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Northern Irish cuisine encompasses the cooking styles, traditions and recipes associated with Northern Ireland. It has distinctive attributes of its own, but has also drawn heavily from Irish and British cuisines.
Northern Ireland's culinary heritage has its roots in the staple diet of generations of farming families: bread and potatoes. [1] Historically, limited availability of ingredients and low levels of immigration resulted in restricted variety and relative isolation from wider international culinary influences.[ citation needed ]
Recent decades have seen significant developments in the local cuisine, characterised by an increase in the variety, quantity and quality of gastropubs and restaurants. There are currently three Michelin-starred restaurants in Northern Ireland, all of which specialise in traditional dishes made using local ingredients. [2]
Northern Irish cuisine received international attention in March 2018 when it was reported that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had Irish stew and sausage with champ for lunch at the Crown Liquor Saloon during a tour of Belfast. [3]
Ardglass potted herring is found in butcher's shops and fish traders. It is herring that is marinated in vinegar, rolled with bay leaf and baked with breadcrumbs.
Potato bread is a flat bread prepared with potato, flour, and buttermilk. [4] It is cooked on a griddle. [4]
Soda bread is one of Northern Ireland's griddle breads; it can be eaten straightaway, or cooked until golden in an Ulster fry. They are sometimes eaten with butter and homemade jam, or with savoury food such as smoked salmon, fresh fried eel, or thick dry-cured bacon.
Soda bread is a soft, thick and fluffy bread. It was first baked in the 1800s in Ireland, and local people used baking soda to cause the dough to rise. It is typically served with an Ulster fry. [4]
Wheaten bread is a brown bread made with whole wheat flour which also uses baking soda as a rising agent. It is often sweetened in contrast to the savoury white soda bread. [4]
Veda bread is a small, soft, caramel-colored, malted loaf, typically eaten as a slice with a cup of tea. Veda is often toasted and/or served with butter or margarine.
A soft tray bake cake which gets its name from using fifteen of each main ingredient (marshmallows, digestive biscuits, cherries).
Boxty, mainly found in County Fermanagh, is a weighty, starchy potato cake made with a 50:50 mix of cooked mashed potatoes and grated, strained, raw potato. The most common variety is boiled boxty, also known as hurley, a large round loaf which is boiled whole for several hours, allowed to rest and then sliced and fried, often with bacon.
Champ is made with potatoes mashed with milk and chopped scallions. [4]
A vegetable soup made throughout Ulster contains carrots, celery, thin leeks and parsley, thickened with red lentils and barley. Packets of these six ingredients are often sold together as “soup veg”. [4]
Dulse is a seaweed snack food. Originally, it was harvested by fishermen for income supplementation when fishing was meager. [4]
Pasties are made from a mixture of sausage meat, onions, and mashed potato, shaped like a burger and spiced with black pepper. They can be ordered battered from most chip shops.
The best known traditional dish in Northern Ireland is the Ulster fry. An Ulster fry, although not originally particularly associated with breakfast time, has in recent decades been marketed as Northern Ireland's version of a cooked breakfast. It is distinguishable from a full breakfast by its griddle breads—soda bread and potato bread, fried (or occasionally grilled) until crisp and golden, and sometimes also includes small pancakes. Bacon, sausages, an egg, and (as a modern development) tomato and sometimes mushrooms complete the dish. It is usually served with tea and toast.
Yellowman is a crunchy golden confectionery and looks a bit like honeycomb. It is mainly sold at fairs and markets.
Gravy is a sauce often made from the juices of meats that run naturally during cooking and often thickened with corn starch or other thickeners for added texture. The gravy may be further coloured and flavoured with gravy salt or gravy browning or ready-made cubes. Powders can be used as a substitute for natural meat or vegetable extracts. Canned and instant gravies are also available. Gravy is commonly served with roasts, meatloaf, rice, noodles, chips (fries), mashed potatoes, or biscuits.
Hungarian or Magyar cuisine is the cuisine characteristic of the nation of Hungary, and its primary ethnic group, the Magyars. Hungarian cuisine has been described as being the spiciest cuisine in Europe. This can largely be attributed to the use of their piquant native spice, Hungarian paprika, in many of their dishes. A mild version of the spice, Hungarian sweet paprika, is commonly used as an alternative. Traditional Hungarian dishes are primarily based on meats, seasonal vegetables, fruits, bread, and dairy products.
A pancake is a flat cake, often thin and round, prepared from a starch-based batter that may contain eggs, milk and butter and cooked on a hot surface such as a griddle or frying pan, often frying with oil or butter. It is a type of batter bread. Archaeological evidence suggests that pancakes were probably eaten in prehistoric societies.
