Irish Soda Bread

About 25 years ago, I had a conversation about soda bread that changed my mind about it forever. Growing up, I thought soda bread was the closest thing to a doorstop and had no idea why anyone would eat it. When I mentioned this to the mother of my boyfriend at the time, she gave me her recipe. Hand-scratched on an index card, I have kept it ever since and have made it repeatedly.

Yes, it’s true. Many recipes make a dry result and Ireland is not the only country that makes one. Scotland, Australia, and even Poland and Serbia have their own versions. It’s a quick bread using baking soda as a leavening agent instead of yeast. Yeast needs time and a proper climate; this does not. No need for over-mixing or kneading the dough. Throw it together and pop it in the oven. Done!

The bread often calls for dried fruits, nuts, and other ingredients. Some add buttermilk while others add melted butter or yogurt. In this recipe, the secret ingredient to making more of a cake-like product than a brittle brick is sour cream. The taste is soft and supple. If you like, you can even swap out the all purpose flour for cake flour. The end result is far richer than what you typically find at the supermarket.

You can toast it, serve it for breakfast, or even a dessert. Either way, this is a bread you can’t help but snack on little by little until it’s all gone.

Here’s the recipe:

2 c. all purpose flour

2/3 c. sugar

1 TB baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 tsp caraway seeds

2 c. sour cream

2 eggs, lightly beaten

4 TB butter, melted

½ c. golden raisins

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Sift flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir in seeds. Combine egg, sour cream, and butter in separate bowl. Add flour mixture to the sour cream mixture. Add raisins. Place in a greased 8” round pan. Bake for 50-60 minutes, although check at 45 minutes. You don’t want to over-bake.

Yields 1 loaf.

Belgian Waffles

After a trip to Brussels about four years ago, waffles will never be the same. Once you’ve had a Belgian waffle—and I mean a true Belgian waffle—you will never look back. Anything else is just a bland imposter. These puffy little beauties not only have the yeast to thank but the barge load of sugar in them. Honey and pearl sugar are the secret ingredients. (I add the pearl sugar to this recipe as a true Belgian addition. You can delete it if you like and just add 2 teaspoons of granulated white sugar.)

Belgian waffles were originally introduced to the U.S. at an exposition in Seattle in 1962 and again in 1964 at the New York World’s Fair. Although, there are some accounts that discuss waffles coming to this country with Dutch settlers in the 1600s and even Thomas Jefferson had a hand in their introduction by bringing home a French waffle iron in the 1700s. Early German and Dutch waffle irons were made as far back as the thirteenth century and designed to be held over a hearth fire. 

Waffles are often served as a breakfast food or a dessert with confectioner’s sugar, chocolate spread, fruit compote, or just plain butter and maple syrup. The waffles you can buy on any street corner in Belgium are utterly delectable and sticky-sweet all by themselves. Condiments are completely unnecessary.

The only downside is that they should be made a day ahead, which for most people is not an option for a busy weekday morning. So they tend to be the kind of thing you make on lazy weekend mornings or for special occasions. But they are most definitely worth the effort. For a quick version, the yeast is often swapped out for baking soda. But this recipe calls for both. I used Ina Garten’s Overnight Belgian Waffle recipe and it rocks!

2 c. lukewarm milk (90-100 degrees F)

1 stick unsalted butter, melted

2 TB honey

1 TB pearl sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 ¼ tsp kosher salt

2 c. flour

2 extra large eggs

¼ tsp baking soda

½ c. warm water (110-115 degrees F)

1 pkg active dry yeast

The night before, combine the water, yeast, and sugar in a large bowl as the batter will expand. Allow it to stand for about 5 minutes until frothy. Stir in the milk, butter, honey, vanilla and salt. Add the flour and whisk until smooth. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow it to sit overnight at a cool room temperature. The next morning, beat the eggs with the baking soda and add it to the mixture before baking on a waffle iron. Be sure to coat your iron with cooking spray so your waffles don’t stick. Serve and enjoy! 

Mayonnaise

When most people think of mayonnaise, a jar of Hellman’s is sure to pop up. It’s easy to just grab one and stick it in your shopping cart. The concept of making it yourself seems tedious and unnecessary. But in actuality, it’s just as easy as making any other sauce or dressing.

The key—according to Ina Garten, Alton Brown, Julia Child, or any other great chef—is having ingredients that are room temperature. That is especially true for the eggs. Americans keep their eggs in the refrigerator while Europeans happily keep their eggs on the countertop. Even European supermarkets have them in the dry goods section and not refrigerated. That may be because they use them more often in recipes or they just like the fuller taste of the egg when it’s not cold.

To be fair, if you’re going to use your eggs frequently, it’s probably just fine to leave them out. But if you don’t use them all the time for breakfast, lunch and dinner, then keeping them in the fridge is probably the best spot.

But when it comes to mayonnaise, Americans view it as a condiment right up there with mustard and ketchup. Sure, it can be. But the French, in particular, view it as an elegant sauce. The flavor is bright with the acidic touch of lemon and the texture is silky smooth.

“Mayonnaise like hollandaise is a process of forcing egg yolks to absorb a fatty substance, oil in this case,” Julia Child is quoted as saying, “and to hold it in thick and creamy suspension.”

It is an emulsion in which the oil you use becomes the predominant flavor, so be careful to choose something neutral. Unless of course, you want a different kind of flavor. In that case, you may want to balance three parts of a nutty or fruity oil with one part neutral.

And that’s the thing about mayonnaise: it’s a base for so many other flavors. Add garlic, it’s aioli. Add basil and Parmesan, it’s a crudité dip. Add Dijon, capers, and cornichons, it’s a rémoulade. Add tomato and roasted red pepper, it’s a Sauce Andalouse. Curry. Saffron. Horseradish! The possibilities are endless.

Of all the recipes you can sift through—like Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which devotes an entire section to “The Mayonnaise Family”—the following recipe is probably the one I like the best. (Thank you, Martha Stewart.)

Here you go:

2 large egg yolks

1 tsp. Dijon mustard

4 tsp. lemon juice

1 c. vegetable oil

salt and pepper to taste

You can whisk, blend, or place in a food processor. Pulse yolks, mustard, and lemon juice until thoroughly combined. Add oil slowly in steady stream. (If using a processor or blender, keep it running as you add the oil. If whisking, keep it going until the color turns a soft yellow and the consistency nicely thickens.) Season with salt and pepper. Can be refrigerated and kept for up to one week.

(Note: I felt the recipe was a touch thick. If you’d like to thin it out, you can add a little more lemon juice or white wine vinegar.)