Traditional white Dublin Coddle or Irish Coddle Recipe

 

Recipes for Dublin coddle are as contentious as recipe for a Scottish stovie. Coddle recipes even varied from one side of Dublin to the other, and it's said that if you ask a hundred Irish folk how to make coddle and you'll get a hundred different answers, just the same as you would by asking one hundred Scots about how to make stovies. Indeed Dublin Coddle is said to have been introduced to Dublin by the troops of King William 3rd or commonly known as King Billy as stovies.

Some cooks brown their sausages and yet to others this is just wrong, they want a traditional white coddle even adding milk at the end. The initial off putting sight of unbrowned sausages makes enthusiastic Dubliners even more defensive of this dish, viewing browned sausages as a cop out.

Coddle is a poverty dish, in the countryside there may have been a bit of mutton for an Irish stew, but coddle was home to Dublin's 'fair city' where the less well off (Northsiders) had a bit of bacon and some sausages and precious little else. 

Traditionally all ingredients were chucked in a pan with water and left on the stove or over the fire whilst the cook was out. 'We'd come back and it will be all dried up' I read on a post. 'still tasted great tho', 'My Gran put nettle tops in', another writes, so yes this is a use up dish and would vary on what was left be it a bit of a roast or turnip or swede, much like the Scottish stovie.

Modern chefs include ingredients such as garlic, which is a 'No', Guinness is also a 'No', you can only add salt and white pepper, that's all they had. The stew wasn't finished by browning the potatoes in the oven, as some claim, that luxury wasn't available.

Ingredients:

Some sausages, could be pork ribs also
Bacon (not smoked) chopped up - it should be streaky but I prefer back.
Two onions chopped
Pots in fairly large pieces
Carrots
Parsley
Chicken stock (it should be just water).
Pepper should be white

A bit of white pudding can be added which breaks down and gives a spicy flavour.

I had some spring onions to use up and added a nettle top from the garden.

I didn't brown the sausages in this recipe (Dub's, 'Dubliners' call them widow's memories) and whilst they look wrong they are still right, sausage skins are just a casing designed to caramelise to make the sausage look more appealing. 

Traditional method

Throw the ingredients into a large pan; streaky bacon, sausages, onions, whole potatoes, cover with water and that's it.

Method:

Fry bacon till it releases it's fat, traditionally it wasn't browned and then add the sausages, carrots and pots and gently fry in the bacon fat and then add stock and bring to the boil and after fifteen minutes lower to the least setting and simmer for a couple of hours. This also works in a slow cooker. Season at the end as the bacon sausage may be salty.

Coddle tastes better the next day and is best served with a pint of Guinness.

With cider

I used to make a version I called Dublin coddle when my kids were young with browned sausages, bacon, pots, parsnips, carrots, onions and cider, this was all simmered for a couple of hours in a huge pan.