Potato Farls – An Authentic Irish Breakfast
- Updated on Mar 15, 2018
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What’s the difference between a potato farl and potato bread? About as much as the difference between a cow from Northern Ireland, and one from the Republic.
Potato farls or potato bread?
Potato farls (as they’re usually known in Northern Ireland) have long been used in the traditional Ulster fry – setting them far away from a traditional English breakfast.
Head into the Republic and you’ll find them known as potato bread – but with little or no difference to the recipe itself.
All that’s important is that they’re delicious, and are eaten for breakfast.
Actually, that’s not quite true. They’re delicious anytime of day, and are a great way to use up leftover spuds.
With Saint Patrick’s Day on the horizon and now a hugely celebrated festival it would be remiss of us not include a good breakfast before thoughts turn to Guiness and whiskey.
This potato farls (or potato bread) recipe comes from our good friend and recipe contributor, Ciaran, an Irishman living in Hamburg.
If you need proof of his potato pedigree, then look no further than the amazing Irish Bombay Potatoes.
Cooking tips – potato farls/potato bread
One of the greatest things about potato farls is their versatility.
You can change the flavour from the simple yet effective base to almost anything you want – curry powder, garlic, basil, rosemary, chili powder, grated cheese and butter.
They take on the flavour of whatever you add – so good! We also highly recommend serving with fried eggs and tomato – there’s a reason Ulster frys are so popular. This combo is one of our favourite egg protein recipes.
Do not use oil to fry the farls/bread! Make sure make they have flour on the outside and they’ll cook up nicely. Using oil just makes them greasy and heavy.
Some light breakfast reading
We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about breakfast recently, and how to make it more simple, more accessible and more realistic. And so we made Breakfast in Six.
Our new ebook features recipes that are made with only 6 ingredients or less – and are really quick too.
Breakfast shouldn’t be a chore – it should set us up for the day in the best possible way.
While potato farls aren’t in the eBook (the 30 recipes are exclusive to the book and unavailable online) the book does use recipes from all across the world.
The recipes were created by another good friend, and professional chef, Jansen Schouten, who’s culinary expertise ranges from Canada to Germany to New Zealand.
You can be sure of exciting new vegetarian breakfasts with little effort and loads of taste.
Ingredients
For the farls:
- 3 medium potato (3 potatoes = approx. 500g/ 1.1lbs)
- ¼ cup wholegrain flour
- Salt to taste
- 1 tsp butter (leave it out to make them vegan)
- 1 tbsp curry powder (or other favourite herb)
To complete the dish as a fry up:
- 4 eggs
- 3 tomato
- 1 tsp olive oil
Instructions
- Peel, then quarter potatoes, boil for 15 mins until easily pierced with a fork. Drain and cool under running cold water. Allow to go cold. This recipe is also perfect for using leftover potatoes.3 medium potato
- Mash the soft spuds with a fork or masher.
- Add half the flour to the potato mix and spread the rest onto a work space.¼ cup wholegrain flour
- Mix the flour along with the potatoes, butter (if using), salt (and seasoning of choice, see notes) until you have a dough. Make balls from the dough. Use plenty of seasoning!Salt to taste, 1 tsp butter
- Press the balls flat into the flour on the workspace. They should be 1-2 cm thick. Don't be afraid to add more flour if needed to stop them sticking.
- Put a pan on medium heat, NO oil, then add the potato farls, (make sure each side is covered lightly with flour before putting into the pan).
- Cook on each side for about 3-4 minutes, until nicely browned.
- Serve with a little extra salt.
Optional as a fry up:
- Slice the tomatoes in half.3 tomato
- Add some olive oil to a pan on medium-high heat.1 tsp olive oil
- Add the tomatoes, then crack in the eggs to one side. Cook with a lid (if available) to speed up the frying process.4 eggs
- After a couple of minutes, flip the tomatoes. Another minute or so and the eggs will be ready and tomatoes will be nicely browned . Enjoy!
NOTES
Nutrition
Potato Farls of course! It’s the greatest possible use I can think of for leftover boiled potatoes.
Comments
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16 comments
I used curry powder, turmeric, and cumin and it was a good mix. We did not fry the tomatoes as I learned that my wife doesn’t like hot tomatoes, and I added some dried basil and balsamic vinegar to them with some cottage cheese to make a “poor man’s” caprese mix. I was a bit skeptical of the farls, since they were very sticky and I kept having to sprinkle flour on them, but they fried up nice and that made it easier for then to keep their shape. Delicious meal!
Hey Kyle,
that’s awesome to read!! Nice additions, and totally understand about the tomatoes. My daughter is the same – she’ll eat raw tomatoes by the dozen but won’t go close to a cooked one 😀
Really glad you enjoyed the farls!
May one use potato flour (not starch) & liquid maybe whey in place of the potatoes?
Honestly, I have never tried ti so I can’t say for sure. But I would always give something like this a go!
so … what kind of flour did you use?
Regular white wheat flour 🙂
really bad recipe the ratio of flour and potato is wrong.
Hi Maass, why do you think that? What happened to your farls?
How do you sttore these if you make ahead please?
Hi Sheila, if making in advance I’d go through the first five steps and then store the unfried farls in the fridge in an airtight container for a day or two max. Then when ready, fry them up like in step 6 and you should be good to go! Enjoy 🙂
The nutrition information does not look correct to me, looking at other sites with similar same recipes that are way lower on sodium and cholesterol than you report here
Hi Matt! I just ran the ingredients through another analyser that we use and it gave similar values. Do you have an example I could compare against? Thanks!
I used happyforks.com and added the ingredients using 3 medium boiled potatoes 2 servings and it comes up as 374 calories. Regardless I am using this recipe for a big fry up with the puddings, rashers the works so I am not going to worry about nutrition because your recipe tastes so good and adds to this meal. Thanks for taking the time to share it.
Hi Misty – I’m glad you enjoyed it! My thanks to you too for taking the time to check the nutritional info as well. Was that 374 kcals per serving? And did you include the egg, tomatoes and oil or just the farls? Just wondering so I can check again. Thanks for writing!
Is your nutritional values for the whole recipe / fry up. It could be the other nutritional info I was looking at was just for the Farls and a smaller portion of the recipe
Hey Matt, ah yes – good point. It includes all the ingredients here, so two eggs and three tomatoes as well. It’s then divided per serving, so for one person the nutritional info in the chart would be 1.5 medium potatoes, 1 egg, 1.5 tomatoes, 1 tbsp olive oil etc etc. Hope that clears it up 🙂