🍀🍀🍀 I’ve been loving my recent forays into bread baking and now I feel like I have another notch in my belt: Parsley and Poppy Seed Irish Soda Bread. The perfect addition to any St Paddy’s gathering!
I’m going to miss jumping on the New Jersey St Patrick’s Day bandwagon, I always thought it was such a fun holiday. But it’s hardly celebrated in Germany at all (unless I’m very set in my intentions and I go searching for an Irish Pub, which I’m sure there are enough of!). But maybe I’ll blame some of the mess in my house on a leprechaun, leave some chocolate coins out and dye the loo water green, I know my kids would love it!
But back to the bread. Listen, if I can do it, so can you! Soda bread is easy peasy, no yeast or peskily precarious rising time and proper temperatures
involved. You mix, you dump the dough out, you bake. Done. 👊 This one is made with chopped parsley for lovely pops of color and the poppy seeds add a wonderful texture. The recipe, which I found on @bbcgoodfood, originally called for dill, but dill is by a mile my least favorite herb (uh-oh, don’t @ me, dill lovers!), and that’s how the parsley came into play. So good with a generous dab of salted butter, excellent with springtime soup or as a side for your corned beef. Sláinte! 🍻🥃 xoxo Donata 🍀🍀🍀
Ingredients
1 3/4 cups (400ml) milk
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 3/4 cups (350g) plain flour, plus extra for dusting
19 tbsp (5 oz, 140g) wholemeal flour
3,5 tbsp (50g) butter, straight from the fridge
1 tsp caster sugar
2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
handful chopped flat leaf parsley leaves
2 tbsp poppy seeds
Instructions
Heat oven to 400 F (200 C) and put a flat baking sheet in the oven to heat. Mix the milk with the lemon juice in a jug to sour it. Tip the flours into a large bowl and rub in the butter with your fingertips until it resembles fine crumbs.
Stir in the remaining dry ingredients and the parsley (saving some of the poppy seeds for the top), then make a well in the centre and pour in 350ml of the soured milk. With your hand, or a wooden spoon, draw the dry ingredients into the wet to make a very soft, quite sticky dough. Add the rest of the liquid if you need to. Be careful not to overwork the dough as this will make your loaf tough.
Lightly flour the work surface and tip the dough onto it. With well-floured hands, roughly shape into a round, then turn the dough over to reveal its smoother side. Sprinkle a little flour over the hot baking sheet, then lift the dough onto it. Press down slightly, giving a flattened, roundish loaf about two fingertips deep. Using a sharp, non-serrated knife, slash a cross deeply into the top of the dough.
Scatter with the rest of the poppy seeds, then bake for 25-30 mins until well risen and deep golden. Give it a tap on the bottom - it should sound hollow. Cool for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. To serve, cut into quarters along the lines of the cross, then slice and lightly toast.
Recipe from Good Food magazine, October 2006
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/dill-poppy-seed-soda-bread