OPB’s “Superabundant” explores the stories behind the foods of the Pacific Northwest with videos, articles and this weekly newsletter. To keep you sated between episodes, Heather Arndt Anderson, a Portland-based culinary historian, food writer and ecologist, highlights different aspects of the region’s food ecosystem. This week she offers a recipe for Irish lamb stew with spring vegetables and dulse-flecked potato dumplings.

Click here to subscribe. For previous stories, go here.

For some Americans, St. Patrick’s Day (March 17) isn’t much more than a fine excuse to imbibe liberally on a school night. Irish soda bread, Guinness and corned beef hit American market shelves, but in Ireland, folks don’t really eat corned beef on St. Paddy’s Day — by the time America celebrated its first St. Patrick’s Day parade, most working class folks in Ireland couldn’t afford meat at all, opting for potatoes instead (bacon is still more common today). Whether or not you’re Irish or observe the holiday’s religious roots, the timing coincides nicely with the first soft flush of spring. Why not embrace the verdure of it all? Break out the whiskey and look out for leprechauns in the clover patch. What common garden vegetable is traditionally planted on St. Patrick’s Day? Read on to find out!

Vintner vintage, Pi Day, the world’s fish and chips, microplastic health hazards, and good things in markets and gardens

Happy birthday, Britt

On March 12, photographer and vintner Peter Britt would’ve turned 205 years old. the man best known for taking the first photo of Crater Lake also happened to pioneer Southern Oregon’s wine and orchard industry too. OPB’s Kami Horton shared his story.

Pi Day’s Oregon connection

Yesterday (March. 14) was Pi Day, and our love of a math-inspired dessert is anything but irrational — especially when a Wikipedia rabbit hole taught us that the holiday was founded by a Reed College grad. Physicist Larry Shaw came up with the idea in 1988, during his decades-long stint as the technical curator of the Exploratorium science museum in San Francisco, but we like to think the real inspiration came from his years in Oregon — the marionberry was released just a couple years before Shaw came to the home of the Griffins.

Fish and chips inside tip

Earlier this week, Superabundant’s corn episode producer (and an OPB editor) Meagan Cuthill shared the following hot goss: “I ate the best fish and chips of my life yesterday and I’ve had fish and chips in many places, including across the PNW, London and Iceland.” If you’re ever in Cascade Locks and you eat fish, go to Brigham Fish Market. It’s Indigenous-owned and the menu is amazing. I got the Alaskan halibut fish and chips which they thinly bread in house. I got one traditional and one Cajun. Amazing meal and service all around.” Thanks for the intel, Meagan!

Superabundant…but not in a good way

A recent study published in “Nature” reveals that ever-ubiquitous microplastics — gasp — are bad for you. In what might be the most unsurprising discovery ever, researchers at Wayne State University in Michigan have found that having microplastics embedded in key arteries is associated with higher rates of serious health problems. On the Oregon Coast, scientists at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center have been studying the growing plastic problem for more than a decade.

Watch OPB’s “Oregon Field Guide” special, Oregon’s Problem with Plastics.

Good things in markets

Tuesday, March 19 is the vernal or spring equinox. It’s not just the first day of spring, but one of only two times of year that the day and night are the exact same length. This is the time to eat all the tender green things — there’s raab galore out there, and we’re seeing the first curled croziers of fiddlehead ferns, succulent miner’s lettuce, tart sorrel and peppery cress. The baby turnips are crisp and sweet — we roasted a few for this week’s stew but we’ll grab more for pickling with cherry blossoms in rice vinegar. We’ll use the turnip greens to make a silky saag paneer.

Citrus is on its way out, but late-season gold nugget mandarins are at their peak, with a warty, pock-marked skin that belies its honey-sweet and pleasantly tart fruit. Kumquats are also still good — try caramelizing them for cakes or turning them into sticky conserve for later. We’re also seeing the first pink muscatel grapes that taste exactly like Japanese gummy candy.

In the “Superabundant” garden this week

Now that spring is just around the bend, it’s an ideal time to direct-sow spring crops like onions, shallots, radishes and potatoes, and for good luck, tradition says to plant peas on St. Patrick’s Day.

Birds are all out in droves, seeking mates and setting up breeding territories, so you might want to cover the seed beds with a row cover until they’ve grown a few sets of leaves (this will also help protect them against digging squirrels). If you keep backyard hens, it’s also a good idea to keep them in a secure run for a few weeks instead of letting them range around freely — the other day a Cooper’s hawk dove and took a swipe at our chickens, right on the patio! Only a few feet away from the back door! It’s the beginning of the breeding season for local hawks, and nest-building is hard work that demands a lot of protein.

