Corned Beef Cabbage and Mashed Potatoes

Americans still think we live on corned beef and cabbage over here," says Irish cookbook author and teacher Darina Allen.

In fact, the dish that's synonymous with St. Patrick's Day and all things Irish in the U.S. is so rarely eaten in Ireland—for the holiday or otherwise—that some people wonder if it's actually Irish at all. In Irish Country Cooking, Malachi McCormick says he likes corned beef, but then adds: "But our national dish? No, it's a New World dish!" Furthermore, thanks to the many awful versions served in bars in the U.S.—and washed down with plastic cups of green beer—this one-pot meal is often reviled by Irish Americans and Irish-for-a-Day Americans or, at the very least, relegated to a sloshy once-a-year tradition.

So let's set a few things straight: First, corned beef and cabbage is most definitely Irish. Second, when properly made it's "delicious," says Allen—recent taste tests here at Epicurious confirm that the corned beef and cabbage recipe from Allen's cookbook Irish Traditional Cooking is indeed fantastic. Third, with the current multicontinent trend of chefs looking to the past for inspiration coupled with a craze among food-lovers for all things cured, this briny classic is poised for a comeback.

Although corned beef is "almost a forgotten flavor in Ireland," according to Allen it was once an extremely popular and important food for all classes. To "corn" something is simply to preserve it in a salty brine (the term corn refers to the coarse grains of salt used for curing). In the days before refrigeration, corning was essential for storing meat, especially from large animals like cows. Historically, beef that was slaughtered and corned before the winter was served with the first fresh spring cabbage to break the Lenten fast on Easter.

Corned beef has always been associated with Cork City, because, Allen explains, "that was the provisioning port for boats before they crossed the Atlantic." In fact, between the 1680s and 1825, corning beef was Cork City's most important industry. The meat was exported to Britain, continental Europe, and as far away as Newfoundland and the West Indies.

These days in Ireland, corned beef is still most associated with County Cork, where Allen's Ballymaloe Cookery School and the Ballymaloe House and restaurant started by Allen's mother-in-law, Myrtle Allen, are based. Corned beef is sold at the English Market, a huge covered market in Cork City, and is also available at the Farmgate Café within the market—Allen says Ballymaloe House also serves it occasionally for lunch. "So there are people who eat it all the time."

But even in Cork, Allen says, corned beef "seems to be a flavor that a lot of older people enjoy more than younger people." Why, then, has corned beef dwindled in popularity? "The Irish economy is very, very strong, and with that comes changes in people's diets," she says. Yet for Irish immigrants, many of whom fled their famine-stricken homeland during the heyday of corned beef, the dish remained important. "The immigrants brought it with them and it became sort of like a cult food," says Allen. "I think what happens sometimes when people immigrate is life stands still. Their memories of a country, and of the traditions, stay as it was when they left."

But with so many chefs looking to the past for inspiration, corned beef could be poised for a comeback in its country of origin. "[Irish] chefs are serving a lot of peasant foods and highlighting them again," says Allen. D.I.Y. fever could also play a role in corned beef's return to the Irish table. "Over here, just as over on your side [of the Atlantic], a lot of younger people are getting involved in curing their own bacons and hams and things again, making sausages and salamis," says Allen, who runs a series of "forgotten skills" courses at Ballymaloe Cookery School, teaching students how to keep chickens, make homemade sausages, build a smokehouse, and so forth.

The Epicurious edit team put Allen's corned beef and cabbage to the test: We purchased a four-pound piece of cured meat from Prime Cuts, an Irish butcher in the Woodlawn neighborhood of the Bronx in New York and slow-cooked it with cabbage, carrots, and onions. The scrumptious results convinced us that the dish is indeed ready for a revival. Allen says of the St. Patrick's Day corned beef and cabbage connection, "It's lovely to have one dish associated with a day." As we thoroughly enjoyed many days of leftovers from our St. Patrick's Day preview, we'll add that it's even lovelier for that dish to be so good you'd eat it any day.

