There's a particular kind of cold morning where nothing else will do. The light is grey, the kettle is on, and somebody in the house is going to want feeding before they're properly awake. This is when a soda farl earns its keep.

I didn't grow up with these. They belong to Ulster, properly speaking, and I learned them late, from a friend who made them on a flat griddle she'd had since she was married. She didn't measure anything. She just tipped the flour into a bowl, pressed a hollow into it with her knuckles, poured in the buttermilk, and brought it together with her fingers. Five minutes from bowl to pan. I stood at her elbow and tried to write it down afterwards, and the note in the notebook is brief: flour, buttermilk, a hot dry pan, don't overwork. That's most of it.

The shape matters. A round of dough cut into four, so each farl has two soft cut sides and one curved floury edge. They cook flat on the griddle, not in the oven, which is what makes them what they are. Soft and pillowy in the middle. A proper crust on top and bottom. The edges chewy and slightly raw-looking, in the best way.

A good soda farl wants very little. Cold butter, melting into the torn middle. A fried egg if you're going the whole way. Bacon if there's bacon. We're only making breakfast. But it's the kind of breakfast that makes you sit down at the table instead of eating standing up at the counter, and that's worth the fifteen minutes it takes.