St. Patty's Day Corned Beef

[MrX]

Oddly enough, it's not actually a very popular or normally eaten dish here in Ireland and not at all associated with St. Patrick's Day.

It tends to be a big carvery type dinner - roast lamb, roast beef and/or bacon.
Served up with all sorts of vegetables.

Or, it could be anything really from fish, to ... you name it.

We'd tend to try and throw in some fancier locally produced produce though.

There isn't a particular tradition of a special dish for St. Patrick's Day in Ireland. You could be as likely to find some kind of "celtic-fusion" food or a curry on a table in Ireland on Paddy's day.

It's also usually referred to here as Paddy's day, and rarely St. Pat's.

The parades tend to be multicultural and have a bit of a mardi gras quality too in the bigger cities like Dublin and Cork. They're often not very 'traditional' in the Irish-American sense and may include things like a gay pride section, Brazilian dancers in fether costumes, robots, dinosaurs, giant puppets... you name it! Anything goes!

In Irleland itself, Paddy's day's kinda about celebrating everything about presen-day Ireland, rather than a particular version of ethnic Irishness as it is our national holiday.

 

[twintubdexter]

Lots of good ideas here for cooking corned beef. Many years ago I tried using my old Presto pressure cooker on a piece of CB. I don't know what I did wrong, probably didn't cook it long enough, but the meat was like a piece of rubber, sort of like corned beef chewing gum. Yesterday I threw a piece in my new electric pressure cooker along with the seasoning packet, garlic and about 4 cups of water. I set the timer for 70 minutes and just walked away. The corned beef was delish, tender and tasty. Since the cooker is almost silent and doesn't do the psssss psssss psssss thing like the Presto almost all of the liquid was still there.

This was my "test" piece, so I cut it in half, put a big piece on a plate and started to nibble on it. After about a half hour I had nibbled all of it away except for some of the fatty stuff...and it was a big corned beef. What a pig I was. I was sick even when I got up this morning, but a CB sandwich sounds good right now. OINK!

 

[launderess]

Have A Magefesa

Will have to find the owner's manual/recpie booklet to see how it is done.

Do know did it last year for the first time as one had just purchased the new PC set and wanted to put it through it's paces. The CB came out juicy, moist and tender. Not at all like a rubbery brick some pressure cookers do with corned beef.

Note Magefesa models use less water than other pressure cookers. Also didn't do potatoes and cabbage in the PC, but remember from the recipe one is supposed to stop the PC cooking of meat, take it out and then add the cabbage et al and continue with cooking. This is all off the top of my head. Link below is from Miss. Vickie's site on how she does corned beef.

One likes the PC method because in addition to being fast it helps render out excess fat and allot of the salt from the meat. This is why some prefer to use either fresh water and or draw off/dilute the remaining water when making the veggies, it helps avoid all that salt.

Corned Beef and all the Fixings

Corned beef and cabbage is one of my absolute favorite meals. What we think of as Irish fare, corned beef and cabbage is a special feast for...

missvickie.blogspot.com

 

[perc-o-prince]

Tim (polkanut),

As Tim (wayupnorth) found, it was Hannaford! I usually shop at Price Chopper, and theirs was $1.49 if you had the coupon (the coupon was on the front page of the flyer that's given right in the store- gimmick!). Price Chopper did beat Hannaford on the cabbage by 10 cents (29/lb vs. 39/lb).

Put 11# of CB in the freezer from yesterday's trip to Hannaford (keeping the 4.5 pounder from Monday company for a while) on the way home from work!

Chuck

 

[polkanut]

Guess I'll have to keep my eyes open for a deal or two!  Thanks Chuck.

 

[retro-man]

Incredible edible

Well I guess after cooking my corned beef in the pressure cooker I will never go back to boiling it for 3 hrs. In just a little over an hour from start to serving this meal. I have never tasted that much flavor and moisture in this cut of meat. I told a friend about this and he did his the same way and will never boil again. I am going out today or tomorrow and see whats left for sale and put a couple in the freezer. If it only takes an hour to make this it will happen more often in this house. thanks for the info launderess.
Jon

 

[launderess]

Told You So

Most women/cooks who do CB in a PC don't go back either. Many declare their family and or guests won't have it done any other way.

