I'd love to say my Irish grandmother, Kate, introduced me to colcannon, but I only recently started making this traditional dish after spying an online recipe. It's basically mashed potatoes with cooked cabbage. Straight-up comfort food.

Lately, I've been playing around with a short-cut hash variation, mostly serving it with an egg on top in the morning. On St. Patrick's Day, I decided to make it for dinner, serving seared salmon perched on top. Traveling across the USA, fish lovers soon discover how difficult it is to find wild salmon for sale, and that's something we Northwest residents crave. I've been really pleased with the quality of the frozen wild Alaska Sockeye that I've purchased at Walmart, though, and keep our teeny freezer full of those packages.

The topper on this one-dish meal was a Ranch tartar sauce, which basically consisted of chopped cucumbers, a little bit of salad dressing and a splash of spicy pickle brine. Yum!

Add a glass of Columbia Crest chardonnay from Washington state, and we did indeed consider ourselves very lucky sitting down to dinner on March 17 in our tiny home on wheels.

Colcannon Hash

1 large russet potato

1/2 head of cabbage, chopped into chunks

1/2 onion, chopped

2 tablespoons olive oil

salt and pepper, to taste

Bake the potato, or cook in the microwave until fork-tender, about 25 minutes. Roughly chop the cooked potato, set aside.

Heat a cast iron skillet over medium high heat. Add two tablespoons cooking oil and then add the rest of the ingredients. Cover the pan for about 10 minutes, long enough for the cabbage to soften slightly. Carefully flip the mixture, and continue cooking until the potato is golden brown. Serve with salmon, roast chicken, pork chops or fried eggs. 

Yield: 2 generous portions, or 4 side dish servings. 

 

 

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