A scone is a traditional British baked good, popular in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is usually made of either wheat flour or oatmeal, with baking powder as a leavening agent, and baked on sheet pans. A scone is often slightly sweetened and occasionally glazed with egg wash. The scone is a basic component of the cream tea. It differs from teacakes and other types of sweets that are made with yeast. Scones were chosen as the Republic of Ireland representative for Café Europe during the Austrian presidency of the European Union in 2006, while the United Kingdom chose shortbread.
Meatloaf is a dish of ground meat that has been combined with other ingredients and formed into the shape of a loaf, then baked or smoked. The final shape is either hand-formed on a baking tray, or pan-formed by cooking it in a loaf pan. It is usually made with ground beef, although ground lamb, pork, veal, venison, poultry, and seafood are also used, sometimes in combination. Vegetarian adaptations of meatloaf may use imitation meat or pulses.
Polish cuisine is a style of food preparation originating in and widely popular in Poland. Due to Poland's history, Polish cuisine has evolved over the centuries to be very eclectic, and shares many similarities with other national cuisines. Polish cooking in other cultures is often referred to as à la polonaise.
Soda bread is a variety of quick bread traditionally made in a variety of cuisines in which sodium bicarbonate is used as a leavening agent instead of the traditional yeast. The ingredients of traditional soda bread are flour, baking soda, salt, and buttermilk. The buttermilk in the dough contains lactic acid, which reacts with the baking soda to form tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide. Other ingredients can be added, such as butter, egg, raisins, or nuts. An advantage of quick breads is their ability to be prepared quickly and reliably, without requiring the time-consuming skilled labor and temperature control needed for traditional yeast breads.
A crumpet is a small griddle bread made from an unsweetened batter of water or milk, flour, and yeast, popular in the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia.
Dutch cuisine is formed from the cooking traditions and practices of the Netherlands. The country's cuisine is shaped by its location in the fertile North Sea river delta of the European Plain, giving rise to fishing, farming and overseas trade. Due to the availability of water and flat grassland, the Dutch diet contains many dairy products, such as cheese and butter, and is relatively high in carbohydrates and fat.
Boxty is a traditional Irish potato pancake. The dish is mostly associated with the north midlands, north Connacht and southern Ulster, in particular the counties of Leitrim, Mayo, Sligo, Fermanagh, Longford, and Cavan. There are many recipes but all contain finely grated, raw potatoes and all are served fried.
Potato bread is a form of bread in which potato flour or potato replaces a portion of the regular wheat flour. It is cooked in a variety of ways, including baking it on a hot griddle or pan, or in an oven. It may be leavened or unleavened, and may have a variety of other ingredients baked into it. The ratio of potato to wheat flour varies significantly from recipe to recipe, with some recipes having a majority of potato, and others having a majority of wheat flour. Some recipes call for mashed potatoes, with others calling for dehydrated potato flakes. It is available as a commercial product in many countries, with similar variations in ingredients, cooking methods, and other variables.
Czech cuisine has both influenced and been influenced by the cuisines of surrounding countries and nations. Many of the cakes and pastries that are popular in Central Europe originated within the Czech lands. Contemporary Czech cuisine is more meat-based than in previous periods; the current abundance of farmable meat has enriched its presence in regional cuisine. Traditionally, meat has been reserved for once-weekly consumption, typically on weekends.
A tattie scone or potato scone is a regional variant of the savoury griddle scone which is especially popular in Scotland. Many variations of the recipe exist. They generally include liberal quantities of boiled potatoes, butter and salt.
Potato cake is a name given to various shaped potato dishes around the world, including a patty of hashed potatoes, a fried patty of mashed potato, a fried and battered slice of potato, or a flatbread made with mashed potato and flour. In Northern England and some states in Australia, a thin slice of potato that is battered and deep fried may be called a potato scallop. In Australia and New Zealand, the terms potato cake, potato flip and potato fritter may be used.
A full breakfast is a substantial cooked breakfast meal, often served in Great Britain and Ireland. The typical ingredients are bacon, sausages, eggs, black pudding, baked beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, toast, fried bread and a beverage such as coffee or tea. Hash browns are a common contemporary but non-traditional inclusion. Ingredients may extend beyond these or include regional variants, which may often be referred to by different names depending on the area. While it is colloquially known as a "fry-up" in most areas of the United Kingdom and Ireland, it is usually referred to as a "full English", a "full Irish", "full Scottish", "full Welsh", and "Ulster fry", in England, the Republic of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, respectively.
Swabian cuisine is native to Swabia, a region in southwestern Germany comprising great parts of Württemberg and the Bavarian part of Swabia. Swabian cuisine has a reputation for being rustic, but rich and hearty. Fresh egg pastas, soups, and sausages are among Swabia's best-known types of dishes, and Swabian cuisine tends to require broths or sauces; dishes are rarely "dry".
Breakfast, the first meal of the day eaten after waking from the night's sleep, varies in composition and tradition across the world.
