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Time to enjoy Irish treats for St. Paddy’s Day

March 16, 2018

Tomorrow is Saint Patrick's Day, and the list of dinner specials on restaurant menus across the country will prominently feature corned beef and cabbage. But, is this a traditional Irish dish? Yes and no. For centuries, Irish grazing lands were ideal for raising cattle, primarily for a range of dairy products. Only when the cows stopped producing milk did they become a rare, dinner-table treat: beef.

However, across Europe, beef was becoming a valuable commodity for trade and the Irish turned to raising cattle to produce corned beef. Although the exact beginnings of corned beef are unknown, the practice of preserving meat through salt-curing was prevalent. "Corn" is the Old English word used for any small, hard grain and a likely descriptor of the coarse, granular salt used to make corned beef.

By the late 1600s, Ireland was producing the largest quantity of corned beef in the world, but the Irish people ate relatively little of it, relying instead on pork as a primary meat source. The biggest consumers of corned beef were the British naval fleets, French and English slave traders, and the colonists and laborers on Caribbean sugar plantations.

During the British colonization (or invasion) of Ireland, residents were pushed from their abundant pasture lands and forced to farm smaller tracts. While the British raised cattle for export, the Irish turned to potatoes as a cash crop. When potato blight struck in 1845, close to a million people died of starvation, and droves of Irish immigrants settled in New York City.

Here is where the Irish began eating corned beef. Instead of their traditional (pork-based) bacon and cabbage, they turned to the salt-cured beef brisket produced by their Jewish neighbors. No longer the expensive delicacy of their homeland, corned beef was readily available and affordable here. It seems corned beef and cabbage is actually an Irish-American tradition.

What exactly is corned beef? It's beef that has been salt-cured and treated with potassium nitrate or saltpeter (which gives the meat its bright pink color; saltpeter is also an ingredient in gunpowder). Typically, corned beef comes from a cut of beef known as the brisket from the lower chest of the cow, a tough cut of meat with a great deal of connective tissue.

To render that tough muscle into a fork-tender dish requires a long, slow cooking time. The cured (and often brined) piece of meat is simmered in a blend of spices for hours. The signature flavor of corned beef comes from the mixture of peppercorns, bay leaf, garlic, thyme, tarragon, cloves, mustard seed and nutmeg that season the cooking liquid.

The brisket is a long piece of meat, so it's first cut in half and then divided into two different pieces. The flat (also called the center or thin cut) is the leanest and easiest to carve into regularly shaped slices. The point (also called the deckle or second cut) has a large fatty cap, which adds richness to the flavor. We cooked a flat-cut corned beef for the photo.

For those of you concerned about the high sodium content and less-than-healthy nitrates in most packages of commercial corned beef, you will be happy to learn that there are options available. At specialty markets such as Whole Foods you can find organic, grass-fed beef brisket brined in sea salt, cane sugar, garlic and beet powder, then coated with a mixture of spices to season your simmering liquid. I would avoid any of the canned options for corned beef, as these have a texture more like Spam.

If you want to make your own corned beef, be sure to give yourself at least a week to brine the meat. Also, be aware that if you omit saltpeter, the beet powder will give your corned beef a pinkish hue on the outside, but the meat will remain the sullen brown of boiled beef on the inside. To add flavor to your vegetables, ladle off some of the cooking liquid to steam cabbage, carrots and potatoes; boiling them in the same pot with the fatty meat will give them a slimy coat.

I've included a recipe for simmering your corned beef and one for traditional Irish soda bread. This is a dense, brown bread made with whole wheat flour, not the light, sweet bread dotted with raisins sold at the grocery. Enjoy your green beer!

Simmered Corned Beef

1 3-lb corned beef
1 chopped celery stalk
1 sliced leek
3 sliced garlic cloves
1 cinnamon stick, broken
5 whole cloves
1 T whole peppercorns
1 t mustard seeds
1 t allspice berries
1 t coriander seeds
1 t juniper berries
2 crushed bay leaves
1 can Guinness Stout
water

Remove the corned beef from its package and discard brining liquid. Rinse and place in a deep Dutch oven. Scatter with chopped vegetables and spices. Pour in Guinness and add sufficient water to cover the meat. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to very low. Cover and simmer until tender, about 4 hours. Remove meat from the pot and allow to rest for 10 minutes before slicing. Use the liquid to steam cabbage and potatoes.

Irish Soda Bread

3 C whole wheat flour
1/2 t salt
1 t baking soda
1 1/2 C buttermilk
1/4 C flour for kneading

Preheat oven to 450F. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside. Sift together the flour, salt and baking soda in a large bowl. Make a well in the center and pour in the buttermilk.

Mix in the flour from the sides of the bowl until the dough is soft, but not wet and sticky. Turn out the dough onto a floured work surface. Knead the dough lightly for a few seconds, then pat into a round almost 2 inches thick. Place it on the prepared baking sheet and cut an X in the center of the dough. Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 400F. Continue baking until the top is golden and the bottom of the bread sounds hollow when tapped, about 25 minutes. Remove from the oven, wrap loosely in a kitchen towel and cool slightly. Serve warm.

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