Dublin Coddle

This year for St. Paddy’s Day, we decided to try a more traditional dish aside from corned beef and cabbage (although we absolutely made that as well), and came across the Dublin Coddle. The little bit of research I did led me to find that the coddle is a recipe usually cooked with leftovers, so it does not have a rigid set of ingredients. We are big fans of making the best of what is available, so this recipe struck us as a great thing to try. Interestingly enough, the recipe’s name comes from the verb coddle, meaning to cook in water below boiling.

We made some minor adjustments to the traditional coddle: often cooked with water and a bouillon cube, we instead opted for chicken stock. Other stock would certainly work as well. The other substitution we made was for white potatoes. We occasionally eat potatoes, and are not opposed to them, but wanted to give this a shot with jicama. Jicama is somewhat difficult to peel, but once that task is accomplished, it’s a breeze. Ultimately, this was a delicious recipe.

Ingredients
1 lb pork sausage (ours was heavy with garlic)
1 lb thick cut bacon
2 large onions, thick sliced
3.5 lb jicama, peeled and cubed
2 C chicken stock
3 Tbsp chopped parsley

Method

On a large, two-burner pan, cook bacon and sausage about 4-5 minutes per side on medium-high heat, to brown but not fully cook through. Allow to sit and drain on a paper towel for 2-3 minutes.

While cooking bacon and sausage, slice onion and peel and cube jicama. Also finely chop parsley.

Chop bacon into 1/2″ pieces, and halve sausages. Preheat oven to 300ºF.

Layer into your large oven-safe dish with lid the onion, bacon, sausage, jicama, and parsley. Our ingredients ended up perfectly making 2 layers.

Place on stovetop and pour in chicken stock. Allow to come to a boil, and cover and turn stovetop off. Place the dutch oven, covered, in the oven for at least 4 hours, but not longer than 6. Check half way to make sure liquids have not completely evaporated (if they have, add in 1/2 C more stock, or water).

After 4+ hours, you will have a very savory comfort dish on your hands. We hope you’ll also take a moment to enjoy this Irish dish, as Dublin Coddle is delicious.

Also, if you like this recipe, please share with your friends; it helps us spread the real food word!