Cooking corned beef and cabbage...

Tomorrow is St. Patrick's day and you don't need to be Irish to celebrate. The typical meal is corned beef, cabbage, potatoes and soda bread (chemically leavened and not sourdough or yeast risen). I start by brining my beef about a week ahead and I wrote about it Monday, see HERE. I linked to a Martha Stewart recipe because I don't measure mine. Yes, I am one of those cooks who just throws things together and when people ask for a copy of my recipe, it is in my head and not on an index card. My own brine is salt, water, a small amount of sucanat, peppercorns, mustard seed, celery seed, garlic and bay leaves. And I did not do a tiny half brisket, either. Mine is a seven pounder of crowning glory. We are really looking forward to tomorrow.

Easy Cooking Instructions for the Corned Beef and Cabbage:

So, once your brisket is brined, you are ready to cook it for dinner. I will have to cut this beast in half, first. Discard the brine and rinse the brisket least the finished product be too salty. I like to strain the liquid and use the spices in the cooking water. Place your spices and brisket in a large Dutch oven. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. In a 7qt Dutch oven, you can fill it with a 3-4 pound half brisket, one pound of peeled carrots halved, and two pound of scrubbed potatoes. Fill with fresh water just to cover. Heat on a stove until boiling. When it is at a boil, cover with a lid and place in the oven. Let it cook in the oven for three hours. You will need to then core and cut your cabbage into wedges.  Place the cabbage wedges in the pot around the brisket and bake for another half hour. If you over cook the cabbage, you will get that sulfery smell and it will be less than crispy and tasty. Tasty is good. Remove the brisket, slice against the grain and serve.

Some people find cutting cabbage to be hard. There is this video HERE but she is super verbose and waves her knife around in an unsafe way. One of my goals for this year is to learn video editing so I can teach things like knife skills. She has given me a good hard push. Until I get that going, here are some photos to help you through it:

Stab the knife into the cabbage keeping a firm grip using "cat's claw" type hold.

Slide the knife down one side while holding the cabbage still.

Turn the cabbage on the other side.

 Lay flat and cut in half.

Cut the core out of the quarters by laying flat, keeping fingers away from blade.

Discard  core to compost.

Sprouted Irish Soda Bread:

3 C whole grain sprouted flour

1 C unbleached all purpose flour

1 TB baking power

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

3/4C butter, melted and cooled and divided

1 C buttermilk, kefir, sour milk or thin yogurt

1 egg, beaten

1 C dried currants, optional

Preheat oven to 375. Combine flours, baking powder, soda, and salt and whisk together. Then combine the buttermilk, egg and 1/2 of melted butter. Add all the liquid at one time to the dry and knead at least fifty turns at which time you can knead in the currants, if desired. Shape into a ball, place on a lined baking sheet, and slash with a sharp knife in an X. Brush half of remaining butter over loaf and bake in preheated oven for about 45 minutes. Remove from oven and brush over remaining butter. Allow to cool before slicing.

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