,038 milligrams sodium, 3 grams dietary fiber.EndText

Makes 2 servings

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2 tablespoons butter

4 eggs

3 cherry tomatoes, halved

1/2 cup Gruyere cheese (or another hard cheese, such as Cheddar or Gouda), grated

1 teaspoon mustard

1 pork sausage patty, browned, broken up, and drained

1 tablespoon heavy cream

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Slices of bread, toasted, to serve

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1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease 2 small oven-proof dishes with the butter, and crack 2 eggs into each. Arrange the tomatoes around the eggs.

2. Put the cheese in a small bowl, and mix with the mustard, chorizo, and cream. Season with salt and pepper. Spoon the cheese mixture on top of the eggs, and bake in the oven for 10 minutes.

3. Serve with toasted bread cut into thin slices so that you can dip them into the eggs.

- From Clodagh's Kitchen Diaries, by Clodagh McKenna (Kyle, 2013) 

Per serving: 494 calories, 26 grams protein, 14 grams carbohydrates, 6 gram sugar, 38 grams fat, 410 milligrams cholesterol, 544 milligrams sodium, 3 grams dietary fiber.