Side · Ireland

Colcannon

Irish mashed potatoes with cabbage and a well of butter.

About the dish

Colcannon is Irish mashed potato with cabbage or kale, often with scallions or leeks, and plenty of butter. It has long been eaten at Halloween, when small charms such as a ring or a coin were hidden in the bowl to tell fortunes: finding the ring meant a wedding within the year.

Floury potatoes make the lightest mash. They are boiled or steamed until tender, drained and left to dry for a minute so they do not turn watery, then mashed with milk or cream that has been warmed, often with the scallions steeped in it. Mashing gently keeps the texture fluffy; overworking potatoes, especially in a food processor, makes them gluey. The cabbage or kale is cooked briefly in butter or boiled and chopped, then folded in.

It is served with a well in the middle of each mound filled with melted butter. The flavor is rich and gently salty, with a mild sweetness from the cabbage and the alliums. Champ, its close cousin from the north of Ireland, uses scallions alone.

Written from general cooking knowledge, as background on a dish from the game’s recipe book. It is not a tested recipe.

The flavors it leans on

Colcannon in Night Kitchen

In the game, Colcannon is a side in the recipe book. A plate is named Colcannon when it holds these cards and is cooked with exactly this technique, with at most one extra ingredient.

Ingredients

  • Potatoes
  • Cabbage
  • Butter

Technique

  • Steam

How those cards taste

Cooked from just these cards for an average ticket, before tonight’s mood and quirks, it would please Theo (2 stars) and Odile (2 stars) most.

“Mashed potatoes with cabbage and too much butter. Mother hid a ring in it at Halloween. Dairy or not, I miss it.”

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