Every St. Patrick’s Day I like to do a special Irish meal as a nod to my ancestry. There is so much to the Irish cuisine with the variety available. I have never had corned beef, well that’s Irish American, not Irish and I don’t cook with cabbage really as I don’t like it. I would always be horrified when people couldn’t wait for the boiled corned beef and cabbage. But to each their own. I found a recipe on the BBC for a Potato and Parsnip Gratin. Of course I played around with it!

While beef, corned or otherwise, isn’t an Irish tradition, bacon or ham is. I hoped to do a pork loin on the grill but I couldn’t find one so I settled for pork chops to grill. I marinated the pork in olive oil with lemon, thyme and garlic. I am not a fan of time changes but at least it is now light enough to see the grill! I am so ready for the sun to come back up north.

Technique for Potato and Parsnip Gratin

This is an easy and delicious dish to throw together. It goes faster if you have a mandolin to slice the veg. I couldn’t find mine, not sure where we put it after we moved. I’ve no doubt it was right in front of me but couldn’t see the wood for the trees!

Preheat the oven to 350F/175C. Prep all the ingredients before layering. As I was only doing three ramekins, I only needed one medium sized potato. The best thing about this recipe is that it is easy to scale up or down depending on how many people you need to feed. To keep this recipe low FODMAP friendly, I used scallions/spring onions but use whatever onions you would like.

Start layering with the potatoes, then the parsnips. Add a bit of cream, scallion/spring onion, thyme and season with sea salt and ground pepper. Grate the jarlsberg over the ingredients. I added more after taking the photo and I wanted all that cheesy goodness.

Keep repeating the layers until you are at the top of the ramekin. Finish with a layer of potato before grating the cheese to cover the potato. Place the ramekins onto a baking sheet and cover with tin foil. Place into the oven. Bake for about an hour. At that point pierce the potatoes with a knife. If soft, remove the tin foil to brown the cheese. Serve with the sliced pork and garden peas.

We love doing roasted potatoes and parsnips, potato and parsnip mash, and this will be something we make more often. It’s easy and has lots of flavour. An elegant comfort food.