Faith and Begorrah! ‘Tis that time of year again. Time for everyone to claim some Irish heritage. Put your green on and make some traditional Irish colcannon.
MaryJo has been fixing colcannon for St. Patty’s Day for several years now. She has always made it with cabbage and green onions. I decided to make a kale colcannon and add some tasty leeks to the creamy potatoes. I don’t know why we always think of this dish just for St. Patrick’s Day. It is a delicious side dish that should be made year round.
I used a medium sized leek, that I washed really well. You want to get all the dirt and grit out that lodges in the folds of the leek plant. The best way to do this is to slice the leek in half, lengthwise, which exposes the layers of the onion-like plant. Once cleaned, it’s easy to finely slice the leek into half rounds. I sauteed the leek in butter on low heat for about 15 minutes. The chopped kale was added at about the ten minute mark and wilted and softened with the leek.
The potatoes were boiled for 14 minutes and mashed with a hand mixer. I added 1/2 cup of warmed up half and half to the potatoes. To save on calories, 2% or whole milk could be used too.
When I was doing the photos of the mashed potatoes, all I could think of was how boring a picture of mashed potatoes would be. Well, they didn’t turn out to badly and the Irish colcannon was really good! And another good thing…Leftovers!
Give this recipe a try. If you’d like, use cooked cabbage instead of the kale. Both ways, this is really good! Happy St. Pat’s Day all you Irish folks.
Enjoy!
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Irish Colcannon
Ingredients
- 2 lbs Yukon gold potatoes , peeled and cut into 1" pieces
- 1 leek , cleaned and thinly sliced
- 4 cups chopped kale
- 4 tbsp butter , plus 1 tbsp to float on the finished dish, if desired
- 1/2 cup half and half
- 1/2 tsp salt
Instructions
- Boil potatoes in salted water until soft, 12 to 14 minutes
- While the potatoes are boiling, in a large skillet, melt 4 tbsp butter and add the leeks, saute on low, 10 mins.
- After 10 minutes, add the kale to the skillet and wilt for another 5 minutes.
- Mash the potatoes with a hand mixer, adding heated half and half until smooth.
- Fold in the sauteed kale and leeks
- Add salt to taste
- Serve hot
wonderful!