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Cooking Tips and Serving Suggestions

Choosing the Right Piece of Beef

When buying corned beef, be sure to get "ready-to-cook" not precooked meat. Allen says the meat should be nice and firm and not bright pink. "If it's too bright pink they've used too many nitrates," she says. Brisket is the most common cut of corned beef you'll find at the grocery store (get the leaner flat-cut brisket if you can find it). Some Irish butchers also sell "silverside," a lean cut from the round (it's the cut recommended by the butcher at Prime Cuts, a renowned Irish shop in the Bronx). Tommy Moloney's is a reputable online source for many Irish products, including corned beef.

Home Cures: Corning Your Own Beef

While corned beef is easy enough to come by at the grocery store or butcher, especially around St. Patrick's Day, you can also easily cure it yourself. "It just depends on how much of a kick you get from doing something from scratch yourself," says Allen. If you're up for the challenge, follow the following simple instructions from Jason Fahey, the chef at Ballymaloe House. Michael Cuddigan, the butcher who supplied meat to Ballymaloe House and Ballymaloe Cookery School, taught Fahey the recipe before he retired. "It is a great thing to pass on these skills from one generation to another," says Allen.

Corning Instructions: Put 2 pounds of salt in a 20-pint bucket and fill it two-thirds with cold water (note: this is about seven quarts of water). When the salt dissolves, put a 4 1/2 to 5-pound piece of meat in, weigh it down if necessary with a heavy platter, and allow to soak, refrigerated, for 24 to 36 hours (and no more than 48 hours). Remove and cook according to your recipe (it is not necessary to rinse the meat before cooking).

Cooked to Perfection

To keep your carrots, onions, and cabbage from turning to mush, be sure to use large pieces. Allen uses carrots that are two inches in diameter and cuts them into chunks three or four inches long. She cuts large onions into quarters or uses whole small onions, and quarters a whole cabbage and adds it after the meat and other veggies have stewed for a while. If you'd like, you can also add white turnips, rutabaga, or celeriac. To stop the meat from getting tough, keep it covered with water at all times (add more hot water if it cooks down), and once the liquid comes to a boil, reduce the heat, cover the pot, and let it simmer. "Don't have it at a mad rolling boil all the time," says Allen. "Once it comes to the boil, it can just simmer along gently then. That will keep it nice and tender and won't toughen the meat."

When's It Done?

Allen offers this excellent tip for telling when the meat is cooked: "Before it's cooked, if you put a skewer or carving fork in the meat, you will be able to lift the piece of meat up on the carving fork, but when it's cooked, the skewer will come straight out of it without lifting it up."

You Say Potato

Serve the corned beef and cabbage with potatoes boiled in their skins or champ (mashed potatoes with scallions, milk, and butter). For either, Allen recommends Yukon Gold potatoes, which are about as close as you'll get to Irish potatoes in the U.S. "Irish potatoes are very floury and kind of dry," explains Allen. "Some people don't like them because they're used to waxy potatoes, but we love those floury potatoes with lots of good Irish butter on them or the juices of corned beef."

Getting Fresh

Since all of the vegetables with the corned beef are cooked for a long time, "you need something lovely and fresh-tasting as well." Allen likes to serve some finely shredded and very lightly cooked buttered cabbage, such as savoy, alongside the corned beef and cabbage, and also recommends a simple salad of organic greens and wild garlic scapes after the meal.

A Condiment with Kick

To serve with the meat, make fresh mustard in a flash by mixing dry mustard powder with water. "Real mustard is the thing to serve with this," says Allen, who recommends Coleman's brand. "Not the ready-mix stuff that's only for wimps."

And to Drink?

"I would think you'd have to have some Guinness, wouldn't you, really?" asks Allen. Or if you can get your hands on Beamish, a stout made in Cork, all the better.

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Source: https://www.epicurious.com/holidays-events/the-ultimate-corned-beef-and-cabbage-article

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