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| Homemade corned beef |
How to corn your own beef (from Julia Child's The Way to Cook)
Notes: Brisket is the traditional beef cut, but it's not the only one. Boneless chuck, such as the eye roast, which contains the continuation of the rib eye, is another choice. However, I really prefer either the top or bottom round because it slices up into neat chic pieces.
Timing: 2 weeks minimum for the cure to take place.
Ingredients (for a 12 pound piece of beef):
A fully trimmed boneless 10 to 12 pound top or bottom round of beef (or the eye round, boneless chuck, or brisket)
1 1/3 cups coarse (Kosher) salt
1 Tbs cracked peppercorns (pound whole corns to crack them)
2 tsp allspice
2 tsp thyme
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp sage
bay leaf, ground or crumbled
Special equipment suggested: A heavy duty plastic bag roomy enough to hold the meat comfortably; a pan to hold it; a pan and weight to cover the meat.
Procedure:
1) Mix all of the seasonings together in a bowl
2) Place the meat in the plastic bag and rub the seasonings all over it.
3) Press as much air as possible out of the bag, then tie it securely closed and set it in a pan or bowl.
4) Place it in the refrigerator, where the temperature should remain between 37 and 38 degrees Fahrenheit.
5) For the first two days of the cure, keep it covered with the second pan and weight. Within a few hours, red liquid will exude in the bag- the cure has begun.
6) Once a day, without opening the bag, massage the meat with its juices and spices, and turn the bag over. (Julia notes that she puts a sign on her refrigerator to remind her).
7) In two weeks, the cure is done, and the special flavor has been achieved. The beef will now keep several months under refrigeration, but turn it every several days to be sure all is well. If you've a large piece, you may want to cook only part of it and leave the rest in the cure.
8) De-salting (24 hours or longer). Before cooking the beef, wash off the salt cure and soak the meat in a large bowl of cold water, changing the water 2 or 3 times. As the salt leaves the flesh the meat softens and, when thoroughly de-salted, it will feel almost like fresh beef- cut off a snippet and taste it to be sure. De-salting may take 2 to 3 days if the meat has cured a number of weeks. Note that as soon as the beef is de-salted, it is just as perishable as fresh meat- keep it refrigerated and cook it soon.
Katie's notes:
12 pounds of beef is A LOT. We ended up getting about half that size and it fed us for like a solid week afterwards! We also delayed a little in getting the cure started, and so it only cured it for 13 days rather than the recommended minimum of 2 weeks. Fortunately, it still turned out delicious!!
This is an amazing recipe and I've made it on at least three different St. Patrick's days now. This makes the best corned beef I've ever had! Yum yum yum! We ended up cooking it in our Instant Pot (using this recipe as our base), but since I didn't actually cook the corned beef (Scott did, bless his heart), I can't blog much about it.
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| Irish brown bread |
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| Served with Irsih Kerrygold butter, of course! |
Irish Brown Bread (recipe from our Airbnb host in Cork, Ireland)
Total time: 1 hour, 40 minutes
Prep time: 20 minutes
Ingredients:
350 g whole wheat flour
50 g plain flour
50 g porridge oats (I used rolled oats)
pinch of salt
2 tsp bread soda (baking soda)
2 large eggs
1 tsp sunflower oil (I used vegetable oil)
500 mL buttermilk
Procedure:
1) Preheat the oven to 325° F.
2) Put the flours, sieved bread soda, salt, and porridge oats into a large mixing bowl and mix them well.
3) In a separate bowl, beat the eggs together with the oil and add to the dry mixture.
4) Net mix in the buttermilk and get the mix to a "sloppy" consistency.
5) Pour into a 2 lb. loaf tin and smooth the top of the bread with a wet spoon.
6) Sprinkle some seeds or porridge oats on top of the bread and bake in the oven for 1 hour.
7) After the hour has elapsed, remove the bread from the bin and return to the oven to bake for another 20 minutes.
