Dublin Coddle

In my search to find some good traditional Irish recipes to try over the past couple of weeks, I came across a dish called Dublin Coddle. If you're familiar with coddled eggs, which are cooked slowly and gently in a liquid just below the boiling point, you probably got the gist of this dish. Potatoes, onions, good pork sausage, and bacon are layered and cooked together gently to make a sort of stew that is basic - in the best of ways.

It's said that an Irish wife could leave a pot simmering on the stove for hours when she went to bed, that way it would be ready when her husband arrived home hungry from the pub. It's also one of those dishes that tastes better after sitting for a day, allowing all of the flavors to mingle and develop. A coddle was a good way to use up stray sausages and rashers of bacon on a Thursday in times when Catholics weren't supposed to eat meat on Fridays.