Classic Corned Beef Reuben with seeded rye bread, Thousand Island dressing, sauerkraut, and Gruyere cheese.
Well as I indicated in my last post, I have this last little recipe to use up the rest of the corned beef from last week. This can be as simple or as complex as you’d care to make it. The Reuben is one of Tara’s favorite sandwiches so I decided to go all out. I made a loaf of seeded rye, made Thousand Island dressing using homemade mayonnaise and homemade spicy ketchup with harissa, homemade sauerkraut, and we used gruyere cheese. If you want to go to some or all of those lengths to tackle this classic sandwich, I can assure you that it definitely tasted great. The good news is that you don’t really have to in order to produce a good quality Reuben using your own corned beef. Recipes for homemade ketchup are readily available on-line and each one has slight differences in flavor, heat, and sweetness. So, look around and see if you can find one that suits your taste. The sauerkraut that I made came from the Kitchn.com and involved only cabbage, salt, and time…super easy and super good, though your arms will get a workout when you massage the water out of the cabbage for 10-15 minutes. Otherwise, that’s all it takes.
If you don’t want to make your own bread (something I find really rewarding), try to find the best quality seeded rye that you can. Even if you don’t feel like making your own mayonnaise or ketchup for the Thousand Island dressing, it definitely is worth it to make your own using good quality store bought versions. As I said, this can be as simple or as complicated as you wish to make it! And with this, we conclude the corned beef recipes until next year around St. Patrick’s Day 2016! Recipe follows after the jump… Continue reading →
Lighten up a traditional corned beef hash by adding greens, different types of potatoes, herbs, and other vegetables.
Use a heavy bottomed pan or cast iron pan to cook the hash.
If you are like Tara and I, then you celebrated St. Patrick’s Day in some way. For us, that meant homemade corned beef and cabbage last week. If you ended up making or buying corned beef, you likely had at least a bit of corned beef left over. I love left over corned beef as it makes great Reuben sandwiches as well as awesome hash. Often we have breakfast for dinner and this is a dish we would definitely make for dinner. However, it certainly could be used for brunch or a hearty breakfast.
Traditionally, corned beef hash consists of shredded corned beef with cubed or hash brown potatoes and some onion and served alongside a fried or poached egg. This dish definitely has all of that, but I tend to take a kitchen sink approach to it in terms of adding additional vegetables. I like to add greens, peppers, a mix of potatoes, and any other vegetable that I might have on hand that needs to be used. By preserving the crispy potatoes and corned beef as a base, adding additional vegetables simple adds complexity, color, and more nutrition to the mix. It also lightens it up. Make no mistake, this is still a hearty dish. However, it just is not quite so meat and potatoes focused.
In order to make the potatoes crispy, there are really a number of ways to go. One, you can cube the potatoes and cut them very small, thus shortening the cooking time in the pan (so that the potatoes brown and crisp at the same time they cook through…otherwise you can end up with browned potatoes that are not cooked through or black potatoes that spent too long in the pan, so they burned). Another way you can go is to shred or grate the potatoes and then wring out the excess water, which allows for improved browning. I decided to go a different route and keep the potatoes in relatively larger pieces. You can do that while at the same time avoid burning them by parboiling them. That is, cooking them in boiling water for 10 minutes or so (depending on the size of the potatoes) until they are half cooked. I then dunk them in ice water, which stops the cooking. From there, you simply dry them off and cut them in larger sized pieces. This allows the potatoes to finish cooking in the hash pan, browning them as they finish, without risking burning them (or at least reducing that risk).
If you don’t have corned beef or if you don’t care for it, you can certainly use sausage, bacon, ham, or any meat you’d prefer. If you want to make this a vegetarian meal, skip the meat completely and stick with the vegetables or add cooked beans or lentils at the very end for additional protein, fiber, and flavor. At any rate, you can’t go wrong with hash and you can certainly make it your own based on your personal tastes while using ingredients you have on hand.
In programming notes, a Reuben recipe using the leftover corned beef is coming tomorrow. That will be the last of the corned beef for a while and I don’t know about you, but I am definitely glad (though it was good). Also, later this week a veggie hash with fresh cranberry beans, a Croque Madame recipe, and not too far on the horizon, a double veal chop coupled with spring vegetables in a white veal stock and cognac sauce. So, stay tuned! The recipe and more pictures follow after the jump… Continue reading →
First, let me apologize for not having pictures yet for this particular post, but like a lot of you, I haven’t actually cooked our meal for St. Patrick’s Day yet. I’ll post pictures tomorrow so you can see the end result. As you may remember, I posted a recipe for homemade corned beef a while back and said that I had started the process of corning the beef about ten days ago. Tomorrow, the corned beef will be cooked in a traditional Irish boil complete with red potatoes and green cabbage.
In addition to the salad and Irish meal, I plan to make an Irish soda bread to go alongside our mint cacao ice cream. Again, I used this recipe last year and whole-heartedly recommend it this year. I plan to make this again as well.
There will probably be an Irish beer or two consumed as well. As I said, I apologize for not having pictures…I’ll rectify that situation tomorrow. Until then, take a look at the recipes and try one, two, or all of them…you won’t be let down. If you don’t have time or you don’t prefer corned beef, something like a nice shepherd’s pie using ground lamb would be a nice hearty Irish inspired meal as well.
Speaking of lamb…up next, a whole roasted leg of lamb recipe using roasted garlic, rosemary, and sage. Stay tuned for that tomorrow. Until then, time to get going on St. Patrick’s Day!
Combine all the spices with water and heat until all are dissolved and the liquid becomes less cloudy. Pour over ice to cool and then pour the whole thing over the brisket, which is then refrigerated for 10 days. Cook after that.
The brisket
Last year for St. Patrick’s Day, I made my first corned beef and used this recipe from Alton Brown and the Food Network. It worked extremely well and everyone, including me, was very happy with it. I created a whole traditional meal, which I’ll talk more about in the coming days. Last year, I only brined the beef for 8 days (instead of the prescribed 10), and it worked just great. However, and I apologize for just posting this now, I decided to give it the full 10 days this year. I followed the recipe exactly as directed. All of the spices are pretty easily found, though I purchased both the juniper berries and the pink salt at William Sonoma at Short Hills Mall. So, if you are so inclined and have time today, go get the ingredients and go for it!
St. Patrick’s Day is more fun with a big Irish meal and a Guinness! If you don’t have time today or tomorrow but still want to do the recipe, you certainly can but give it at least 7 days or so. As I said, last year, I did the same and it was really good.
Next up…roasted potato salad with shaved fennel bound with a homemade spiced mayonnaise with two types of mustard. It’s really good and should be great for now and for Spring! Being in the Jerz lately, I cannot wait for Spring…
culinary flights of fancy 