Saint Patrick's Day 2014: Chef's recipes to help paint the town green

Are you planning a special meal to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day? Then take inspiration from some of these chef’s recipes, inspired by Irish dishes and ingredients. What will you be making?

Parlour’s Famous Soda Bread
This recipe comes from Jesse Dunford Wood, owner and head chef at Parlour in Kensal Rise, London. Makes about six small loaves.

Ingredients
375g plain flour
125g porridge oats
15g salt
15g bicarbonate of soda
30g soft brown sugar
375g buttermilk
50g black treacle

Method
Mix together the ingredients to form a dough. Dust with flour and cut into quarters. Cut deep, spray with water, then dust heavily with flour. Bake at 220ºC in an oven with a low fan setting - or better still, no fan, so the flour doesn’t get blown off, for 17 minutes.

The dough can be stored in the fridge for up to 5 days to be baked when needed.

Menthol Molly Cocktail
This St. Patrick’s Day cocktail was devised by Steve Manktelow from Goat Chelsea and the Chelsea Prayer Room. Serves 1.

Ingredients
50ml Tullamore Dew Irish Whiskey
20ml fresh lemon juice
20ml sugar syrup
dash of egg white
2 dashes Fee Brothers Mint Bitters

Method
Add all ingredients to a Boston shaker and shake hard, with cubed ice. Serve straight up, garnished with a fresh mint leaf.

[10 of the best jacket potato recipes]

[Forget red wine, have beer with your steak]

Haché’s Smoking St Patrick’s Day Burger
Haché burgers have devised this beef burger, served with caramelised onions, bacon and beer cheese. You make the beer cheese just like you make the cheese for Welsh Rarebit, and you can either spread it when warm or leave it to cool and slice. In the restaurant, they serve it sliced and then melted under the grill.

Ingredients
For the burgers:
24 oz ground beef (steak or chuck)
2 eggs
salt / pepper to taste
1 tbsp chopped rosemary
1 tbsp chopped thyme
2 large cloves of garlic, roasted and mashed

For the beer cheese
50g/2oz flour
50g/2oz butter
250ml/9oz Guinness beer 
250g/9oz strong cheddar, grated
2 tsp English mustard powder
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
black pepper

For the coleslaw
3 -4 tbs white wine vinegar
1 tbs sugar
2 tbs coarse mustard
mayonnaise
2 tbs smoked liquid
1kg coleslaw mix ( cabbage and carrots ) 
chopped dill - just a touch for taste
chopped parsley
salt and pepper to taste

Method
To make the burgers, mix the beef, eggs, sea salt, rosemary, thyme and garlic until combined. Divide into four 6oz burgers and flatten gently.
Arrange in a large skillet and cook over a medium heat for about 4 minutes per side, or until cooked to your liking.
To make the beer cheese, combine the ingredients, heating it up just like when you make a Welsh Rarebit. Place in a container and cool, slicing like a cheese or use as a spread when warm.
Combine the ingredients for the coleslaw and serve the burger on a brioche bun with the beer cheese, smoky coleslaw and a squirt of ketchup.

The Garrison’s Colcannon Hash
The Garrison Public House on Bermondsey Street, London will be serving up this rich and hearty Colcannon Hash for St Patrick’s Day. If you want to make it at home, they recommend using a roasting potato such as a King Edward or Rooster and tell us ‘if you want to be really sinful, use a bit of pork fat.’

Ingredients
500g Potatoes
200g curly Kale
4 Spring onions, finely chopped
Parsley finely chopped
Thyme, Rosemary 1 Bay leaf
80g Butter
Splash of Double Cream or Milk
Salt and cracked black Pepper
 
Method
Peel and dice the potatoes and put them in a pan. Cover them with water and add the thyme, rosemary and bay leaf, and enough salt to make the water taste a little salty, and bring to the boil.
 
After 10-15 minutes when potatoes are getting soft in the middle, drain them and leave the to cool and dry out in the colander.
 
Place a frying pan on a high heat, and cook off the kale (for about 1 ½ minutes) in a little butter (don’t season). Remove from the pan and set aside.
 
When the pan is back up to a good heat add a good amount of cooking oil (or pork fat) to the pan and throw in the dry boiled potatoes. If the pan is too cold or there is not enough oil, the potato will stick and you won’t get any nice Crispy bits! If the pan is too small, you can also cook the potato off in batches.
 
After you have coloured and crisped your potato throw in the cooked kale, most of the cut spring onion, parsley, some more butter and a splash of milk or cream, to bring it all together.
 
Adjust the seasoning with lots of cracked black pepper, serve and garnish with the rest of the spring onion.
 
Scoff it all down, sat in front of the hearth, accompanied by a pint of Stout. Get yourself to bed, and leave the washing up until the morning.
 
How will you be celebrating St. Patrick’s Day? Let us know on Twitter.