Dublin Coddle (Irish Sausage and Bacon Stew)

About This Recipe

Dublin coddle is the original Friday-night, end-of-the-week pub stew of working-class Dublin, designed to use up the remaining sausages and bacon rashers from the week before the Catholic abstinence from meat on Friday. The dish is named for the verb 'to coddle' — to cook gently in liquid below boiling — and it sums up the technique perfectly: chunks of pork sausage and thick-cut smoked bacon are layered with raw onion and potato in a heavy pot, covered with a light beef stock or even just water, and left to simmer slowly on the stovetop (or, in proper Dublin fashion, in a low oven all afternoon) until the sausages plump up, the bacon perfumes the broth, the onions melt to translucence, and the potatoes start to fall apart at the edges into a creamy, savoury, slightly murky stew. Crucially, the sausages are not browned first. This is the cardinal sin of every English food writer who has tried to 'improve' the dish; Dubliners insist that the sausages must go into the pot pale and emerge pale, soft and tender, with the broth carrying all the smoke and pork flavour. The traditional accompaniment is a glass of cold Guinness, a slice of buttered soda bread, and, in the most authentic Dublin tradition, a bit of brown sauce on the side. Sean O'Casey, James Joyce and Jonathan Swift all immortalised coddle in their writing; it is a dish utterly without pretension, made from cheap ingredients, and beloved beyond reason by anyone who grew up with it.

Ingredients

Serves 4

• 8good-quality pork sausages (Irish or English butcher's, ideally Hick's or Hafner's)
• 300 gthick-cut smoked back bacon rashers, cut into 3 cm pieces
• 1 kgfloury potatoes (Rooster or Maris Piper), peeled and cut into thick slices
• 3 largewhite onions, peeled and thickly sliced
• 750 mllight beef or chicken stock (or water at a pinch)
• 1 small bunchflat-leaf parsley, chopped, to serve
• 1 tspfreshly ground black pepper
• salt, to taste (the bacon is salty — taste before adding)
• Guinness and brown soda bread, to serve

Instructions

1. 1

   Layer the pot — do not brown the meat

   In a large heavy ovenproof pot or casserole, build a base layer of sliced onions. Lay the bacon pieces over the onions, then arrange the whole sausages on top. Do not be tempted to brown the meat first — this is the most common mistake and ruins the dish.

2. 2

   Add the potatoes

   Layer the sliced potatoes over the meat and onions, packing them in fairly tight. Season with the black pepper but no salt yet — the bacon will provide plenty.

3. 3

   Cover with stock

   Pour the stock over the potatoes — it should come just below the top layer of potato, not submerge it. If you have less, top up with water. Bring the pot to barely a simmer over medium heat.

4. 4

   Coddle, do not boil

   Once you see the first gentle bubbles rising, reduce the heat to its lowest setting (or transfer to a 150°C/300°F oven). Cover with the lid and coddle for 90 minutes — the surface should tremble, never boil. The slow gentle cook is what defines coddle.

5. 5

   Remove the lid

   Take the lid off and continue cooking uncovered for a further 25–30 minutes to reduce the broth slightly and let the top layer of potatoes start to dry out and brown faintly at the edges.

6. 6

   Check seasoning and rest

   Pull the pot off the heat. Taste the broth and add salt if needed — the bacon usually does the work. Let the coddle rest 10 minutes off the heat so the flavours settle and the broth thickens slightly.

7. 7

   Serve traditionally

   Ladle into deep warm bowls, making sure each portion gets sausage, bacon, plenty of potato, melted onion and a generous spoon of the porky broth. Scatter with parsley and serve with thick slices of buttered Irish brown soda bread and a pint of stout.

Variations

• •

  Modern Dublin coddle — some restaurants brown the sausages and add Guinness; this is acceptable but not traditional.

• •

  Guinness coddle — replace 250 ml of stock with a Guinness for a darker, malty broth (a trendy 2010s adaptation).

• •

  Country coddle — add carrots and turnip with the potatoes for a more rural variation.

• •

  Vegetarian coddle — replace the meat with vegetarian sausages and smoked tofu rashers, use a strong mushroom stock.

Storage

Refrigerate up to 3 days; the dish improves overnight as the broth gels and the flavours intensify. Reheat gently in a heavy pot over low heat, adding a splash of water if needed. Freezes well — portion into containers and freeze up to 2 months; thaw overnight before reheating.

Frequently Asked Questions