Next Saturday is St. Patrick's Day. We're planning a dinner party. How about you?
To avoid being accused of perpetuating food myths, we're going to get this out of the way first: corned beef and cabbage is not authentic Irish food.
Frances Shilliday wrote a poem to remind us of this. Here's how it starts:
I just want to put something straight
About what should be on your plate,
If it's corned beef you're makin'
You're sadly mistaken,
That isn't what Irishmen ate.
The Irish traditionally served pork or lamb, not beef. But corned beef and cabbage with boiled potatoes and carrots is an Irish-American tradition, so -- like grandma and mom -- we're planning to serve it, in some variation, next weekend.
We do not know how to turn a keg of Brooklyn Lager green, but we do have a few St. Patrick's day suggestions, questions, and photos after the jump.
If you're looking to cure your own corned beef, Martha Stewart says it takes up to six days, so if you're starting from scratch you should get started tomorrow morning.
Here's what we served last year:
While purists will tell you to cook it all in one pot, that's a bunch of blarney. To keep the vegetables from turning into a greasy mush, you need to keep things separated. Cook the vegetables in one pot and the beef in the other. Cooked the beef with some onions studded with cloves and then discarded those onions before serving.
You might want to make extra corned beef. Corned beef hash is a breakfast treat:
Links for St. Patrick's Day Cooks
• Last year's Kitchen discussion on Corned Beef Served Four Ways
• Corned Beef and Cabbage discussion on Chowhound
• Potatoes Colcannon
• Everyday Food's Corned Beef Hash
• Healthy St. Patrick's Day suggestions at iVillage
• Guiness Cupcakes
• Irish Soda Bread
Last year, I went to a fantastic potluck party where we had heaping helpings of guinness stew, shepherd's pie, colcannon, and soda bread with Kerry Apple Cake for dessert.
Sadly, this year I'm stuck at work. But maybe I'll make the Kerry Apple Cake again for my fellow coworkers. :)
I'm making corned beef and cabbage tomorrow! I can't wait another week. Every year I think to myself, why don't I just make corned beef and cabbage other times of the year?
Anyway, I'll either make another corned beef and cabbage next weekend, a shepherd's pie, or just try to make it through with a "liquid dinner"...folks in these parts take St. Patrick's Day drinking pretty seriously. I'm already taking Friday afternoon off for the annual, traditional drinking afternoon with coworkers.
The potatoes colcannon may be something I try this year. Otherwise, it's the old standby of buttery, parsley potatoes.
I suppose this all rather odd comeing from a Japanese-American girl...oh well, I LOVE it!
Minipanda, do you make your own corned beef or where do you buy it?
I just tried my hand at fresh Irish bacon as a lesser-known, and less salty, alternative to corned beef.
I brined a center-cut, boneless pork loin and a whole boneless pork belly in water, salt, curing salt (pink), sugar and molasses for two full days. I took them out of the brine and gently boiled them in water. The loin was done in about 2 hours so I took it out of the water and continued to cook the belly for about 4 hours total. I then let both meats cool in the liquid off the stove.
To serve, I made some smashed red-skinned potatoes and some simple buttered cabbage. A few slices of the lean loin, and a few slices of the fatty belly (trimmed of as much fat as you prefer)went on top of that. Finally, some fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves dressed in a mustard vinaigrette garnished the meat and a little extra vinaigrette drizzled around added just enough acidity to cut through fat and brighten things up.
Now, if I could get my hands on some soda bread and some of your Brooklyn Ale.......
I do not make my own corned beef (maybe next year?).
I buy it from Wegmans, the king of all grocery stores! This time of year, there's corned beef in all the grocery stores in Western New York.
That poem is a limerick.
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