Dublin Lawyer (Lobster in Whiskey Cream Sauce) | #FishFridayFoodies

Welcome to the March installment of Fish Friday Foodies, where a group of bloggers gets together to share fish and seafood recipes. I'm hosting this month, and since today is St. Patrick's Day, I asked everybody to create Irish recipes, or recipes with an Irish lean.

Cabbage with Bacon and Cream

With St. Paddy's Day less than 3 weeks away, the Progressive Eats bloggers have come together this month to share a menu fit for the occassion. Whether  you want something traditional, something with an Irish twist, or something green—we've got some recipes that you're bound to enjoy!

Colcannon

It's pretty amazing how something as humble as a potato can produce one of the most beloved side dishes in the world. Who else lists mashed potatoes in their all-time favorite comfort foods? Served plain with butter and salt, enriched with cheese and cream, strewn with greens, punched with roasted garlic, or spread thick on top of minced meat—I love it all.

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.

Slow Cooker Corned Beef and Cabbage

It seems like corned beef and cabbage is the St. Patrick's Day equivalent to margaritas and burritos on Cinco de Mayo. So, Irish-American (or Mexican-American) food. I get, though...and it's not necessarily a bad thing. Growing up in a melting pot, we often grab on to symbolism and culture in only flashy, consumeristic way we know how.

I grew up in a country that uses Lucky Charms, four leaf clovers, Irish cream, green beer and spry little leprechauns to represent something that has nothing to do with any of those things. And while I've been told that I have a sliver of Irish in me, that was the extent of it. I knew nothing about my Irish roots (or my German, Bohemian - as in Czech, or Cherokee ones, either).

Bubble and Squeak

Traditionally Bubble and Squeak is made using the leftover vegetables from a roast. Often times the meat is cut into bits and fried up with the veg, others times, it's served alongside. If you don't happen to have any leftover veggies from a roast, you can still enjoy a wedge of this hearty comfort food by starting from scratch.

Although I used brussels sprouts, you could use shredded cabbage if that's what you had on hand. If you have leftover mashed potatoes, feel free to use those in place of the plain boiled potatoes. You might wonder why I used duck fat AND pork in this recipe. The simple reason is because I had both and wanted to use both up. Duck fat adds excellent flavor, but you can definitely substitute extra bacon grease or butter if you don't have any hanging out in your fridge like I do.

Irish Barmbrack

Although I have a soft spot for Irish food (and Ireland in general), it usually takes the thought of March on the horizon and the imminent arrival of St. Paddy's Day before I consciously think about cooking up some traditional food...triggering a towering stack of Irish cookbooks, old photos and notes from my trip to Ireland, and endless internet scouting.

I have a few Irish foods ready to share over the next couple of weeks, starting today with a loaf of Irish Barmbrack as part of Twelve Loaves (our theme is Irish Breads). The word barm comes from beorma, an old English word that means yeasty fermented liquor, while brack (or brac) is the Irish word for speckled. And so it is a yeasty bread that is speckled with dried fruit, and often candied peel. It's also known by the names Barnbrack, Báirín Breac, Boreen brack, Bawreen brack, or simply brack.

Irish Porter Cake inspired by The Quiet Man | #FoodnFlix

This month's Food 'n Flix pick is an oldie, originally released back in 1952, starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara—The Quiet Man. This flick is set in the fictional town of Innisfree, Ireland...not to be confused with the isle of Innisfree, an actual place made famous in a poem by William Butler Yates, located on Ireland's western coast.

Our main character, Sean Thornton, is an Irishman by decent, although he grew up in Pittsburgh. Looking to start over (I won't tell you why—I'll let you watch the movie to find out), he leaves the states and moves to this Irish town that he's known only through his mother's stories.

Though not particularly a foodie movie, there is plenty of inspiration to be had. First of all, it's March—and the movie is set in Ireland (exactly why I'm sharing this post on St. Paddy's Day). But even if it wasn't the month where everybody taps into their inner Irish, I would have went the same route. I can't think of Ireland without fond memories...from divided plots of land in all shades of green with sheep roaming freely to the whiskey distilleries and many glasses of beer to the breathtaking cliffs of the Giant's Causeway to the brown bread—Ireland will forever be a part of me.

Matcha Shamrock Shortbread Cookies

We're baaaaaack—I'm so excited to be spending time in the kitchen with my good friend Leslie from La Cocina de Leslie again (finally) for another edition of she made, ella hace! I don't know how it happened, but somehow SEVEN months has gone by since we last did a little kitchen collaboration. I tell you, time only goes faster with each passing year.

Since it's March, we decided to get in the Irish spirit and choose GREEN as our theme, in honor of both St. Paddy's Day and the start of Spring. I was totally down with this idea, because I'd been sitting on a bag of Matcha Green Tea Powder for a couple of months, just waiting for the right time to use it. Using it as a natural way to infuse green into some shortbread cookies shaped like shamrocks couldn't be more fitting.

This shortbread dough is perfectly buttery and delicate, flecked with tiny bits of almond, and the delicate taste of green tea lies subtley underneath. My oldest son and I are the shortbread lovers (total understatement) in the house, and we've both declared that these are our current favorites. We'll be making them throughout the year...shaped like shamrocks for St. Paddy's Day, leaves for the start of spring, pine trees for Christmas...or just plain slice-and-bake if no "special" shape seems to fit.