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! Slàinte!

Corned Beef and Cabbage and Turnip and Carrot and Potato

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

Although today is actually St. Patrick's Day, we celebrated along with the rest of the city of Boston yesterday - a day early. We were up having breakfast and watching the Annual St. Patrick's Day Breakfast (it is kind of a political "roast" they have every year in Southie - check out some pics) and then we watched some of the parade - from the comfort of our warm, dry kitchen! It was pretty cold and damp yesterday...

Following a couple of Guinnesses after lunch, we started up our Corned Beef and Cabbage dinner by placing our 4lb flat cut corned beef in our dutch oven, along with a cut-up onion, six garlic cloves, a bunch of peppercorns and corriander and mustard seeds, and bay leaves... and yet another big pint of Guinness Stout. We topped that with cold water and brought it up to a boil, then covered and reduced to a simmer - for 3.5 hours.

Towards the end of that process, we started another pot going - in which to boil our veggies - with water, a big scoop of the cooking liquid from the corned beef pot, some low sodium beef stock powder, more pepper and mustard and corriander. First into that boiling flavored liquid went big turnip chunks, then 5 minutes later carrots, then 10 minutes later potatoes, then 5 minutes later cabbage. After maybe 15 more minutes we were ready to go.

We didn't get many good pics because we dug right in to this tender, flavorful meat too quickly. The flat cut we bought this year didn't have nearly the fat that the point cut from last year had - and we agreed it was MUCH better this way! The meat was still delicious and buttery - without all THAT MUCH fat mixed in.



As we ate we decided that - next year - we'll try to corn our own beef brisket!

Check out previous St. Patrick's Days:
* Last year's Corned Beef
* Lamb Stew from 2006

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Cead Mile Failte!

Braised Beef Roast with Puréed Veggie Gravy

This puréed veggie gravy - sweet and tangy, thick and flavorful - MADE this dish. The "gravy" is really nothing more than the veggies that cooked with the beef roast - red peppers, carrots, and onion - blended with the roast beef juice and deglaze sauce from the roasting dish. So easy and SO delicious.

First, season a 4lb beef/pot roast with black pepper and smoked paprika (save the salt for now, it'll dry out the meat) and brown on high heat in a big, oiled skillet on all sides. When all sides are browned, move to your roasting/braising dish or slow cooker. Also, get that oven to 300 degrees if you plan on cooking everything in there...



Have your sous chef cut up a big red bell pepper, a couple of carrots, and a nice-sized onion in to chunks of ~1 inch - and just peel and barely break-up a few cloves of garlic. Add those raw veggies to your roasting dish. If you do not have a sous chef, give us a call and we'll come over to help you make - and eat - this meal.



Pour one cup of red wine - along with two tablespoons of red wine vinegar - into the skillet you used to brown the beef and deglaze, stirring up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Add 1 can (8oz) of tomato sauce, 1 tablespoon of sugar, and a good amount of salt and pepper. Continue to stir and bring up to a nice hot temperature.



Pour that mixture all over the meat and veggies, cover tightly, and add to the oven. You're going to be looking at ~45 minutes/pound of slow and low cooking, and probably 3 hours in an actual slow cooker. This cooking length will cook the meat thoroughly - we're going for a real braised, pull-apart doneness with this one - but you could certainly go for ~20 minutes/pound for a more medium-rare doneness, remove the beef, and then keep cooking the veggies...

Take out your roast and set aside, covered. Next - if you have a hand blender, remove half of the veggies AND half of the liquid from the pan and add to a smaller saucepan and give those veggies a whir until they are combined. If you don't have a hand blender, you could do this in a food processor. Or, you could get that sous chef to mash everything up with a potato ricer and combine!



Taste the "gravy" for seasoning and add more of your liquid if too thick, more veggies if too thin. Pour over some of your beef roast and add some of the other half of veggies and enjoy! We also had boiled some turnip and cabbage to have along with the beef and veggies.

Ours came out great - the veggie sauce/gravy was sweet from the peppers and carrots and tangy from the vinegar and delicious. Where this REALLY shined was the next day, when we sliced some of the beef real thin and warmed it up on the stovetop IN the gravy.... then we plated it on a piece of bread, open-faced sandwich style! Yum!

Corned Beef and Cabbage

Last year, we made a traditional Irish Lamb Stew for St. Patrick's Day - one of our favorite holidays of the year. This year, we went traditional again - but in a different direction... the traditional Irish-American St. Patrick's Day meal: Corned beef and cabbage (and turnips and carrots and celery and onions...)

We trimmed much of the fat off of a 4lb flat-cut corned beef and then added it to our dutch oven along with alot of water, a 16oz Guinness (yum!), a chopped-up onion, about 5 crushed cloves of garlic, three BIG bay leaves, a handful of whole tellicherry peppercorns, and some kosher salt. After finally coming to a boil, we covered it tight and set it to simmer... and forgot about it for 3.5 hours.

3.5 hours later, we warmed up the oven to ~200 degrees and removed our now-red and tender corned beef from the liquid. We wrapped it in alumninum foil and let it rest in the warm oven in order to boil up our veggies in the corned beef's flavorful broth.



After bringing the broth to a nice boil, we added a turnip, about a dozen carrots, and a bunch of celery ribs - all cleaned, peeled, and chopped to around the same size. Back to a boil and give those guys a head-start, then we finally added a head of cabbage that had been cut into 8 wedges.



