As an Irish-Canadian walking stereotype, I’ve gotta say – St. Patrick’s Day is my favorite holiday. For my March recipe, what could be more appropriate than an Irish recipe?
Well, Irish Canadian, anyway. Colcannon is a very traditional Irish dish — and if you search for it online, the recipes you’ll find are pretty much all in the Irish style. Traditional Irish colcannon is essentially mashed potatoes with kale or cabbage mixed in, sometimes with leeks. You add butter and cream, season it a bit, and it’s generally a pretty good thing. It’s very much an autumn thing, and is particularly associated with Halloween.
This recipe is not Irish style. This is one of the many ways that they make colcannon on the heavily-Irish east coast of Canada. Where the Irish style is fairly simple, with only a couple of ingredients. Newfoundland style incorporates many more kinds of vegetables, sometimes some meat, etc. The friend I learned this from used heavy cream in hers, I prefer to use sour cream.
For me, colcannon is one of those non-recipe recipes. I cut up veggies, eyeballing it as I go. When I mash them and add the remaining ingredients, everything is instinctual — you should feel free to view this recipe with some flexibility. If you don’t like rutabagas, leave them out. Big fan of parsnips? Add more. Feel free to tinker with amounts or proportions of the ingredients, as you see fit. It’s a very free form recipe!
When all is said and done, this recipe is essentially a very rich, very flavorful version of mashed potatoes — and it makes a large pot worth!
East-Coast Canadian/Newfoundland Style Colcannon
1 green cabbage
1 large rutabaga
1-2 lbs parsnips
2 lbs carrots
5 lbs potatoes (Yukon gold or red)
1 cup butter
1 and 1/2 cups sour cream
2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
Remove outer leaves from cabbage. Chop into small pieces, discarding center “core.” Peel rutabaga, parsnips, carrots, and potatoes, chop into smallish chunks.
Place all prepared vegetables into a large stock pot, cover with water, and boil on medium heat for about 2 hours, or until each type of vegetable will mash easily.
Working in batches, run vegetables through a food processor, beat in a stand mixer, or mash by hand until mixture is smooth.
Chop butter into smaller cubes, add to still-hot mash of vegetables along with the sour cream. Stir until butter is melted, and cream fully incorporated into the mash. Stir in salt and pepper, check taste. Add more salt and/or pepper if desired.
Serve as-is, or pour into baking pans, cover with foil, and bake for 30 minutes at 350. We usually don’t get this far - the aroma of the colcannon boiling for 2 hours usually has us pretty rabid (and low on patience!) by the time we get to the mashing step - forget the additional wait of putting it in the oven!
This recipe freezes well. Just pack into containers, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and cover with tight lid.
Marie Porter is an award winning baker, and the author of two cookbooks. She has been residing in North Minneapolis since early 2011, along with her husband and four cats. Check out additional recipes on her food/lifestyle blog at www.celebrationgeneration.com.