Couple on a Mission: Irish Soda Bread and a Sunday Roast

Sundays aren't typically the most eventful of days for us.  If I'm feeling up to driving out to the suburbs, I'll go visit family... If we're a bit hung over, we'll go for a greasy brunch or (better yet) Taco Bell (you aren't allowed to judge - this is basically my favorite food group ever; and yes, I know it's disgusting, but have you tried the new Grilled Stuffed Nacho??).  Given that the weather has been absolutely awful here in Chicago and you can't really get out of the house much, we thought we'd ring in Episode 1 of the 4th season of Downton Abbey with a scalding hot Sunday Roast and some home made bread.  Really - what's better in the middle of winter than that?  (Actually - it's a toss up between a good roast, beef stew, my mom's chili, her spaghetti, and hot dogs with mac&cheese and spinach souffle....)

Shockingly, we didn't have a roasting pan and weren't crazy about boiling the roast on the stove, so we spent HOURS traipsing all across the North Shore trying to find a Goodwill where we hoped we'd be able to snag one quickly and cheaply.  Of course, I didn't read the descriptions of the "locations" I'd found in Glenview and Morton Grove, so they turned out to be drop off boxes.  I'm sure you can see where this is going.... Driving on the highway and, ultimately, dealing with the insanity that is Dempster Street because someone was advertising a Loehman's store closing (again, no judgment!), we gave up and headed home to get one of those cook all speckled pot-pan-things at Target.  As a kid, my mom had one that was more cylindrical and sported cute pictures of vegetables and corn on the front - I loved it - so I'm hoping we will get as much use out of this one as my family did the other. 

After nearly 4 hours of hauling back and forth and here and there, we landed home in what we hoped would be enough time to cook the roast in time to enjoy it during Downton.  Before starting on the meat and vegetables, I thought we'd get the bread in the oven.

A thick, butter loving, slightly doughy bread is one of my all time favorite noms, so we figured we'd go for Irish Soda Bread.  I slightly altered this recipe from the holy Ina Garten via the Food Network and it.was.amazing.  The bread was beautifully dense with a glorious crust and very soft center. This bread has a slightly sweet flavor and using the whole wheat flour added to its richness, which makes it a fantastic pairing for salty stews and roasts.  

Ingredients: 

4 cups whole wheat flour (plus extra to flour your kneading board - I used King Arthur)

4 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt (this is important, as kosher salt isn't quite as salty as table salt - supposedly - and this is a sweeter bread)

4 tablespoons, or 1/2 stick, cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch dice (I use salted, but do as you please)

1 3/4 cups cold buttermilk, shaken (who doesn't shake all milk??)

1 extra-large egg, lightly beaten ( I used an extra 1/2 egg, to make the bread more cakey, and it was a good idea)

(here Ina mentions the added goodies she uses, such as orange zest and currants, but I just wanted the plain-ol-bread)

You'll want to combine your dry ingredients first, then begin mixing in the butter cubes on low speed. If your butter is pretty cold, this may seem futile... but don't worry, it will mix in!

Beat your egg slightly and then beat it into the buttermilk.  You will then want to -very slowly- pour the liquid into the dry ingredients while mixing on low.

Eventually, your mixture will come together to look like this!  Try not to over mix, but ensure that everything comes together.  This dough will be slightly stickier than a traditional bread dough, but so long as you can work with it on a floured surface, you're good to go.

Dump and scrape the mixture onto a floured surface so that you can build it into a nice ball. (This is our Bunbury board from our trip to Ireland - you need one - they're the best cutting/kneading/everything boards and are available through the Kilkenny Shop, which has fantastic shipping across the pond.)

Once you have a neat-ish lump of dough, you'll want to move it to a greased and floured baking device (it's nice to use a cake pan that is larger than your dough, so that the sides crust up nicely)

Score an "X" (or preferred mark) in the top of your dough). This creates a weaker spot which allows the dough to rise up.  Since this isn't a rising bread, you don't need to wait for the dough to go through its initial rise period to score it.

Now pop it into the oven at 375 F and bake for about 45-50 minutes.  You'll notice that the crust will start to brown on the peaks - take it out and tap it, if you hear a nice "densely hollow" sound - it's done!

While baking, sit back and have a beer.  We grabbed our friend's family's seasonal Irish Ale, Great Lakes Brewing Company's "Conway's Irish Ale". It's easily one of my favorite beers, save for their coveted Christmas Ale.  Have you tried Great Lakes?  If not - what are you waiting for?  They're an amazing brewery and have something for everyone.  Aside from the tastiness of their selection, and the fact that they are an absolutely amazing family, they brew in an environmentally and socially conscious fashion. 

Onto the meat of the matter....

We grabbed a 3.5 pound rump roast for our meat - it just looked like the juciest non-fancy cut on the shelf.  My mom would never approve of this - she always heads straight to the butcher and orders a delicious piece of meat.  We weren't looking to break the bank, so we grabbed what looked tastiest ;)

My mother also always browns the meat before putting everything in the oven, adding any juice to the beef stock you'll want to have ready to go in your pan.  We used an entire carton of store bought stock - this was a perfect amount.

We weren't too adventurous in terms of ingredients, using 1 yellow onion, a few large carrots, and some cut celery stalks.  I forgot to grab a picture, but we also used loads of tasty red potatoes!

 Once your meat is browned and your vegetables chopped, you will just toss them in the roasting pan and stick it in the oven for the required amount of time.  You should definitely do a Google search on the amount of time per pound, and take your pan's thickness into account....

While we waited, I tried unsuccessfully to cull my closet and watched the most amazing sunset.

3.5 hours later, we pulled the meaty goodness from the oven and.........

 The stinkin' meat was overdone.  How this happened, I'm not quite sure, but am definitely chalking it up to the thin nature of the pan.... Go figure.  The juice, veggies, and potatoes were absolutely amazing (although no match for the bread - which got picked at a fair amount before dinner, as you can see!).  Ryan didn't mind the overdone meat, but I was pretty crushed.  Luckily, we had picked up a new Pinot Noir and it, paired with the arrival of Downton, saved Sunday.

What have your experiences with roasts been?  I've never experienced one over-cooking in my LIFE so this was quite a shocker.  Do you think it has to do with the thin pan?

Thank you for reading! xx