Saturday, March 17, 2007

Corned Beef Fixin's

The meat is still simmering, so all I have to show at this point is this little array of dipping sauces in the colors of the flag of Ireland, in my new, second-hand shamrock-shaped dish.
Clockwise, from the left: Sour cream mixed with horseradish, in a membrane-blistering ratio; mm. Dijon mustard tinted with red and yellow food coloring (oh god, so not local and so not natural). Parsley oil, which did not turn out to be the emerald-green crystal-clear unguent I was hoping for. Plus the oil tastes a little off. Bad experiment.
No problem. The beef is almost done, and the cabbage, carrots and potatoes (hey, those colors again!) are prepped and ready to drop into the simmering water.
I haven't tasted the meat yet, but the home-corning experiment seems to be a success. It looks pink and tender, and smells wonderful from the home-concocted handful of pickling spices, thanks to Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn's Charcuterie.
Also: No green beer. We're good.
Happy St. Pat's.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds soooo good. And I love your dish! So how was it?

cookiecrumb said...

Jennifer: It was amazingly realistic and lifelike! It tasted like the real thing. Deep pink inside, easy slicin', tender. Wow. Lots left over for hash and sandwiches.
BTW, that little pewter dish came from the Hospice of Marin Thrift Shop on Grant in Novato!

Monkey Wrangler said...

Way to go cc! Describing it as "lifelike" threw me though.....I was picturing it still moving. When you serving hash?

We had a brisket here at the ranch yesterday. Not corned, just smoked for 9+ hours. It was good. I'll have to do that again sometime.

Biggles just sent me a pic of his torte. Looked like a success. Must not be "vegetarian." I'm gonna give him a call and see if I can taste it.

Kevin said...

CC,
That's absolutely the best corned beef I've ever had.

Susan from Food Blogga said...

Corned beef and the veggies is one dinner I have never made, which is funny considering my mom and Jeff's mom made it every year at this time. Maybe we'll just come your place and have some of yours. ;)

Willa said...

I cooked a not-home-brined corned beef, but left off the cabbage- we made reubens instead; had our cabbage as sauerkraut. And we had leftovers as corned beef hash this morning for breakfast. How big was your briscuit? When I put mine in the pot I thought it was so huge that we would be eating corned beef for a week, but we only got 4 sandwiches and 4 servings of hash from it.

I watched Alton Brown corn a briscuit last week on TV, and now I am anxious to try one. My problem is, we buy half a beef each year, and that only give us half a briscuit! And I love them smoked SO MUCH that it is hard to think of dedicating it to corning. But I guess I bought the one we ate today from the grocery store (before we started being really truly local- I pulled it out of the freezer)and I suppose I can buy an extra briscuit from the beef guy. I'm glad to hear yours turned out well, gives me hope.

cookiecrumb said...

D-man: Well, "lifelike" means it resembles the real thing. I mean, give me a break, I was really impressed with myself that I was able to create this stuff! Hash will be coming up tomorrow, probably, because we already had sandwiches today.
Now: Smoked brisket. Verrry nice. I've done that myself -- aiming for a sort of Texas effect -- and it's good, but it's not Irish. Oh. Corned beef isn't Irish. Right.

Kevin: Me too. I'm so pleased with myself, honest. Little baby steps on my first cured meat.

Susan: Well, come on over. I have TONS of leftover pink salt. I'll teach you what I learned, and then we'll have hash.

Willa: Just once you might want to try it.
I couldn't believe how huge the brisket was; about five pounds! It was the size of a paving tile, even though the butcher trimmed off all the edges.

mary grimm said...

This made me miss corned beef--I haven't had any since my mother died--have to dig out the family recipe book. We had chili and rice on Saturday, but we ate it with an Irish twinkle in our eyes.