Irish Colcannon

As St. Patrick's Day is approaching, I thought I'd cook something Irish and ideally green. After a while of browsing vegetarian, or potentially vegetarian, Irish recipes I found Colcannon (Irish: cál ceannann "white-headed cabbage"). However I didn't use cabbage for this recipe, but thought that kale would nicely update the dish into a more modern version. Also the cabbages at my local shop were so white that no green would've been to be seen. This organic kale was just perfect for the purpose. After having read a few traditional Colcannon recipes, I decided my ingredients and started cooking.

I once spent St. Patrick's Day in Dublin, but missed the parade, as I found a nice pub quite early on the day with my friend. We could see some of the parade on television in the pub (!) when it was just a few metres away outside... and then when we decided to leave the pub, the parade had passed our point and only piles of rubbish were left on the streets. Oh well, it was a fun experience nevertheless. Needless to say that we then continued to another pub. I still like to tell the story, which is possibly still a bit funnier than actually having watched the parade. And now after this interlude, to the cooking of the dish.

Ingredients

1 kg potatoes

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

3 leeks

180 g kale

50 g butter

100 ml dry cider

150 g mature cheddar

Salt and pepper to taste

On the side: 6 Cumberland veggie sausages + olive oil for frying + salad

Method

Peel the potatoes, boil them until soft and then mash. Chop the onion and garlic finely and cut the leeks into thin slices.

Start cooking the onion, garlic and leeks in butter until they are soft. Then add the kale and cook until it's wilted a little. Add the cider and let it mostly evaporate. Then also add the grated cheddar and season with salt and pepper. Combine the mash with the leek and kale mix and serve.

If you also want to serve veggie sausages on the side, fry them in olive oil until browned. Also prepare any side salad that you want to serve with the dish. I chose to serve just mixed salad leaves on the side.

In all its greenness I also want to submit this dish to this month's Eat Your Greens challenge. This is a vegetarian cooking challenge for dishes using green vegetables by Shaheen from A2K - A Seasonal Veg Table. 

Enjoy the dish and happy St. Patrick's Day next week!

Your VegHog