My mother used to make
yellowmeal or Indianmeal soda farls, they were drier and grainy unlike the regular soft farl she'd make and to be honest I was a picky eater then and didn't bother with them or the trend of marrow jam at the time either. I'd have one now though, hot from the griddle with a spoon of blueberry jam on the melting butter.
People are familiar with ground corn as a starch in the form of Polenta, still it's not always a favourite on the menu,making it palatable is the task. A small amount either set and grilled with parmesan is alright or 'wet' as a mop up to a ragu of strong flavours help it.
Indian meal,much maligned as a Famine food here in Ireland when it was brought in as a relief food and on it's own it would have been hard to eat, the fact that it isn't very nutritious didn't help either, and that there was good flour being shipped out of the country was part of the crime earning it the low esteem that it has held.
Back from the Dublin/Wicklow mountains picking fraughans/blaeberries/bilberries/myrtilles/blueberries I have a blueberry polenta cake in mind,but for a simple quick reward now, I retreat to a great Irish staple 'a bit of soda'
As opposed to the tradtional soda farl recipe from an earlier blog post, this one will be based on a 'Slims cake' recipe sweet and rich with butter and sugar in the mix.
Indian Meal 'Slims' Cakes
Ingredients, makes 3 scones
5 oz 142gms self raising flour
5 oz 142gms fine polenta, maize/cornmeal.
2oz 56gms butter
1 oz 28gms sugar
Pinch salt
120gms Buttermilk
Method
Sieve the flour into a bowl add the polenta/cornmeal and sugar cut the buter into small cubes add to thOoe dry ingredient and rub it in, add the butermilk use a flat blade,and mix to a paste. Knead lightly on a floured board press or roll out thinly.
Bake on a hot griddle or heavy based pan.
serve warm with butter and some fraughan/blueberry jam.
nb. If you have an Indian foodstore near you buy their coarse ground cornmeal, it's cheaper than the 'chic' polenta.
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