Tonight I am going to cover the Irish breakfast we had on our second day in Dublin. We woke up early that morning with the intention of getting to breakfast, since it  was included in our package of the trip from Guinness. We went down to the dining room early, about 8 AM, and were seated in the dining room. As soon as we sat down, we were offered coffee or tea and some toast. I was little surprised by the toast, but hey, I like toast, so why not, we accepted. The waitress came back with a pot of tea for Michelle, a pot of coffee for me and a rack of toast, about 6 pieces, 3 of which were white and 3 other three were the brown bread that is made especially by the Brooks Hotel. The Hotel actually supplies the recipe for the bread, which is made with Guinness of course. Here it is if you want to give it a try. Keep in mind that when I got the recipe, the measurements are all in metric because it is European, so you’ll have to make some adjustments.

Brooks’ Homemade Guinness Brown Bread

600 grams Wholemeal Flour
150 grams Plain Flour
75 grams Oatmeal (porridge oats)
2½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2½ tablespoons brown sugar
40 grams butter

480 millilitres milk
200 millilitres black treacle
½ pint of Guinness

Preparation:
Mix the butter with all the dry ingredients until the dough develops the consistency of breadcrumbs.
Add the milk, black treacle and the Guinness and mix until you reach a wet dough.
Bake in a greased bread tin for 40 – 45 minutes at 170°C in a pre-heated oven.

Black treacle is what they call molasses in the UK and Ireland. The bread tasted very good and it seems very simple to make, so I may have to give it a try sometime. Michelle and I both liked the Irish butter that was served every day as well. it had a much better flavor than the butter we have here in the States.

For the rest of the breakfast, you have a  choice. They serve a simple breakfast which is a buffet breakfast of simple things like scones, croissants, cereal, fresh fruit and yogurt. The yogurt was very tasty as I had it on other morning we were there. it had fresh raspberries in it and tasted quite good. You could also order off the menu, and the menu offered a full Irish breakfast. Now, I had heard about the fill breakfast before and knew it was going to be quite large, but we both figured that we wanted to give it a try. When else were we going to have the opportunity to try this anyway? So Michelle and I both ordered the breakfast with scrambled eggs. I wish I had taken a picture of what we actually got, because when it came out on a plate we were both shocked. Here is what was on the plate:

Irish sausage – which was absolutely delicious, by the way

There was bacon, but not in the way we think of bacon in the United States. It was much more like a piece of ham, but it was better than any ham I had eaten. i am not a fan of ham myself. The hame we get here seems way too salty and usually has some kind of curing on it that makes it too sweet for my liking. This tasted much cleaner and purer with little fat. It was delicious.

A very large pile of scrambled eggs in the center – traditionally it is served with fried eggs, but we both opted for scrambled for some reason.

Underneath the eggs was a slice of potato bread, which seemed more like a potato pancake with a nice crust on the top of it. I had never had anything quite like it before and it was pretty tasty.

A fried tomato – it was half of a small tomato

Sauteed mushrooms – these were really good

Black and white pudding – Okay, I knew what it was before I tried it and this was something a lot of people shied away from or warned me about but I wanted to try it. Heck, if millions of people have eaten it for hundreds of years, how bad could it be? It’s also known as blood pudding for those who may not know and is made from onions, oatmeal, pork fat and other spices, much like a sausage, but it also has pig blood in it, hence the name. I have to admit, it’s not something I would go out of my way to get again, and it has a very distinct flavor to it, but I am glad I tried it. The white pudding is the same ingredients without the blood, and there is a taste difference. The white tastes more like a sausage that you would find here, except the oatmeal adds a certain texture to the meal.

I did find a recipe for blood pudding if you want to give it a try to make it yourself. Finding the pig’s blood might be tough, but if you can get it give it a try.

Blood Pudding

1 quart pig, lamb or goose blood

16 ounces milk

salt and pepper
1 pound shredded suet
2 large onions, minced
1 ounce oatmeal, toasted

Bring a large  stew pot 3/4 full of water almost to a boil. Pour the blood into a deep bowl.
Add 1 teaspoon of salt, stirring constantly. Strain with a sieve. Add milk, mix well.
Add suet, minced onions, toasted oatmeal, 1 teaspoon of salt and 2 teaspoons of black pepper and mix well. Pour the mixture into an oven-safe pan and cook in the oven at 350 degrees for about an hour. Remove from the oven and slice into one-inch squares or rounds. Fry the rounds in a saute pan with a pat of butter until crisp on the outside, about 1-2 minutes per side.

Give it a shot and see if you like it.

Tomorrow, I will post the recipe for the dinner we had on the second night, which was a traditional Irish stew that we had at the Hairy Lemon in Dublin. Check back tomorrow and see how it is. until then, enjoy your evening and enjoy your meal!