8) Remove from the oven and allow the bread to cool down.
9) This bread stays fresh for about 4 to 5 days.
10) It can be successfully frozen.
This makes a very good, very hearty bread. I love that the recipe is written as European recipes are, with all of the ingredients weighed out rather than measured in cups (from what I understand, this is the superior way to do it when you're measuring baking recipes but I'll admit I'd find it hard to make the switch permanently). It is lovely with some Kerrygold butter, or toasted and served with marmalade. Yum!
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| Irish jello shots |
Irish jello shots (from https://gizmodo.com/car-bomb-jello-shots-blow-up-your-liver-for-st-patrick-5893474)
Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups of Guinness Stout
1/2 cup Jameson Irish Whiskey
1 cup Bailey's Irish Cream
8 teaspoons (aprox. 4 packets, generally) unflavored gelatin
4 teaspoons granulated sugar
Water
Procedure:
1. Pour the 1/2 cup of Jameson into a bowl.
2. Sprinkle 4 tsp. (2 packets, generally) of unflavored gelatin onto the whiskey. Let it sit for one minute, and then stir for a minute to help it dissolve.
3. In a separate bowl, pour in 1 1/4 cups of Guinness, then pop it in the microwave for about 80 seconds. Note: microwaves vary greatly in their power levels, so you'll need to adjust it appropriately. You want to get it to about 150 degrees F. You can also do this in a small saucepan, if you prefer.
4. Remove the Guinness from the microwave and add 4 teaspoons of granulated sugar. Stir until sugar is dissolved.
5. Combine the hot Guinness with the whiskey/gelatin mixture and stir until gelatin appears completely dissolved.
6. Pour the mixture into shot glasses, filling them roughly 80 percent of the way (leave room for the next phase), then refrigerate for 1-2 hours or until firm. If you have leftover liquid, pour it into a larger glass.
(Let's pause here for a second and talk about equipment. If you pour it into a standard shot glass, these things are going to look like tiny pints of Guinness, foamy head and all. It's adorable, and it adds a lot of aesthetic value. That said, you're sacrificing convenience for aesthetics, because you'll need an unusually small spoon to dig the shots out. You may want to opt for buy plastic or paper jello shot cups that you can just squeeze into your mouth. I leave that to you. Okay, back to the directions.)
7. Once the dark layer has firmed up, start making the top layer. In a bowl, stir to combine a 1/4 cup of cold water with a 1/4 cup of Bailey's Irish Cream.
8. Sprinkle in 4 teaspoons (aprox. 2 packets) of unflavored gelatin. Let stand for one minute then stir until it is well-mixed.
9. Pour in a half cup of boiling hot water and stir until the gelatin is almost entirely dissolved.
10. Add 3/4 cup of Bailey's and stir for another few minutes to ensure everything is dissolved.
11. Take the shot glasses out of the fridge, pour the creamy layer on top of of the dark layer, filling each glass up to the brim, and then put them back in the fridge for another hour or until firm.
Notes: There's a fair amount of alcohol in these (12-percent ABV. Generally 19-percent is about as high as you can go for jello shots, or it won't set), but because they're small you'll probably get full before you get drunk.
These jello shots are based off of the not-appropriate/offensively named Irish car bomb drink. I decided to modify the name slightly for this blog. I had been wanting to make these for a while, ever since we had very similar shots at a St. Patrick's day party at my friend Lyz's house (she of the scotch egg blog post fame). Since I didn't have a lot of shot glasses (and didn't want to go out and buy any disposable shot glasses both because of the pandemic and not wanting to buy single-use plastic), I just poured the mixture into my very cool mugs leftover from The Tech Interactive's Geektoberfest. We just ate them with a spoon. They are delicious and dangerous. I liked the Bailey's level better than the Guinness level, but I would definitely eat both layers again! They were a lot of fun to make and even more fun to eat.
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