Boxty with bacon recipe

Boxty with Bacon recipe

This article was published by: Matthew

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♼ Recipe origin is unknown. Boxty with bacon recipe, recipe Rating: 4.5
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Ingredients

500 g	potatoes, peeled and grated
500 g	cooked mashed potato, cooled
400 g	plain flour
2 tsp	baking powder
2 tbsp	melted butter
	salt and fresh ground pepper, to taste
200 ml	milk
8	rashers of streaky bacon

Instructions

Fry the bacon and allow it to cool. If you like it crispy or softer, it does not matter. Cut into strips or large dice and set aside. Reserve bacon fat for frying.

Place the grated potato into a clean tea towel or muslin and squeeze over a bowl. Extract as much liquid as you can by holding the loose ends of the towel and twisting the ball of potato ever tighter. Allow the liquid to settle for a few minutes. You will have a yellowish liquid and a layer of white starch. Carefully drain off and discard the liquid but collect the starch and add it to the potato.

Place both lots of potato into a large bowl. add the flour and baking powder and mix well. Stir in the butter and season to taste.

Add the milk, a little at a time, beating after each addition to incorporate fully. Add only sufficient milk to make a stiff and thick mixture once absorbed.

Form the boxty into 8 squares or rectangles.

Heat a large pan, and use the reserved bacon fat to fry the ‘cakes’ either 2 or 4 at a time. Turn occasionally until they are evenly golden brown on both sides. Warm a proportion of the bacon pieces when the boxty is almost ready and serve two per person with the bacon either on top or to the side. Repeat for the remaining portions.

About this recipe:
Although Boxty, sometimes pronounced as ‘Boshty’ by Anglo-Irish Gypsy neighbours some years ago, is claimed by some to be a regional peasant dish in parts of England, it was almost certainly introduced by the Irish ‘navvies’, or Navigators, who were first brought into 18th Century England to dig the canals. More were brought in during the 19th Century to expand the canal system and later to dig the railways that supplanted them. They would often cook the boxty on a shovel kept for the purpose, over an open fire. The practice of cooking on a shovel transferred to the railways when the driver and his stoker or footplateman would cook their bacon and egg breakfast on the coal shovel within the engine’s firebox.

The potato or ‘lumper’ was probably introduced to Ireland by Sir Walter Raleigh who discovered the plant during his travels. He was awarded huge estates in Ireland by the Crown for his discoveries and, although thought to be English his background was Irish. He may well have grown potatoes on his estates. In England, it was first used as a garden plant and not considered for food until at least the late 18th Century and was then quite a curiosity and a luxury. In Ireland, it was first grown as an animal feed but when the peasants needed more food, they started to eat potatoes, until they became the main food staple. In the mid-19th Century potato blight wiped out almost the entire Irish crop of potatoes over a number of years, the lumper was unduly susceptible to the disease, and millions either starved to death or emigrated.

Different varieties of potato were being developed in England, in an attempt to resolve the problem, that were either immune or far less susceptible to the disease but that required a few years during which time the Irish blamed the English landowners for their starvation. Potatoes are once again a major food crop in Ireland. Many of the same varieties are also used in England and Scotland, and remain a major cash crop in many parts of the world, even being grown in the Egyptian desert!

Preparation time:
ca. 30 min
Grade of difficulty:
medium
Calories per portion:
n/a