Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Corned Beef and Cabbage



Hey we're here! Hope you've been checking out Boston Twins... That kinda explains what we've been up to. But we're still here! We're still cooking when we can! And we look forward to being able to return to the cooking we love (and posting on here) in the coming months now that Ava and Colin are sleeping more (10 hours at a time!).

Corned beef and cabbage - we look forward to it every year. We got a nice, lean-looking 4lb flat cut corned beef and sliced off the layer of fat on the one side. That was key, in the past we've had corned beef that was too fatty, or the results too greasy from the fat. This one came out nice and lean.

We put the trimmed beef into our dutch oven with some halved boiling onions, a few garlic cloves, a bunch of tellicherry peppercorns, some mustard seeds, and three big bay leaves. We topped that with a can of Guinness and then filled in to above the beef with cold water. Heated that to a low boil, then covered and simmered for 3.5 hours.

Towards the end we started our veggies - first turnips, then carrots, then potatoes, and finally cabbage into a boiling pot that we had augmented with a couple scoops from that cooking liquid in the corned beef pot. When the veggies are ready, cut the beef against the grain, scoop out some veggies and apply some salt and margarine, dollop a dollop of dijon mustard next to the corned beef, and enjoy!



We loved how this lean version came out - VERY flavorful with little of that grease. PERFECT for leftover sandwiches!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! SlĂ inte!