While it may sound rather disgusting a boiled dinner is
pretty darn tasty. I decided to try a corned beef for St. Patrick’s Day this
year. Overall, not too bad, only 1 minor mishap. I burned the cabbage. How you
ask? Trust me it takes skillz (that’s right, with a “z”). Basically lesson
learned; don’t walk away from the kitchen. More on that later. So my St Paddy’s
day dinner consisted of corned beef, slightly burned cabbage, and colcannon.
Corned beef is actually one of the easiest things I’ve ever
made. Boil water, add spice packet that comes with the beef, add beef, boil for
2.5 hours. Slice thin, serve.
The cabbage was almost good. I started with ½ head of
cabbage, cider vinegar, some of the cooking stock from the corned beef, a
little honey, and caraway seeds. My major problem was the cooking time and heat
(which is pretty much all cooking is right?). I sliced the cabbage thin and
tossed it in a pan with the cooking stock, vinegar, and honey. I put a cover on
it and figured I had at least 15 minutes before I needed to do anything. Boy
was I wrong. I had the heat up to about medium high. I probably needed it on
low. I would have been much better to let it cook longer and slower. Maybe a
crock pot would be better next time.
When I returned to the kitchen 15 minutes later I found the cabbage
burned to the bottom of the pot to the point that the entire pot was black and
would need to be scrubbed with Bar Keeper’s Friend (one of the best cleaning
products ever). I decided to try the cabbage anyway. Other than the strange
smoky overtones the flavor was right on what I was going for, so better luck
next time.
The final ingredient to my St. Paddy’s Day dinner was
colcannon. In short: mashed potatoes and kale. Some recipes called for cabbage
instead of kale but I really wanted the dark green for both its health benefits
and to have something different on the table.
Colcannon:
6 medium potatoes
½ bunch kale
½ stick butter
Milk or cream
Nutmeg
Salt
Pepper
Peel potatoes and cut in ¼s. boil until just fork tender.
Drain, saving some of the cooking liquid. De-vein the kale (remove the stalk
and the thick center vein) and roughly chop. Add kale and reserved cooking
liquid to the pot. Cover and cook on medium heat for 5 to 7 minutes, until the
kale is softened but not mushy. Drain kale well, remove as much liquid as
possible (pat dry). Add potatoes and kale to pot and mash with butter and
cream. Add salt, pepper, and nutmeg to taste.
Just a general note about salt. I generally keep unsalted
butter in my house for baking so that’s what I use when I cook as well. So I
end up adding salt to almost any recipe that calls for butter, but I probably
end up getting less sodium in my diet than if I used salted butter. Something
to think about: if you use salted butter be very careful not to make your
dishes too salty tasting by over adding salt. I also use kosher salt so by
measuring spoon size I’m adding less than if I used a finer grind. It’s all
about what you’re used to and what you enjoy.
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