Irish Chef Clodagh McKenna Takes on St. Patrick's Favorites

To celebrate St. Patrick's Day, many Americans turn to traditional menus of corned beef, cabbage, potatoes -- and of course beer, probably to make them forget the rest of the meal. But a full-on boiled feast is not where it's at for Clodagh McKenna. The Cork native has emerged as one of Ireland's top chefs for her delicious variations on familiar fare that's helped redefine the Irish dining experience.

McKenna, 39, is founder of Clodagh's Kitchen Blackrock, in the Dublin suburb of that name, and another Clodagh's Kitchen inside Dublin's oldest and largest department store, Arnotts. But running two successful restaurants isn't a full enough plate for the high-energy McKenna. So she also appears each Friday on national daily television show "Ireland AM," and publishes a regular column in the Irish Times. Plus her sixth book, "Clodagh's Irish Kitchen," is out this month, just in time for St. Patrick's Day and a sweeping U.S. media tour to help Americans spice up their holiday spread.

Her new book combines traditional Irish cuisine with non-traditional ingredients and cooking styles that may tempt even those with potato burnout. McKenna's "Irish breakfast tortilla," for example, combines eggs, country sausage and tomatoes with layers of onions, potatoes, and bacon lardons in a style similar to a skillet Spanish tortilla. Another inventive recipe is her "wild nettle gnocchi with Cashel blue sauce," which smothers "Irish dumplings" (McKenna's name for potato-and-flour-based gnocchi) made with foraged nettles in creamy, Irish-made Cashel blue cheese.

And then there are outstanding sweets, such as her delectable salted caramel whisky bread and butter pudding with golden raisins, or darkly delicious Guinness cake.

When Local Goes Global

It's easy to see how this chef prizes her local ingredients, like pasture-raised lamb and beef, as well as Ireland's abundant and diverse seaweeds (which she'll even use in seafood risotto in place of salt). McKenna champions these local staples as a proud daughter of Ireland, even packing Kerrygold Butter on her trips abroad to ensure the best base for her dishes. It's that sort of diligence we have to thank for her tantalizing culinary constructions.

"I love to cook food as much as I love to eat it," she says. "[At my restaurants] we have to come up with new dishes every single week for specials or for new dinner menus, so we're constantly testing and researching recipes. So I build up a repertoire, and can write a book when I have a few hundred recipes collected."

She says her innovations are part of the new horizon of Irish cooking, which has benefitted from greater worldliness in the kitchen.

"There are so many trendsetters in Ireland now," says McKenna. "Many of them have lived abroad and are coming back with new and exciting ideas of flavors and combinations using Irish ingredients, and putting their twist on them. Like taking certain Asian recipes and 'Irishizing' them. I'm lucky in that I have outlets where I can communicate some of my own versions."

Women's Work

McKenna began cooking professionally 16 years ago, at a time when female chefs were still few and far between. Like most determined professionals, she kept her focus on the work rather than the context, learning from the best and making it her own.

"When I was new, it was a very male-dominated area and I was only the only female in the kitchen," says McKenna. "The head chefs were always male, and I was always working in a male environment. I guess the positive side of that was it made me really strive to be as good if not better than them. It was that feeling of being the lesser man in the kitchen."

"It sounds so shocking to say it now - we're in a different world right now. But a short time ago, you would walk into a kitchen as a woman and feel like you were a housewife and you really had to prove yourself. I mean, they were being courteous Irish gentlemen, but I wanted to have equality throughout everything I was doing."

McKenna began to savor the contributions of her chef idol Alice Waters and others, including Brit Angela Harnett and American April Bloomfield. Like McKenna, these chefs have proven beyond a doubt that a woman's place is indeed in the kitchen - the professional kitchen.

Guinness Cake

From Clodagh's Irish Kitchen (Kyle Books, $29.95)

This cake can only be described as dark and majestic. The bitterness of the
Guinness is balanced by the sugar and the vanilla icing adds a fluffy lightness
to balance it perfectly. I make this at my restaurant, Clodagh's Kitchen, using a
locally brewed stout called O'Hara's, which is similar to Guinness. If you don't
like stout, worry not-you will like this cake! The caramel and coffee flavors
make this cake one of the best that I have ever made or eaten... Trust me!

Serves 10
21/4 sticks plus 1 tablespoon
unsalted butter
11/4 cups Guinness
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder,
sifted
2 large eggs
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons superfine
sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup buttermilk
21/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
For the frosting
7 tablespoons unsalted butter,
softened
21/2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
11/4 cups cream cheese (not low-fat)

1 Preheat the oven to 325�F. Line the bottom of a 12-inch round
springform pan with parchment paper.

2 Make the cake: Heat the butter in a large saucepan over medium
heat until melted. Stir in the Guinness, then remove from the heat
and stir in the cocoa.

3 In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs, sugar, vanilla extract, and
buttermilk, and then slowly mix in the Guinness mixture.

4 Sift together the flour, baking soda, and baking powder into a
separate large bowl. Using a handheld electric mixer, slowly mix
the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and keep beating until it is
all well combined.

5 Transfer the batter to the prepared cake pan and bake in the
oven for about 45 minutes. Test to make sure the cake is cooked
by inserting a toothpick into the center of the cake-if it comes out
clean, the cake is cooked. Let cool in the pan, then transfer from
the pan onto a wire rack.

6 While the cake is cooling, make the frosting: Using a handheld
electric mixer, blend all the ingredients together until light and
fluffy.

7 Place the cooled cake on a plate and generously spread the
frosting on top.

The cake will keep for up to 1 week in an airtight container.