In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I decided to find an Irish dish that would fit the holiday and came across this dish I had never heard of before, Dublin coddle. A traditional stew of sausage, bacon, potatoes, and Irish stout, one can see why this is a comfort dish for Irish families, a dish that varies in recipe from family to family.
Making the Dish
Today’s recipe comes from Wholefully, and is one of the simpler ones I have made for this 52 Week Challenge. Essentially, you prep a bunch of ingredients, cook some elements separately, make the “gravy,” and throw all the ingredients in together to slow cook for a few hours in the oven. All the ingredients are also very accessible to get at your local grocery store. For the Irish stout, the recipe calls for Guinness which is the one I used (much to Kyle’s delight!). The one part that I found a bit unnecessary was cooking the sausages whole until browned and taking them out to slice into pieces – other recipes I saw kept the sausages whole which I think would be just fine cooking all the way through since the stew cooks for several hours.
Eating the Dish
Dubblin coddle is traditionally eaten with some hearty slices of soda bread, so I made sure to make some the side. I used the recipe by Budget Bytes which is extremely easy, especially since it does not require any kneading – in fact, you’re supposed to avoid overworking the dough! Fortunately, the combined time to make and bake the dough did not take very long.
Taking my first bite made me realize why this is the perfect comfort dish. You can’t go wrong with a good stew of meats, potatoes, and onions. It’s deliciously savory and has interesting aftertaste that I imagine is because of the Guinness. I had slow-cooked it for about 4-5 hours so the potatoes were very melt in your mouth and everything was well combined.
Summary
I would 100% be willing to make this dish again! Making it was very simple and the wait is worth the reward. I can see myself making the stew and soda bread for a group dinner.