Traditional Irish Christmas Feast
Meat and Potatoes, Bread and Cake, Root Veggies and Aromatic Spices
Dec 16, 2007 Laura Harrison McBride
Irish cuisine is far more than taties—potatoes—and never more so than at Christmas. There are, however, only two main ingredients you’ll need to prepare or buy to make yours an authentic Irish Christmas dinner: Spiced beef and Christmas cake.
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In earlier times, spices were expensive and were used only on special occasions. In Roman Catholic Ireland, Christmas was a very special occasion. Christmas, the first sacred feast of the Church calendar year, was redolent of seasonal aromas and blessed with substantial fare. With the winter solstice just past, the nights were very long and dark when Christmas arrived. Houses had just been shuttered with the coming of the cold, keeping the delicious smells of cooking within. And it is reasonable to assume that after being out in the cold—tending to animals in a largely rural nation, or even traveling by horse or carriage (or the peasants, by foot)—coming in to a substantial, highly spiced meal was much to be desired.
Hot Spices, Cold Entree, and Cake, Too
A typical traditional Christmas meal would be Spiced Beef, some form of taties (naturally), a root vegetable, and a Christmas Cake. The beef and the cake shared many ingredients, including pepper and the fact that both were made fare in advance of the day, and eaten cold. The hot portion of the meal would have been the potatoes and vegetables, perhaps a nice loaf of soda bread hot from the oven or bastible, and warmed ale or wine.
A bastible was an iron pot oven that could be hung from a hook over an open fire, such as the typical farmhouse kitchen fireplace/hearth in earlier times in Ireland. The pot was invented, however, in Devon, England, according to Irish cookery teacher Darina Allen. Most of the Irish, except the very wealthy, burned turf and not logs in their hearths. Each piece of turf was about the size of a large brick, and, when it burned, broke apart. Bits would be placed on top of the bastible’s lid, as well a heaped beneath, to create the heat needed for baking.
Menu for an Irish Christmas Dinner
In any case, here’s a menu for a traditional Irish Christmas dinner:
- Spiced Beef, accompanied by various store-bought chutneys
- Braised cabbage
- Potatoes in the Irish way
- Soda bread
- Christmas Cake
How to Make Spiced Beef
Here’s a simple recipe for Spiced Beef:
- Blend well 1 cup sugar, ¾ c. salt, 1/3 c. whole black pepper, 1/3 cup allspice, ½ c. juniper berries (or ¼ cup mixed mace and ground cloves.
- Apply to a trimmed and washed chuck, round of beef brisket by rubbing it in.
- Put roast in an earthenware or glass dish and leave for four to seven days, turning occasionally.
- To cook, cover with cold water and simmer for 2-3 hours until fully cooked.
- Pack it into a large bread pan and let it cool, weighted down, for at least 12 hours before cutting into thin slices and serving. While you may want to allow the beef to cool slightly, for perhaps half an hour, at room temperature in order not to raise the temperature in your refrigerator, the rest of the cooling should be done in the refrigerator.
Boiled Potatoes in the Irish Way
- To make the potatoes, boil 2-3 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes until just tender. Drain.
- Return potatoes to pot and cut in half while in pot if possible.
- Add half a stick of butter, salt and pepper to taste, several sprigs of snipped rosemary, and stir.
- Cover pot with folded linen tea towel and place lid on top of that.
- Allow to rest for about ten minutes before serving.
If you aren’t keen on cooking soda bread in a bastible, you can bake it in the oven. Or, you can often find it for sale in specialty food shops in cities with large Irish populations.
Sources for Christmas Cake
- Christmas Cake, a week-long production if you make it yourself, can easily be purchased by mail order from a company that can supply a variety of tasty, typically Irish foods. That company offers a Tea Time Christmas Cake, complete with raisins, currants, almonds, brown sugar and spices, for $14.99 plus shipping.
- A British company, the English Tea Store, also offers suitable cakes. Theirs, made in the same manner as the Irish cakes with fruit, nuts, brown sugar and spices, range from $11.95 for the Beverly Manor style, to $26.34 for the Bronte Luxury Cake.
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