Gallery / 10 tasty Irish recipes / Click here

Pulitzer Prize winning author Frank McCourt once said that the English conquered the world to escape their own cooking. That means the Irish have no excuse.

But a web search for modern Irish cuisine or Irish cooking will throw up a catalogue of horrors: corned beef and cabbage, deep fried breakfasts, goopy looking Irish stew and Guinness soaked fish and chips. Sometimes they’ll even illustrate it with some idiot drinking beer. It’s embarrassing. It’s also completely out of date.

Did you know that most Irish people have never eaten corned beef and cabbage (it’s an American staple) and that Irish cooking has undergone an organic and locally sourced craze that – coupled with world class chef training - has led to it becoming one of the best dining destinations in Europe?

Just like most of Bill O’Reilly’s troubles, it all started with the hippies. Irish back-to-nature types from the 1970’s onward recognized and reawakened interest in wholesome Irish produce.

Let’s face it, from shore to shore Ireland’s a living breadbasket: boasting free-range beef, lamb, pork, and poultry alongside organic fruit, vegetables, dairy and breads, you could dine like a king here from one end of the year to the other, in the certain knowledge that the quality of it all is world class.

These aren’t exactly the standard recipes for traditional Irish dishes, although all use the most traditional cooking Irish ingredients such as milk, cream, cheese, strawberries, potatoes, lamb, pork, fish, and even whiskey.

Click on the each link for the recipes and happy cooking:

1. Watercress Soup / Click here

2. Irish Herbed Drop Scones / Click here

3. Salmon with Sorrel / Click here

4. Grilled Mackerel Fillet with Apricot and Chili Blan Tjang / Click here

5. Irish Garlic Chips / Click here

6. Rib Eye Steak with Roast Shallots Bacon Mushrooms and Thyme / Click here

7. Roast Rack of Lamb with Fondant Potatoes Pea Puree and Rosemary Jus / Click here

8. Cherry Chocolate Mousse / Click here

9. Summer Strawberries with a simple Mascarpone Cream / Click here

10. Irish Coffee / Click here