20 minutes later and we were eating. The corned beef was SO tender it is hard to describe... it was almost like jelly - although that not the most flattering description, trust us it was good. Along with some dijon mustard, the flavor was delicious. And the veggies had absorbed the wonderful broth left behind by the corned beef. We enjoyed this delicious meal with the last of many, many Guinness pints from the weekend and are looking forward to the leftovers - and sandwiches!

Happy St. Patricks Day!

The Good Shepherd

Another casserole-type dish?!? Two in a row - you ask? You bet. And you’ll see why in a sec! It’s been cold here in Boston – demonically so, and therefore we wanted comfort food that'll keep your insides warm. We decided on a kicked up version of shepherd's pie that would be topped off by mashed sweet potatoes and sharp cheddar cheese.

We browned up some “meatloaf mix” in some olive oil. This is just ground veal, pork and beef to give a nice depth to our pie. Once browned, we removed from the pan and started sautéing diced carrots and onions. After 10 minutes we added a couple cloves of chopped garlic and some chopped mushrooms. The spicing for this dish consisted of salt, thyme and lots of freshly ground Tellicherry black pepper.



At this point we boiled up 2 diced sweet potatoes, and once tender, we mashed them with S&P, 1.5 TBS Promise, and ¼ cup milk. Returning to the veggies: we deglazed with ¼ cup red wine and 2 cups of beef stock. We returned the browned meat to the pan and added a cup each of frozen peas and chopped spinach.



After most of the liquid had cooked off, we turned off the heat and spread the mashed sweet potatoes over the top of the veggies and meat, topped that with a sharp cheddar and threw the cast iron pan under the broiler for about 5 minutes.

This pie was so delicious, it made great leftovers for days! As you can tell, we LOVE one pot dishes – so if anyone has some fantastic one pot suggestions, let us know!

Braised Beef Brisket with Root Vegetables

You know how much we like to braise – this time we put our dutch oven actually IN the oven to cook a lovely 3lb flat cut beef brisket. Although we would have preferred a point cut, alas the butcher had none so we went flat.

After giving the brisket a good rub down of flour, salt, and mignonette pepper, we seared each side in a pan with some olive oil. After browning, we removed it from the pan and began sweating 2 thinly sliced onions. After 5 minutes, we tossed in about 8 cloves of garlic (minced), and cooked for 5 minutes more. Then, we pour in a couple cups of cabernet while scraping up the lovely goodness on the bottom of the pan. Tossed in ¼ cup tomato paste, several sprigs of fresh thyme and 2 turkish bay leaves and brought this wonderfully-smelling concoction to a boil.



We cooked that until it was reduced by half, then added about 6 cups of beef stock and brought it back to a boil - then finally we nestled the browned brisket back into the pot. We covered pot with a piece of foil and then put the cover on top to seal it tightly. Placed the pot in the lower third of the oven at 325 degrees for about 2.5 hours.

We served ours up with some rutabaga, celery and carrots along with some of the delicious broth that the brisket was braising in. How could this once-tough piece of meat come out so tender you ask?? Braising. Yup, unbelievable what this technique can do for even the tough guys. Tender and delicious!

Beef and Vegetable Stew

What can you say about a meal of meat and veggies that is cooked on a cool New England Sunday and allowed to simmer for hours... other than DELICIOUS!?!?



We've never taken on beef stew, and we felt that it should be in our arsenal of recipes, so Stacey made it her mission yesterday to deliver.

I coated about 3lbs stew meat in a light coating of seasoned (salt and pepper) flour and seared them in canola oil in our Dutch Oven. I worked in about 4 batches so as not to crowd, and I also added more oil when needed.

After they were browned, they were set aside, and I deglzed the yummy brown bits with 1/2 cup cabernet and then removed the deglaze-juice for later use. Now time for the veggies! I cut up all the veggies in at least 1 inch cubes b/c I didn't want them to disintegrate while simmering for so long!



This time in the Dutch Oven, I used olive oil and threw in 1 onion, 4 ribs of celery and about 6 medium carrots, seasoning with S&P. After 6-7 minutes, I threw in about 12 baby bella mushrooms. A couple minutes more cooking time, then I removed those veggies and set them aside.

Next come the yellow turnips or rutabegas! These are a GREAT subsitution for potatoes to cut down on some of the carbs - and I swear when the dish is finished you can't tell the difference! Saute about 2 cups worth for about 10 minutes and then put the beef in with the turnips.

Let those get to simmerin' and add 4 cups low-sodium beef broth (I like to control the salt myself), a couple tablespoons of tomato paste for "structure" (as Emeril likes to say), the reserved wine and yummy brown bits, another 1/2cup cabernet and a couple splashes of red wine vinegar.

I let that come up to a boil, returned the veggies back to the pan with a bunch of fresh thyme sprigs, a couple bay leaves, and some final S&P seasoning. I covered the pot and set on simmer for 2.5 hours while we watched the Pats game (big win!!!). Towards the end, I noticed it wasn't as thick as I wanted so I dissolved a tbsp of flour in a little water and poured that it, bringing it back to a low boil and then simmering for the last 30 minutes with the cover off. Finally, at that point in the cooking process, I added a cup of thawed frozen peas and a cup of thawed lima beans.

The stew came out really tasty... very tender beef, all the different veggies, and wonderful, subtle flavor. This would definitely serve 6-8 people easily, and because of the volume we froze enough for the 2 of us for another night. Oh and we'll eat the leftovers again tonight!!!!