Nellie's Dublin Coddle

A hearty meal that is definitely not Weight Watcher friendly...

With temperatures finally dropping into a reasonable fall range, Jess and I have been breaking out some soup and stew recipes. They're a great solution to the age old question of "what am I bringing to work for lunch?" but they're kind of frustrating to make when your building shuts off the air conditioner when it's still in the upper 80's and super humid until the sun goes down. 

This simple but extremely hardy soup probably isn't going to make it into our regular rotation because it's just not healthy at all unless you're working a very physically demanding schedule, but it is very on brand for Nellie and her family before and after immigrating to the United States. Read on to find out more about this traditional Irish favorite.

Coddle is the perfect dish to make use of leftovers, and is extremely popular in Dublin. The above photo is a picture of a bowl I enjoyed while on vacation there with my family a few winters ago! You can read all about that trip on the blog, alongside a really yummy recipe for a Guinness chocolate cake. 

Traditionally, coddle is a very, very simple soup, and it's popular because everything is either pantry staples, or leftovers from other meals. My recipe came from The Irish Granny's Pocket Recipe Book, a little souvenir I picked up from our trip to Ireland. It's somewhere between charmingly tacky and genuinely a nice little cookbook, with a lot of different fun recipes I've been wanting to try out. That's one of the problems with this blog and my ever growing cookbook collection: there's never enough hours in the day to get everything done. 

Coddle is cooked in layers, starting with potatoes. Cut up four pounds of peeled potatoes, add some of them to the bottom of your pan, and season them with salt and pepper, then layer them with a pound of sausages, a pound of bacon, and two diced onions. Season each layer with more salt and pepper, and end with a final layer of potatoes. Add a few cups of water, bring it to a boil over medium heat, reduce the heat to let it simmer and let it cook for an hour.

So, what did I think?

Honestly, this was pretty tasty going down, but I felt insanely guilty for eating it. I know that's silly, because at the end of the day, I can eat whatever I want and can offset a more calorie dense soup by eating salad for days afterward, but it still just felt like "wow, I am not going to be expending enough energy to make eating this bowl a worthwhile calorie investment." That said, it was also so filling that you really didn't need a big bowl of it to feel satisfied, which also was probably handy if you were an Irish mill worker or domestic server like Nellie and her family. 

Additionally, fat is a good preservative, so this soup could probably keep for a good long while so long as you could keep it cold. Not a bad thing if you were looking for ways to stretch meals or get a lot out of your leftovers. 

The coddle I had in Dublin I remember feeling less heavy, but I also don't really remember what was in it besides sausage and potatoes. If you're looking to make a slightly less traditional version, you could add barley or carrots, which at least gives you some fiber along with your literal pound of bacon.

I think I might add some in to the leftovers!