Stephencooks

 
A few years ago we spent a week at the Assolas Country House, an inn in the village of Kanturk, County Cork, Ireland. Every day we had a traditional Irish breakfast prepared by award-winning Chef-Proprietor Hazel Bourke. Every day it was slightly different, but the main components were various egg preparations, house-made black and white puddings, rashers, grilled tomatoes, and various sausages and potato dishes. (I gained weight on this trip!) The one thing that remained the same, day after day, was the basket of fresh brown bread -- rough-textured, slightly sweet, with a nutty taste and a crunchy crust, still warm from the oven -- accompanied by a knob of sweet fresh butter brought in each day from the farm down the road. 

On our last day at Assolas I spent a wonderful hour with Hazel in the kitchen, asking questions about some of the dishes we'd been served (we had several dinners there as well), checking out her cookbook shelf (which of course included a well-worn "Mastering the Art"), and quizzing her about her sources. Finally, feeling emboldened, I asked if she would share her recipe for the brown bread. With a smile and a quick trip to the copy machine she put it in my hands. 

I didn't get permission to publish the recipe from Hazel (this was before blogging) so I can't repeat it here, but I can say that it's very similar to this "Traditional Brown Bread" recipe on the Irish Odlums Flour site. Unfortunately it required two types of flour that were, at the time, only available by special order from an importer: Odlums Bleached White Cream Flour (which, according to the Odlums site is a bleached, all-purpose white flour) and "Hearts Delight" Brown Wheat Meal. (Today you can order Odlum products from FoodIreland.com but when I recently checked I couldn't find any source for the "Hearts Delight" brand. There are several grades of Odlum Coarse Wholemeal available -- I recently ordered some to test. That will be the subject of a future post.) Thus begun a series of experiments in my kitchen with brown bread recipes claiming to be authentic but using on ingredients commonly available in the U.S. 

Most of the recipes I tested called for stone ground whole wheat and toasted wheat germ -- and while that combination appears in one of my favorite bread recipes it didn't have as rough a texture as Hazel's brown bread, nor as nutty a taste. Finally I ran across a suggestion to use oatmeal supplemented with wheat bran, and after some testing and adjusting we decided that it was the closest we could get to Hazel's bread using easily available ingredients. 

Since, like white Irish Soda Bread, there's no yeast involved, this is a quick recipe, with no rising time required. We like it with raisins and caraway seeds, which weren't in the Assolas House version by the way. I make it sometimes with, sometimes without -- usually depending on whether I have raisins or caraway seeds in the kitchen at the time. Both ways are good. 

Unfortunately Assolas Country House closed in 2005, so we can't go back to compare our bread with Hazel's, and on the webpage they put up to announce the closing -- dated 2005 -- it's mentioned that Hazel was teaching full-time. I hope she's teaching cooking!

Regarding glucose and weight control issues, as with all breads portion control is key. I slice the loaves into wedges, 12 to a loaf, and that's the basis of the Nutritional Estimate. (Nobody can eat just one slice so I've assumed that a serving is two slices -- one-sixth of a loaf). At 161 calories, 26 grams of carbohydrates and 3 Weight Watchers points this serving can fit in a carefully planned and monitored plan, and of course the combination of oatmeal and wheat bran adds significant nutritional value to this bread.