The Grocer: Soda Bread
As Irish as a leprechaun, soda bread is a delicious part of hearty traditional cuisine from the republic. The dense bread was cleverly formed as a way of replacing yeast as a rising agent, and is an incredibly easy dish to make with only a handful of basic ingredients.
To make soda bread dough you will need just flour, sea salt, buttermilk (or yoghurt) and bicarbonate of soda, which sizzles and froths with the light ingredients to form a light batter. Kneaded into a ball and baked, the bread is torn apart for the hungry as soon as it emerges from the oven. Treat soda bread as you would damper – smeared with sweet jams or butter and served for breakfast or afternoon tea.
There are considered to be two types of soda bread – cake and farl. Cake is kneaded into a flattish round, cut with a cross on the top and baked in an oven. Farl is rolled into a rough circle, and cut twice right through to create four even pieces. It is cooked in a heavy frying pan, making it a more moist creation.
While recipes of the original emerged as early as the 1830s, modern interpretations are starting to popularise soda bread. Try adding grated orange peel or handfuls of dried fruit throughout your dough for a sweet treat. Or indulge a particularly sweet tooth with this Irish treacle version of soda bread.
Image via Citrus and Candy.
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