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We’ve tried a couple of Irish recipes this week, starting with with a slow-cooked Corned Beef Cabbage and moving on to the real star, corned beef hash with poached eggs. Neither belong in the “Healthy Living” section, but they were both really good, especially the hash, which was rich as I expected it would be, but also surprisingly mustard-y.

Our research in to Irish food scored us the Irish Food Board’s recipe page, including the excellent subsections, “Hot Potatoes” and the best one of all, “Everything Tastes Better with Bacon.” I am NOT making this up.

Forget about Pacific Fusion cuisine; this weekend we’re going to start a trend in Atlantic fusion cuisine by having a Southern fish fry with a few Irish starters, sides, and desserts, all washed down by plenty of Guinness.

Last night, we made truffles using the Cook’s Illustrated recipe. It’s from an older issue and I’d been skipping over it for years, always assuming it would be a bit too involved for me. I don’t shy away from cooking most things, but for some reason desserts have always intimidated me a bit. It was the first time I used a pastry bag! The hardest part was getting the tip adaptor off the used bag when it was slippery and covered with ganache.

We had a lot of dutch process cocoa powder left over, as well as some chocolate we’d used to coat the truffles, so this morning I had a go at improvising xocolatl. I mentioned a recipe a few weeks ago, but haven’t been able to find cocoa butter locally, and it doesn’t help when the recipe specifies amounts by the package of a particular product, because they don’t translate well between regions or markets.

My recipe was based on the hot chocolate recipe on the side of the Hershey’s Dutch Process Cocoa box:

3 TBS dutch process cocoa
1 TBS sugar
2 TBS melted dark chocolate
1/4 cup water
1-3/4 cups milk
1/4 tsp chile powder (I like chipotle but use what you like)

Mix the cocoa powder, sugar, and water in a small saucepot. Bring to a boil, stirring well to mix the dry ingredients. Add dark chocolate and milk. Heat but do not boil. Add chile powder and serve.

This beverage was tasty, but not as thick or rich as I was hoping it would be. Next time, I may try using half and half instead of milk.