MUSH & MASH FOR PADDY’s day

A St Patrick’s Day greetings card from a sister and the proliferation of St Patrick’s Day media posts has made me reminisce. So this year, as the St Patrick’s Day hullabaloo begins, I’m not going to wax lyrical about Irish recipes, traditional or shamrock inspired. Scroll back to my previous years’ blog posts for those. No, for 2022 I’m going personal, back to my Dublin childhood. To a family favourite we called Mush. Lovely, eh? Alternatively known as Slop.

Now, those of you who live across the Big Pond will recognise this dish (or should I say ‘recognize’) as pretty much a Sloppy Joe of sorts. I guess you could call it a Sloppy Pat?

Mum had 7 of us kids. It was a full-time job keeping on top of home and garden and family. Dad was a school teacher so there wasn’t any spare money for anything really but we were ok. We got by. We had a car. Eventually we had a TV. We laughed and played and squabbled and fell out and made up and still do. We lived in a semi-d in an area of Dublin that later became fashionable and desirable although when my parents bought it, it was a house on a large muddy building site in nowhereland.

Then with Mum, Later just us. It’s probably time for another group shot!

And we were lucky, the garden was big (as a lot of gardens were in houses built in suburban 1950s Dublin). Mum was a country lass and so we grew vegetables for the table; potatoes (of course), peas, onions, sometimes cabbage, apples, raspberries, sour gooseberries (for stewing) which we swapped with next door for some of their sweet gooseberries (for straight eating). Next door kept us in supply of rhubarb too (I can’t recall if we grew it later, we did eat a lot of it). Meals were plain and simple and followed an unexciting weekly repeat order. Vegetables were always overcooked (we were instructed to put them on early to “get them out of the way”) bar potatoes which were always steamed , had plenty of lovely butter plonked on, salted and delicious. Meat was always well cooked and occasionally rocked on the plate (yikes, the liver - I’m surprised I still like it!), Saturday’s beef stew had gristle (uuuugggghh! gags) but Mum’s tarts were magnificent. Apple, gooseberry or rhubarb, all with her homemade light pastry. We all loved those.

Cooking on a tight budget for 7 kids; “I don’t eat mushrooms / no white sauce for me please / what’s that?” and a fussy eater husband who might say; “What are these doing on my plate? I never eat peas!” (he did, y’ know - he could be very contrary) and who liked his roast beef cooked for so long it curled (and tasted) like wood shavings as he thinly sliced it, all of that must have been a wearying activity for a woman who would have preferred to be out working in the garden or sewing or knitting. I mean to say, I often hate having to cook and there’s only 2 of us here and I usually tell people that “I enjoy cooking”. It’s the ‘having to’ that’s the killer. But cook every day she did.

As time went by, and more of us appeared, Mush became a regular dinner dish. First of all this was a dish that required very little input from a busy woman. No washing or peeling or dicing of veg. Basically mince and a dried soup mix and Aromat. It was quick. All in one saucepan, brown the meat first in a little fat, add all the seasonings and water and let it bubble away. It ended up as an addictive sloppy salty meaty mix that was ladled over buttery floury steamed potatoes. We originally called it Slop as there was no official name for it but Mum wasn’t too keen “ah, now.. if someone hears you.. “ she would laugh so it ended up being called Mush but Slop is what I always think of it as.

Mush / Slop. It might not look fab but it means ‘home’.

Now as a dish it no doubts sounds awful but you know, it wasn’t. In fact, apart from a tendency to be overly salty, it was pretty good. I’d suggest one foregoes the packet of dried soup mix and the Aromat (is that now banned in some countries?) as I reckon that many, many decades later we still have more MSG rocking around our bodies than we’ll ever need. In fact, today I’m going to make it again and will then share the Mush love.

Here’s to you Mum, hope you’re partying somewhere with Dad and St Patrick and the rest who’ve paraded before us into the Unknown (I only hope there’s no gristle there). X

MUSH & MASH

I wanted to put parsnip or swede in this dish because I love the sweetness either can bring to the dish but it’s miserable outside when I was making it and so I chose celeriac instead. It’s not quite the same but it was sitting in the veg drawer in the fridge and really, that’s what this dish is about. No stress.

Ingredients

1 onion,
2 carrots,
2 sticks celery,
all finely chopped
200gms celeriac, peeled and finely chopped
175gms button mushrooms, finely chopped
1 small clove of garlic (for the meerest hint of garlic) , finely chopped
approx 200gms frozen peas
1 tbsp oil or dripping
pinch of dried thyme
pinch of dried mixed herbs
2 bay leaves
500gms minced beef
1 tsp ground white pepper
1 generous tsp yeast or beef extract
1 tbsp mustard
1/2 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
1 tsp mushroom sauce (optional)
1 tsp Angostura Bitters
1 tsp cornflour (optional)
Salt
2 tbsp whiskey
Water

Method

In a large saucepan heat the oil or dripping and add the chopped onions, carrots and celery and gently cook for 10 minutes.

Add the celeriac, mushrooms and garlic and cook another 5 mins. Remove the vegetable mix to a plate and crumble the beef mince into the saucepan. You may need to add more oil / fat.

Brown the mince, then add the veg mix back in (along with any juices). Add the herbs and seasoning in stages along with enough water to barely cover the meat veg mix but don’t yet add the salt until all the rest of the seasoning has been incorporated.

Taste and lightly salt if needed. You can always add salt later.

Now cover and bubble away for 30 mins. Or longer, this is a fairly forgiving cook.

About 15 mins before serving add the whiskey and the bitters (obviously if you have children you might not want to, make that call yourselves, the alcohol does cook out though). If you prefer a thicker ‘Mush’ then mix the cornflour with some water then add it and let it cook and thicken.

Add the frozen peas for a bright flavour and colour and give them 5 mins cooking.

Serve over mashed, buttery potatoes or buttery floury steamed potatoes or even on a bread roll, a Sloppy Pat.

Note the colours:
Green peas, creamy White potatoes, orange Gold of the carrots.
Pretty darn patriotic I’d say!

Finally, a plea to those mainly living Stateside, please, please, NEVER say ‘ST PATTY’S DAY’, just NEVER, nor while I’m on about it, never say ‘PATTY’S DAY’ nor ‘ST PAT’S DAY’. Also never say ‘ST PADDY‘S DAY ‘- although, yes, you can say ‘PADDY’S DAY’ but if yer using ‘ST’ show some saintly respect and give the poor man his formal title. So, ‘St Patrick’s Day’ it is or ‘Paddy’s Day’ or nowt. Rant over.