Irish Soups

Irish Soup Recipes

I have found when any visitors I have had come to Ireland, they always ask me for some of my Irish Soup Recipes. In particular, they seem very interested in the very traditional Irish Soup recipes. There are in my opinion three very traditional soups that are well known and popular In Ireland. These are:

• Irish potato soup recipes
• Irish vegetable soup recipes
• Irish chicken soup recipes

As any society develops so does their food culture but in my opinion not everything should be changed, and these soups are in that bracket for me. The onslaught of cookery programs on TV has almost forced chefs to find their own twist even with a simple soup. Frequently these days cream is added and blended with cream then drizzled on top to add effect, and lots of sprinkling with parsley seems to be a standard. I like taste and I like natural traditional tastes so I have added nothing fancy to these traditional Irish soup recipes so I hope you try them out and I hope you enjoy the wholesome taste.

Irish Potato Soup

Ingredients

5 large potatoes, 2 pints of vegetable stock, 1 onion, 1 turnip, 1 carrot, 2 celery sticks

1/2 pint of milk (or cream) 1 ounce of butter, 1 tablespoon of tapioca.

How To Cook

Clean and peel the potatoes and then thinly slice. Melt the butter in the saucepan and add the potatoes and cook for 5 minutes. Add the vegetable stock and bring to the boil.

Dice the onion, turnip, carrot and celery and add along with salt and pepper. Cook for a further 30 minutes.

Blend the soup and return to the saucepan. Add the tapioca and return to the heat for around 15 minutes. Add the cream and stir in slowly. You should now have a very tasty Irish Potato Soup

Irish Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

4 pints of vegetable stock, 2 onions, 1 carrot, 1 parsnip, 2 sticks of celery, 1/2lb of barley, 2 lbs of dried peas, 1 small turnip, salt and pepper to season

How To Cook

Dice all the vegetables. Put the stock into a saucepan and boil and then add in the vegetables, Cook the vegetables until they go soft and add salt and pepper to taste.

You can sprinkle with either chopped parsley or chopped thyme for appearance.

Irish Chicken Soup

Ingredients

1 chicken carcass

1 medium sized onion

1 pint/600ml of milk

1 chicken stock cube

4 tablespoons of boiling water

4 tablespoons of cold water

1 tablespoon of cornflour

A pinch of nutmeg

100g/4ox chopped chicken

1 Bay leaf

1 clove

Cooking Method

Break up the carcass and put into the saucepan and then put in a bay leaf and a clove. Dice an onion and add this. Dissolve a stock cube with boiling water in a small jug and add this and allow simmering for 20 minutes.

Strain and return to the saucepan. Then mix the cornflour with cold water to make a smooth paste and add to the saucepan. Bring to the boil and it should by now have thickened. Finally add nutmeg and the chopped chicken and simmer for about 30 minutes with the lid on. Finally add salt and pepper to taste.

I hope you enjoy giving these a try. They are best eaten with Irish wheaten bread.