Recipe: Boxty pancakes and bacon for St Brigid's Day

The traditional skillet-dish made with potato, butter and flour – and served with lakes of butter and sometimes sugar – is perfect with bacon rashers and eggs.

St Brigid is Ireland's foodie saint. One of the nation's three patron saints and the most associated with food (particularly farming and dairying), the Irish celebrate her for the first time this year with a new public holiday on 6 February.

St Brigid's Day itself, also known as Imbolc or Óimelg, falls on 1 February marking the beginning of spring in the ancient Celtic calendar. Associated with miraculous abundance of food and a powerful figure in Irish pre-Christian folklore, Brigid was brought under the church and proclaimed a saint.

The mixing of Celtic and Christian observances isn't unusual in Ireland. The tradition of making, sharing and eating boxty pancakes, or bacstaí, a traditional potato dish cooked on St Brigid's Day is influenced by both religions, creating a celebratory association unique to its food culture. Hailing from the north-western counties of Leitrim, Cavan, Fermanagh and Mayo, the traditional skillet-dish akin to a pancake is made with potato, milk and flour – and served with lakes of butter and sometimes a scattering of sugar as a treat for children. It was a dish reserved for eating on special feast days, and Brigid's Day was celebrated with equal fervour to Christmas Day.

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Irish folklore associated with St Brigid focused on the dawn of a new dairying season, filled with anticipation for the valuable milk and butter to come, persisting well into the mid-20th Century. There was great excitement for the day, and homemade butter made from fresh morning milk was a common practice served generously with piles of boxty.

For all its intimate connection with Irish history and its people, the potato, boxty's core ingredient, is a relative newcomer. Potatoes arrived with Sir Walter Raleigh in 1589 from the Americas into the town of Youghal on the eastern shore of County Cork where he once lived; long after Christianity had taken root and elevated Brigid from high priestess of agriculture to an important saintly figurehead.

Yet, Ireland made the potato its own, subsuming it into the national cuisine in myriad ways. Floury (or starchy) potatoes, have a particular affinity with Ireland's rich dairy culture of milk, butter, cream and buttermilk that Brigid was celebrated for, used lavishly and with relish. 

Pádraic Óg Gallagher is the owner of Gallagher's Boxty House located in Temple Bar, Dublin, serving their specialty Boxty Pancakes since 1988. Hailing from Mohill in County Leitrim, Óg Gallagher re eating boxty for Friday tea every week.

"I was reared on boxty, and there are as many recipes for it as there are houses in the parish," he said. "We had it on its own; just a load of boxty for your tea and lash the butter on!"

To make good boxty, you need a good floury potato. At Gallagher's Boxty House, Rooster is the spud of choice, although Navan and Maris Piper are good contenders.

"Boxty is a very simple dish, just grated raw potato, flour, milk and seasoning, but it's important to extract the starch out of the raw potato," he said. Extracting the starch dries out the potato to give the boxty a crisp golden finish when cooked in butter. Gather it up into a clean cloth and keep twisting until all the starch has come out. "Years ago," he said, "people kept the starch for ironing shirts – nothing ever went to waste."

Óg Gallagher's Boxty Pancake recipe makes use of leftover mashed potato combined with grated potato, milk and flour that's perfect with golden bacon rashers and eggs with sunny yolks.

Crisp on the outside and comforting on the inside like only potatoes, milk and butter can be, the boxty can be eaten straight from the skillet. Or made ahead, allowed to rest and reheated with even more salty butter.

Brigid's powers extend to brewing and distilling, and Óg Gallagher prefers his boxty with a pint of Jack Smyth's Stout from the Boxty House's own microbrewery. But pairing the dish with Irish whiskey is an integral part of the St Brigid Day's festivities.

Santina Kennedy is the food and beverage specialist at Powerscourt Distillery in County Wicklow, which makes Fercullen Falls Irish Whiskey, and she's ionate about the food and folklore of St Brigid.

"Fercullen Falls, with its flavours of orchard fruit, malt spice and pepper, is the first whiskey distilled in County Wicklow for over 100 years," said Kennedy. "It beautifully complements boxty, dissolving its crisp edge to reveal a soft yet textured centre, and meeting Ireland's other liquid gold – butter. Melting salty pools on hot boxty crust creates a delicious mouthfeel of cream and malt."

There's an Irish saying: An rud nach leigheasann im ná uisce beatha níl aon leigheas air (What butter or whiskey do not cure, cannot be cured).

Sláinte, agus Lá Fhéile Bríde sona duit: (To your health, and a Happy St Brigid's day)!

Boxty Pancakes

By Pádraic Óg Gallagher

(makes 8)

Method

Step 1

Put flour, mashed potato, salt and 175ml of the milk in a blender and combine.

Step 2

Grate raw potato into a clean cloth, squeezing excess water from the potatoes.

Step 3

Add grated potatoes to the mash mix and incorporate with a hand whisk (not the blender). It should have a nice dropping consistency like a good batter. Add more milk if necessary.

Step 4

Leave for 30 minutes.

Step 5

Heat a pancake pan to a medium heat, add butter, allow to melt.

Step 6

Drop a ladle-full of batter to the pan and tilt so it covers the base. Cook gently for three-to-four minutes.

Step 7

Turn the pancake over and cook for two minutes.

Step 8

The first pancake may stick. Don't panic; dump it, wipe the pan, and start again. It happens to even the most experienced boxty makers.

Step 9

Serve three boxty pancakes with crispy bacon and an egg, sunny side up. 

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