Although strictly speaking I have little or no Irish blood (one of my great-grandmothers was Scots Irish), I still like to dress in green and make something Irish for Saint Patrick’s Day. This week I’m concentrating on Colcannon, basically gussied-up mashed potatoes. This dish adds lovely green vegetables to the spuds.

I first tasted Colcannon at the late lamented Green Emporium in Colrain. There, Chef Michael Collins cooked it to pay tribute to his own Irish ancestry — and to Colrain’s sister town in Ireland, Coleraine. It’s perfect comfort food at this time of year when the winds can blow ridiculously fiercely.

We tend to associate the potato with Ireland. Indeed, the advent of many Irish immigrants to the United States in the mid-1800s was due to the potato famine that decimated potato crops in their homeland; potatoes were a staple of Irish cuisine.

According to Jennifer Billock in Smithsonian Magazine, the potato was a relative newcomer to Ireland, becoming widespread only in the 1700s.

Billock explains that Colcannon was the perfect blend of old and new for the Irish. They had been eating cabbage and kale for centuries. Putting one or both of those greens in a dish with potatoes made culinary sense and tasted delicious as well.

Colcannon entered Irish folklore; Billock quotes a song about it:

Well, did you ever make colcannon made with lovely pickled cream

With the greens and scallions mingled like a picture in a dream?

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Did you ever make a hole on top to hold the ‘melting’ flake

Of the creamy flavoured butter that our mothers used to make?

Oh you did, so you did, so did he and so did I,

And the more I think about it, sure the nearer I’m to cry.

Oh weren’t them the happy days when troubles we knew not

And our mother made colcannon in the little skillet pot?

The dish was particularly popular at Halloween. It was used then for fortune telling, just as Christmas pudding would be later in the year. Whoever made the Colcannon would secrete little objects in the dish.

If you found a ring in your Colcannon, you were supposed to be on the brink of matrimony. A thimble or a button, on the other hand, destined you for spinsterhood. If you found a coin, money was coming your way.

In the Irish Star, Laura Grainger wrote, “Another old tradition was for single women to put the first and last bite of their Colcannon into a stocking and hang it on their front door. The next unmarried (and unrelated?) man to enter through the door was said to be [their] future husband.”

This tradition sounds a bit too messy for me to try so I guess I’ll never know whether it works. Grainger added that Irish people also fended off evil spirits by leaving a little Colcannon at the base of a hawthorn tree. The fairies would smile upon whoever left the dish; apparently, they were fans.

Colcannon may be varied according to the tastes and pantry of the cook. Some people mash in parsnips along with their potatoes for extra flavor and nutrition. Some people use kale instead of the cabbage below; some people use both.

The dish is prettier if you skin your potatoes, but I’m a fan of the texture, taste, and nutritional properties of potato skins so I kept mine. (I did wash the potatoes carefully.)

Michael Collins boils his cabbage and leeks along with the potatoes and serves the final product on the side of ham or pork. Using a method from my Scottish friend Craig Hamilton, I am including the pork in the recipe by topping my Colcannon with bacon pieces and sautéing the leeks and cabbage in bacon fat.

If you think that makes your Colcannon too fatty or if you want a vegetarian alternative, feel free to use Michael’s method. The vegetables, cream, and butter will provide plenty of flavor and richness.

The only trick here is to more or less coordinate the cooking time of the bacon and the potatoes. If the bacon is ready before the potatoes are, just let it drain. If the potatoes are ready before the bacon and veggies are, cover the potato pot, turn the heat down to low, and let them sit.

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

Ingredients:

1/2 pound bacon (more if you love bacon)

3 pounds baking potatoes (around 3 large potatoes), chopped into small pieces

3 to 4 leeks, mostly the white part with just a little green (I had only 2 so I used 2, but more would have been better), cut lengthwise, washed, and then chopped into small pieces

1/2 medium cabbage, chopped or (even better) shredded

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

2/3 cup heavy cream (plus a little more if you can’t resist) pepper to taste

paprika for sprinkling

Instructions:

Chop the bacon into small pieces, and cook it over medium-low heat, stirring from time to time, until the pieces are brown and crispy. Remove them from the pan, and drain them on a paper-towel-covered plate. Leave the bacon grease in its pan.

When the bacon begins to brown, boil the potatoes in salted water until they are fork soft.

Use the bacon grease to sauté the leeks until they soften and begin to turn translucent. Add the cabbage, and sauté until the cabbage wilts.

Drain the potatoes, return them to their pot, and stir in half of the butter, all of the cream, and the pepper. Use a potato masher (not a food processor) to mash them. Add the vegetables and bacon, and mash again.

You may eat the Colcannon as is with the rest of the butter melted on top. Or you may preheat the oven to 325 degrees and spread the Colcannon in a deep casserole dish. Roughly flatten the top, dot the remaining butter on top, and sprinkle paprika overall. Draw little cross hairs on top just before baking.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the Colcannon is a little golden brown.

Serves 6 to 8 as a main course or 12 as a side dish.

If you have leftover Colcannon, try frying rounds of it in butter and/or bacon grease to make pancakes. They’re not healthy, but they are yummy.

Tinky Weisblat is an award-winning cookbook author and singer known as the Diva of Deliciousness. Visit her website, TinkyCooks.com.