Doing CB in a pressure cooker also allows one to have it on a weeknight even when time might be tight. If one is willing to do potatoes/sides another way,or serve something else you can have a brisket done in about an hour with dinner on the table soon after that. I add a several extra minutes for the mustard/brown sugar crust to be done in the broiler.

 

[perc-o-prince]

Launderess, Jon,

Please tell me about the saltiness of the PC cooked CB. Launderess, you mentioned that it rendered out a lot of the salt... was the meat salty, just salty, or otherwise? I ask as neither Rich nor I like food overly salted, and I can't have it so for health reasons (and don't tell me how much salt is in the Frank's Red Hot Sauce that I buy by the gallon- that's different {chuckle}). I thought you had to have the "lotsa" water to carry the salt away, even though it carries other flavors with it.

On a flavoring note, I wish I remembered the brand of the CB I had in the freezer and cooked yesterday just for letting all know about the seasoning packet. It wasn't a skimpy 1/2 teaspoon- it had to be a full 1.5 Tbsp at least! Each aprox 3.5# CB had a packet, so I used one for the first boil then for the simmer.

Chuck

 

[launderess]

It's Been Over A Year Since One Did CB In The PC

But if memory serves the dish was to our taste slightly less salty tasting but then again it was packaged corned beef, so no matter what you are going to taste salt. *LOL*

Some people who do not like very or even mildy salty foods skip the pre-packaged CB sold in shops and go for special "old world" types. While closer to what corned beef might have looked to our grand or great parents (before the nitrate filled packaged mass supermarket stuff came along), it often lacks the intense red colour (which comes from nitrates) and perhaps some of the flavour (this would depend upon how it was prepared and cooked).

When serving CB I make sure to cook all sides as one normally would and *NOT* in same water as the meat. Cabbage and or potatoes if they are being served are cooked on their own. This cuts down on the overall salt at the table.

 

[wayupnorth]

I did get some leftovers!

My 85 year old neighbor made one also last night and she just had to cook it the same way I did and said it was like a crock pot but everything fit and she didnt have to mess with it. There was 16 of us with 3 corned beefs and vegs and tons of sides. Her crock pot wouldnt fit one either and she is very afraid of a pressure cooker after one blew up on her. I have a pressure cooker somewhere in the attic but never couldnt master it. We all had a wonderful time and her Irish coffee topped it off.

 

[retro-man]

Chuck and Rich
I didn't feel that there was that much salt left in the meat. Of course you will have some but it wasn't overly salty. I always like a little yellow or brown mustard on the cb so that overpowers any saltiness. Try it and you will be a convert on pressure cooking. I always make beef stew in mine, so fast and so good. Another meal that can be started from scratch and be ready to serve in 1 hour.
Jon

 

[kimball455]

Over the weekend I got two invitations for CB. One was prepared using the slow cooker and the other the traditional boil in pot method. Both were wonderful. I have got to give the PC method a try.
Harry

 

[wayupnorth]

I usually cook a larger quantity than can fit in a crock pot or even a pressure cooker. Back MANY years ago in high school I worked in the kitchen the largest Truck Stop up here and the chef used to do it the same way but in much larger quantities, like 6 in a huge roaster with all the vegs. Pretty much set it and forget it for an hour and I got elected to baste. But it always sold out. We only offered the week of St. Patricks Day, as everyone was tired of it after that. And I am already getting tired of the leftovers...lol

 

[launderess]

Unless One Frequents Any Of The Major Jewish Sandwich Shops

Or restaurants that offer "brisket" or corned beef (on rye, a bagel, or whatever) all year long the stuff pretty much falls off most household's menus around here after St. Paddy's day. It probably takes at least a month for a person's salt balance to return. *LOL*

Being as that may do know persons who will do a CB for sandwiches for a crowd such as a picnic or "the game".

 

[whirlykenmore78]

Doing CB

In the Convection oven. I cooked 480# of the stuff for St. Pat's at the restaurant. I cooked 2 briskets per 600 size hotel pan and 4 pans at a time in a 400F convection oven in their own brine for 3hr. After they were cooled I defatted them, sliced to 1/2 slices on the Hobart slicer and returned the meat in 400 size half pans with it's original cooking liquid to the convection oven for 1.5 to 2Hrs more. I did 32 briskets this way and my customers, bosses and co-workers raved about the results.
Nick WK78