Pub classics.
Zero potatoes.
All craic.

Ingredients

• 6 bacon rashers (back bacon if you can get it)
• 4 good pork sausages — check the label, lowest filler wins
• 4 eggs
• 2 tomatoes, halved
• 250g mushrooms, thickly sliced
• Plenty of Irish butter, salt, black pepper

Method

1. Sausages first — medium heat, turning often, about 12 minutes.
2. Bacon into the same pan until it's the way you like it.
3. Mushrooms and tomato halves into the bacon fat with a knob of butter. Season hard.
4. Fry the eggs in whatever glorious fat remains.
5. One warm plate per person. Strong tea on the side.

Ingredients

• 600g lamb mince (beef makes it a cottage pie — also allowed)
• 1 small onion, diced fine · 2 celery sticks, diced
• 2 tbsp tomato paste · 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 250ml beef or lamb stock
• 1 large cauliflower, cut into florets
• 60g butter · 80ml cream · 100g grated mature cheddar
• Salt, pepper, thyme

Method

1. Brown the lamb hard; set aside. Soften onion and celery in the fat.
2. Stir in tomato paste, Worcestershire, stock, and thyme. Return the lamb; simmer 20 minutes until thick. Season.
3. Meanwhile steam the cauliflower until very tender; drain well and mash with butter and cream until smooth. Season generously.
4. Meat into a baking dish, mash on top, cheddar over everything.
5. 200°C / 400°F for 20 minutes until bronzed. Rest 5 minutes.

Ingredients

• 1 large cauliflower, florets
• 200g savoy cabbage or curly kale, shredded
• 4 scallions, sliced (greens and all)
• 80g butter, plus a shameless extra knob to serve
• 60ml cream · salt · white pepper

Method

1. Steam cauliflower until completely tender. Drain very well — dry mash is happy mash.
2. Wilt the cabbage in half the butter until sweet and tender.
3. Mash or blitz the cauliflower with the rest of the butter and the cream.
4. Fold in cabbage and scallions. Season.
5. Serve with a crater of melted butter in the middle. Tradition is tradition.

Ingredients

• 1.5kg corned beef brisket, with its spice packet (or 1 tbsp pickling spice)
• 1 onion, halved · 3 garlic cloves, smashed
• 1 large green cabbage, cut into thick wedges
• Wholegrain mustard and plenty of butter, to serve

Method

1. Cover the brisket with water, add spices, onion, and garlic. Bring to a bare simmer.
2. Lid on, 3 hours, until a fork twists through it without argument.
3. Cabbage wedges into the pot for the final 15 minutes.
4. Rest the beef 10 minutes; slice against the grain.
5. Butter on the cabbage, mustard on the beef, ladle of broth over everything.

Ingredients

• 8 pork sausages, browned and halved
• 200g thick-cut bacon, in big lardons
• 1 onion, sliced
• 1 medium turnip (swede), peeled, in big chunks
• 500ml chicken stock · bay leaf · lots of black pepper · parsley

Method

1. Crisp the bacon in a heavy pot; brown the sausages in its fat.
2. Layer onion, turnip, sausages, and bacon. Pour the stock over; add the bay.
3. Cover and simmer very gently for about an hour, until the turnip yields.
4. Big bowls, broth included, parsley and pepper over the top.

Ingredients

• 120ml hot, strong black coffee
• 35ml Irish whiskey
• 50ml heavy cream, whipped only until it barely holds a line
• Optional: your keto sweetener of choice, a whisper

Method

1. Warm a stemmed glass with hot water; empty it.
2. Coffee and whiskey in; stir in sweetener if using.
3. Float the cream over the back of a spoon so it sits like a head on a pint.
4. Drink the coffee through the cream. No stirring. House rule.