If you don’t maintain vegetable beds year-round, it’s worth poking around in the garden to see how much survived the winter blast. Push back dead debris and take a close look — maybe your chives and parsley didn’t all die after all? Maybe the leaves you left on the ground in the fall are burying seedlings; give the baby plants some air and fresh compost to set them on the right course. It’s getting a bit late to prune fruit trees, but if you need to do any tidying up, bring the branches to force indoors, and treat yourself to a vase of fresh blossoms.

Recipe: Irish stew with spring vegetables and potato-dulse dumplings

There’s more that connects the Beaver State to the Emerald Isle than potatoes or a penchant for beer. It’s a simple organism that could change the world: dulse.

Also known as dillisk in Irish, the seaweed enjoyed in the northern Atlantic has a very close relative right here in the Pacific Northwest; in fact, they’re both in the same genus (Palmaria). Not only is dulse (a type of red alga) an excellent source of protein and essential micronutrients for humans, but substituting just 3% of cattle feed with the seaweed can reduce livestock cattle emissions by an astounding 80%. And more than ever, it’s being grown on seaweed farms in Oregon and Washington.

You can use dulse in salads, soups, or even in bread, but this cozy Irish stew utilizes dulse’s salty-umami flavor to add complexity to pillowy potato dumplings. Use whatever spring vegetables you like, and feel free to use beef or venison instead of lamb. Serve this with a dark beer and crusty loaf of soda bread or dulse bread. Serves 4-6.

Note: to make a vegetarian version, omit the lamb and use rich roasted vegetable stock instead of beef. If you want to make it vegan (or don’t feel like making dumplings), you can sub the dumplings with baby potatoes and add the dulse as a seasoning. Look for dulse in farmers markets, better-stocked grocery stores or buy it online.

Ingredients

Stew

1 tsp cooking oil

1 lb lamb stew meat, seasoned with a few pinches of salt and pepper

6 cups beef or lamb stock

3 medium carrots, peeled and cut into bite-sized pieces

3 baby turnips, quartered

2 baby leeks or spring onions, cut into bite-sized pieces

2 cups chopped cabbage

2 tbsp unsalted butter, softened

2 tbsp all-purpose flour1 cup peas (frozen or sugar snap are both fine)1 tsp fine sea salt

1 tsp black pepper

Chopped fresh parsley, chives, and/or thyme for serving

Potato-dulse dumplings

1 medium-sized russet potato, peeled and cubed

¾ cup all-purpose flour

1 egg

2 tbsp crushed, dried dulse

Instructions

1. Using a countertop pressure cooker, heat up the oil on the “browning” setting and brown the stew meat. Add the beef stock and cook on high pressure for 20 minutes. Allow the pot to depressurize naturally. [Alternatively, do this in a heavy-bottomed Dutch oven: after browning the meat over medium-high heat, pour in the stock, bring it to a boil and then cover the pot and reduce the heat to simmer. Cook until the meat is tender, about 1 hour.]
2. While the lamb is cooking, preheat the oven to 400º. Arrange the carrots, turnips and leeks on a rimmed baking sheet, drizzle with a little oil and sprinkle with a pinch of salt. Roast for 15 minutes, give the veg a stir, then add the cabbage and roast until the edges of the vegetables have begun to caramelize, about 15 minutes.
3. Stir the butter and flour together in a small bowl until fully combined into a mushy paste and then whisk it into the lamb and broth mixture until fully dissolved (either in the pressure cooker or Dutch oven). Add the roasted vegetables and bring the stew to a simmer.
4. Make the dumplings: steam the cubed potato until fork-tender, about 5 minutes. Mash the potatoes into a medium-sized mixing bowl with potato ricer or fork, then add the flour, egg, and dulse. Stir it together into a shaggy dough, then turn out onto a floured surface and knead until a smooth and soft dough forms. Quarter the dough and roll each quarter into a snake about an inch thick. Cut the snakes into bite-sized pieces, then roll them into balls.
5. Add the dumplings, peas and salt and pepper to the simmering stew and cook until the dumplings are tender and the stew broth is glossy and thickened, about 8-10 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning according to your preferences (the dulse should make the dumplings salty enough). Add fresh herbs and serve.

Get these recipes sent to your inbox every week. Don’t forget to tell a friend!