Colcannon
Creamy Irish mashed potatoes swirled with sautéed kale and scallions — the ultimate St. Patrick's Day comfort side dish.
- 2 lbrusset potatoes(peeled and cut into chunks)
- 3 cupkale(ribs removed, roughly chopped)
- 6 wholescallions(thinly sliced)
- 6 tbspunsalted butter
- 0.5 cupwhole milk(warm)
- 1 tspkosher salt
- 0.5 tspblack pepper
Prepare up to 24 hours ahead. Reheat covered in a 350°F oven, adding a splash of warm milk to loosen. Stir gently before serving.
- 1Peel and cut potatoes into 1-inch chunks. Place in a large pot, cover with cold salted water, and bring to a boil. Cook for 15 to 20 minutes until fork-tender.
- 2While potatoes cook, melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add kale and cook, stirring, for 3 to 4 minutes until wilted. Add scallions and cook 1 minute more.
- 3Drain potatoes thoroughly. Return to pot and mash with remaining 4 tablespoons of butter and warm milk until smooth and creamy. Do not overmix.
- 4Fold sautéed kale and scallions into the mashed potatoes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
- 5Serve hot with an extra pat of butter in the center of each portion.
Use starchy russet potatoes for the fluffiest mash. Warm the milk before adding it to prevent the potatoes from cooling and going gluey. Finish with a generous knob of butter melted in a well at the center of the serving dish for authentic presentation.
Colcannon has been a staple of Irish cooking since at least the early 18th century, when it appears in historical records as an everyday dish of mashed potatoes combined with either cabbage or kale. Both potatoes and leafy brassicas were affordable, abundant, and sustainable in Ireland's cool, damp climate, making colcannon an economical and nourishing meal for working-class and rural families. The potato was introduced to Ireland in the late 16th century — traditions variously credit Sir Walter Raleigh and other English colonizers — and by the 1700s had become so central to the Irish diet that it was consumed at nearly every meal. Kale and cabbage, cultivated in Ireland since ancient times and particularly hardy in the Irish climate, provided the "green" that distinguished colcannon from plain mashed potato. The word colcannon derives from the Irish cal ceannann, meaning "white-headed cabbage." In Ireland the dish is traditionally associated with Samhain and Halloween, when small trinkets — a ring (predicting marriage), a coin (predicting wealth), a thimble (predicting spinsterhood) — are hidden inside the mash as fortune-telling charms. Irish poet Jonathan Swift mentioned colcannon in 1720, and the dish appears in Irish farming household accounts throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. It remains one of Ireland's most comforting and emblematic side dishes.