Winter Wamers

I recently read an entire book about the potato. Yep, I'm that much of a food-dag! As you can imagine, the book was also heavy on Irish politics and agriculture throughout the centuries. It was actually a marvellous read and I highly recommend it to foodies and historians alike. Anyway anyway, the point of telling you about my spudly literary foray was that the book reminded me of one of my favourite dishes of all time. Colcannon. That hearty and nutritious peasant dish of yore that I had somehow neglected to include in my regular culinary repertoire. On these freezing winter nights, nothing is as comforting as a mess of fluffy creamy spuds laced with nutty cabbage and onion (and if you're a meatavore...bacon). The fact that this dish kept many an Irish peasant family alive and kicking is not that surprising, -potatoes are the unsung hero of the food world!, and cabbage isn't far behind. If you were a lucky Irish peasant you'd serve this with a hock of bacon or a side of mutton, if not, you'd still get plenty of nutrition from the Colcannon alone.

It should possibly be mentioned that my version of Colcannon is as 'hearty' as they come, but possibly a little higher in calories than the original peasant version, and as such should be treated as a 'sometimes' food..(unless you regularly indulge in peasanty activities like the plowin' o' the fields, the boilin' and thrashin' of the linens or the walkin' of the 5 miles into town..).
You can use a normal cabbage, a savoy, or a mixture of oddness (including broccoli greens) from your garden. It's also great with kale, but be careful of cooking times etc as kale needs a bit more blanching and carrying on than normal cabbage and you don't want to be ruining my chefness with horrible stringy kale-bits.

Ingredients


60g butter
4 tbsps plain flour
1/2L Soy Milk
4 tbsps onion flakes
1 tsp garlic powder

7-8 medium potatoes
1/2 a cabbage head
1 cup random extra greens (young broccoli leaves/kale/brussels sprouts)
1 1/2 cups grated tasty cheese
1/2 cup grated parmesan/romano

salt and pepper to taste

1. Make yourself up a good white sauce with the first set of ingredients. You know the deal, roux and gradually add milk blah blah, when you've got the desired consistency (a bit thicker than usual because cabbage is quite the watery old vegetable), add the onion flakes and the garlic powder.
2. Boil 'dem spuds in salted water until they're smushable, then add the cabbage and greens for 5 minutes until just tender. You could do this seperately, but I just remove the greens with tongs before draining the spuds and smushing them.
3. Smush spuds with a spud-smusher (no need to be all Masterchef about it, -just smush' em good), then mix through the greens. Pour the white/onion sauce over and mix like a peasant until everything's good and slushy.
4. Spoon most of it into a pyrex or ceramic baking dish and top with grated cheese and a drizzle of olive oil (especially if the 60g of butter just didn't seem like quite enough fat...)
5. Bake at 180 degrees for 30 minutes until cheese is all golden and bubble and a bit browny and crunchy on the sides.

Now, if I were a meatosaurus, I'd serve this with sausages or corned beef. As I'm a vegetable, I serve it with  Fry's patties and gravy, or good ol' Sanitarium soy sausages and gravy. And now I must be off. Blogging doesn't sit well with 6 week old babies who wish to be fed NOW!!