Traditional Irish Boxty Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What does boxty contain? ›

Boxty is a thick pancake of mashed and shredded potatoes, flour, baking soda, and buttermilk fried in butter or lard. These are traditionally formed into a circle and cut into quarters or triangles and are usually served as a side dish or appetizer. These are a great way to use up any leftover mashed potatoes.

'Boxty' originates in the 1700s and may get its name from the Irish 'arán bocht tí', meaning 'poor house bread', due to its humble ingredients, making it a staple in Irish households where potatoes were relied upon to survive. It is a simple potato pancake using mashed and/or grated potatoes.

Boxty is different from other potato pancakes or latkes, and you'll see that once you bite into one and notice the crispy hash brown-like outside and soft, dough-like inside.

On to the thing itself: boxty is a potato pancake made with grated potato, flour, baking soda, and buttermilk. Its name likely comes from the Irish arán bocht tí, meaning “poor-house bread”, but it could also come from the word for bakehouse, bácús.

It's commonly served with smoked salmon, sour cream, sausages, fried eggs, bacon, lamb chops, and even the notorious Irish beef stew. Boxty is regularly eaten at breakfast, but it's really a food you can enjoy any time of day.

The most noticeable difference between boxty and other fried potato dishes is its smooth, fine-grained consistency. An old Irish rhyme is: "Boxty on the griddle; boxty on the pan. If you can't make boxty, you'll never get a man!" As the interest in Irish cuisine has increased, so the popularity of boxty has risen.

Boxty originated in Ireland sometime in the late 18th century, primarily in the northern counties of Cavan and Donegal. Now they're eaten all over Ireland, usually alongside meat or stew.

Boxty is an authentic Irish dish which originated in the 1700s. It was a staple food in Irish households where potatoes were relied upon to survive. Blight during the famine destroyed the potato crop and affected the consumption of Boxty.

Shepherd's Pie

A classic found on dinner tables throughout Ireland, shepherd's pie combines beef and vegetables in a crust of mashed potatoes. It's a traditional Irish food that gathers distinctly Irish ingredients in a single dish. And it can even be made with a plant-based twist in this vegan shepherd's pie recipe!

What did Irish peasants eat before potatoes? ›

Until the arrival of the potato in the 16th century, grains such as oats, wheat and barley, cooked either as porridge or bread, formed the staple of the Irish diet. The most common form of bread consisted of flatbread made from ground oats.

Coddle (sometimes Dublin coddle; Irish: cadal) is an Irish dish which is often made to use up leftovers. It most commonly consists of layers of roughly sliced pork sausages and rashers (thinly sliced, somewhat-fatty back bacon) with chunky potatoes, sliced onion, salt, pepper, and herbs.

Irish potato cakes: Irish potato cakes are typically made from mashed potato, and flour or baking soda, and are usually fried. It differs from boxty as boxty is made of raw potatoes whereas potato cake is made from cooked potatoes.

What is the difference between Colcannon and Champ? Both Irish dishes, Champ is mashed potatoes with chopped spring onions (scallions) and milk. Colcannon is Champ with the addition of cabbage and sometimes some herbs.

Basics. Instant mashed potatoes are russet potatoes that have been cooked, mashed, and then dehydrated. This happens to be exactly how potato flour is made. But instead of milling the dried potatoes into a fine powder, they're crystallized into flakes, which helps keep them from clumping when you reconstitute them.

Potato flour is the fine ground white or off-white powder made from whole, peeled, dehydrated potatoes.

Instant mashed potatoes are potatoes that have been through an industrial process of cooking, mashing and dehydrating to yield a packaged convenience food that can be reconstituted by adding hot water or milk, producing an approximation of mashed potatoes. They are available in many different flavors.

Ingredients. INGREDIENTS: Dried Potato, Palm Oil, Dried Skimmed Milk, Flavourings (contain Milk), Milk Sugar, Milk Proteins, Salt, Colours (Algal Carotene, Curcumin), Black Pepper, Antioxidant (Extracts of Rosemary).