Savoury Soda Bread variations

Soda bread is often baked in the oven, but this version of savoury soda bread is baked on either a gridle or electric fry pan.

If using an electric fry pan, turn it on to around 300 degrees before mixing the ingredients. Similarly, if you’re heating up a gridle on the top of the cooker it’s important make sure it’s reached a reasonable heat before mixing everything together. Traditional Irish Soda bread is made using buttermilk, but natural yoghurt works just as well and is often easier to get hold of. Once the yoghourt or buttermilk is added to the mixture in the bowl, it starts to react with the baking soda, and the rising process gets under way.

This recipe adds a savoury touch by adding grated cheese and chives. Personal taste will partly determine the quantity of grated cheese you add to the mixture. The 50 grams used here gives the soda bread a gentle background flavour of cheese.

Ingredients

150 grams of Organic Irish Soda Coarse Brown Bread Flour
150 grams of Traditional Organic White flour / or Plain Flour
250 grams of Natural Yoghourt or Buttermilk.
Some additional water may be needed.
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp salt
50 grams grated cheese. Strongly flavoured cheese such as mature Cheddar or Red Leicester.
20 grams of chopped fresh chives. (The supermarket pack of fresh chives was 20 grams. Alternatively use some dried chives)

Preparation method

Mix together 150 grams of Organic Irish Soda Coarse Brown Bread flour with another 150 grams of Plain Flour / Traditional Organic White flour. Add in one generous teaspoon of baking soda and one teaspoon of salt. Add in the grated cheese and the chopped fresh chives.

Mix all the ingredients up so that all the ingredients are well distributed through the flour mix. Then add the buttermilk or yoghourt and stir things together in the bowl using a baking spoon.

Your aim is to produce a ball of dough that is dry enough on the outside for you to pick it up and transfer it onto a baking board without getting your fingers sticky. If the mix is wet and sticky just add a bit more flour to the mixture until you’ve created a non-sticky ball of dough.

If the mix is too dry add some more water to the mix until it all holds together happily. Adding a bit of warm water probably helps things to rise a bit better. This isn’t a precise process, but you can adjust things by adding whatever flour or water is needed to produce a reasonably firm ball of dough.

Don’t spend too much time mixing things because the buttermilk/yoghourt quickly starts reacting with the baking soda and it important to get the dough onto the gridle or pan before the rising agent loses its vigour.

It is not necessary to knead the flour. Simply mix it up into a ball and then turn it out onto a baking board dusted with some plain flour, and then flatten the ball of dough gently into a circle.

Using a knife or a dough cutter, divide the circle of dough into quadrants (or farls).

It may be helpful to use a fish slice or pallet knife to place each farl gently into the fry pan or onto the hot gridle.

Bake on the first side for about three minutes. By that time the bottom of each farl should have risen and a crust should have formed. Then turn over each farl and bake on the other side for two to three minutes.

Now there should be a softish crust on both sides of the farls. You can now stand the farls on their ends and give each of the three sides of the farl another minute or two on the pan / gridle to seal the edges.

Remove the farls from the pan/gridle and put them on a cooling tray.

Savoury Soda bread is best eaten whilst still warm. It works well on its own with some butter or margarine. For those who wish, extra cheese can of course be added on.

Cooked ham and tomato on top of this savoury soda bread is another tasty combination.