March 17 - St. Patrick's Day

March 17 - St. Patrick's Day

I was going to post earlier in the day but I got caught up in making dinner, then eating it, then recovering from it. I made a traditional Corned Beef and Cabbage with boiled potatoes and Irish Soda Bread. Ok, so it may or may not be authentic, but it is traditional in my (Polish) family.

Take a piece of corned beef. Mine was about 4 lbs. Rinse off all the crap that is packaged with it. Place it in a pot and cover it with water (you are gonna need a big pot). Add 2 bay leaves and 20 black peppercorns. If you're like me, you don't have any peppercorns, so just toss a palm-ful of ground black pepper in. Bring the water to a boil, reduce to a simmer, then cover it and let it simmer until a fork goes easily into the middle of the meat. This may take about 3 hours (mine did). About half an hour before you expect the meat to be done, grab a head of cabbage and cut into wedges. Put that in with the meat.

Like I said, I served with boiled potatoes. Hopefully I don't have to tell you how to cook those. I tossed mine with butter and fresh parsley.

As far as Irish Soda Bread goes, everyone has a different idea of what consistency it should be and how it should taste. I prefer a soft, dense bread with raisins. I used this recipe, but I added 1 cup of raisins. Caraway seeds or anise seeds would also be a good addition.

I'll leave you with tasty thoughts and some St Paddy's videos...