Corned Beef and Cabbage: Boiled Meat Never Tasted So Good

Even though Ron swears I have made this dish before, for a previous St. Patrick's Day, I don't believe him. And even if I have made it, I certainly didn't remember how to make it, so it still counts as a new recipe.

Master 10 New Recipes:
1. Pasta with Mushrooms and Thyme
2. Sriracha Peanut Butter Tofu
3. Fresh Pasta
4. Corned Beef and Cabbage

Corned beef and cabbage is one of those things you probably think you don't like if you've never had it. I mean, its a big hunk of boiled meat. With cabbage, the world's smelliest vegetable.

But if you haven't had it, you should give it a try. Just make sure you are having it the RIGHT way.

First, pick out a good cut at the store.  It will be called "corned beef" and will be pre-seasoned or have a seasoning packet included. The best cut is called a "flat cut." What you are looking for is a lot of fat lines running throughout the entire cut, called "marbling," rather than just big hunks of fat in one area. The safest bet is usually just to go with the most expensive one you can find. Before St. Patty's they will be massively on sale anyway- I think we paid about $6 for three pounds.

Next, do not trim the fat before cooking. I admit I trimmed some of the top fat off of mine, but we are dieting and I felt guilty. But most of it will come right off after it is cooked.

Cut up some onions and line the bottom of the biggest pot you have with them. Put the corned beef on top, add the seasoning packet, and fill the pot with water so the meat is just covered.

Cover, bring it to a boil, reduce to simmer and simmer for about an hour per pound. Just try to ignore the fact that it looks pretty disgusting at this point.





 After 2-3 hours start cutting up your potatoes and carrots. They only take about 20 minutes so add them to the pot when the meat is pretty much cooked. Cook at a simmer until the potatoes and carrots are just tender.

 

While this is happening, cut your cabbage into chunks- quarters or eighths will do.

Remove the meat when it is tender throughout- you may even have trouble getting it out in one chunk at this point. You should be able to pull it apart with a fork and not need a knife. Then add the cabbage in with the other vegetables.

This is why you needed "the biggest pot you can find." Keep stirring and it will cook down.

Trim the fat from the meat while the cabbage is cooking. It should come off pretty easily. Then, serve with the vegetables and a little of the broth to keep it hot.

And enjoy! The texture is somewhat like a tender pot roast, but the taste is tangier and somewhat vinegary. Some people like to make a Reuben-esque sandwich with rye bread, cabbage and Swiss cheese. I like to have mine with a little spicy mustard. But of course there is no wrong way to eat something this delicious.

Corned Beef and Cabbage

Ingredients:

2-3 pounds flat cut corned beef
2 onions
4 medium potatoes
1 lb baby carrots
1/2 head cabbage

1. Slice your onions and line the bottom of the biggest pot you have with them. Put the corned beef on top, add the seasoning packet, and fill the pot with water so the meat is just covered.
2. Cover, bring it to a boil, reduce to simmer and simmer for about an hour per pound.
3. After 2-3 hours, when the meat is tender but not yet falling apart, add your potatoes and carrots to the pot. Cook at a simmer for about 20 minutes, until the potatoes and carrots are just tender.
4. When the meat pulls apart with a fork, remove it from the pot and add the cabbage, cut into quarters or eighths. Cook for about 10 minutes.
5. Trim the fat from the meat and cut it to serve. Then add the vegetables and some broth on top.
6. Serve with a Guinness and some rye bread. And kiss an Irish person for inventing this delightful treat.

The MaddAddam Triolgy, by My Favorite Mad Eve

Margaret Atwood has got to be one of the greatest women Canada has ever produced (insert your choice of Canada jokes here, but I'm being totally sincere). She's just so damn smart. I felt that way when I wrote my thesis on her most popular novel, The Handmaid's Tale and last year when I read and reviewed Alias Grace. I felt that way when I was blessed to see her in person. And after finishing this trilogy it is one of many takeaways that I will try to briefly summarize here for you. Being only a fraction as intelligent I strongly recommend you read her work for yourself.

(#1) Read 26 Books
1. Firestarter by Stephen King
2.World War Z by Max Brooks
3. Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer
4. Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldman
5. A Wolf at the Table by Augusten Burroughs
6. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
7. Open House by Elizabeth Berg
8. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
9. The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
10. The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
11. White Noise by Don DeLillo
12. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
13. The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
14. MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood

I read Oryx and Crake in college in a class called "Apocalyptic Fiction" (yes, it was awesome). I didn't realize it was a trilogy until MaddAddam came out this year, so I had to read it again as a refresher.

It follows the story of "Snowman" (pre-apocalyptic name: Jimmy) coping as one of the last surviving humans in what seems to be the end of days. Jimmy's only companions are his charges, the "Children of Crake;" they are a new species created by his departed friend Crake and intended to replace humans who have destroyed the Earth.

I loved Oryx and Crake. It easily stands alone as its own novel and is probably the best of the three. It is both quiet and introspective, yet with bouts of explosive world-shattering excitement. Despite having read many books in this genre it showed me something I have never seen and made me ask questions I have never asked myself (such as: Do humans really deserve to live on this planet?)

The Year of the Flood is the second novel in the series by takes place at approximately parallel times to Oryx and Crake.  It details the rise of the "God's Gardner's," a fringe cult that is essentially trying to save the Earth from all the ways the humans are destroying it. It was a bit slower than Oryx and Crake and was literally and figuratively "preachy"-- Atwood often uses the cult leaders to espouse her own not-so-hidden agenda. What I liked about it was that it gave me a fuller picture of what happened in the world before, during and after the apocalyptic event.

Finally in MaddAddam we rejoin our friend Jimmy, aka Snowman, aka Snowman-the-Jimmy. I became quite attached to Jimmy and I was happy with how this installment treated him. However, I have to say I was expecting more of a grand "answer" after all the buildup in the first two novels. It was a lovely wrap-up but it didn't have the profound impact that the other two novels did.

Atwood darkly calls her work not science fiction, but "speculative fiction," and she is often much too accurate. The world of this trilogy is wrought with dramatically deadly weather, food that is created solely in labs, and economics reminiscent of the Middle Ages. I don't claim to know anything about, say, bioengineering, but she presents the events in the novel in such a way that they seem not only plausible but probable.

Perhaps you don't want to ask yourself whether the world would be better off without humans. But if you can stomach the thought, you'd probably enjoy this trilogy.

Making Pasta: Egg, Flour, and Sweat

I had mentioned to a friend and fellow amateur chef once that I had never made fresh pasta. This friend happens to be Italian and therefore a natural-born pasta maker. So when Ron and I decided to get together with Alan and his girlfriend Kristen for dinner one night, we realized it was the perfect opportunity for me to learn a new skill.

Master 10 New Recipes:

1. Pasta with Mushrooms and Thyme
2. Sriracha Peanut Butter Tofu
3. Fresh Pasta

I'll say this: it was hard work. Admittedly, we were cooking for six people, which is a lot. And I would probably improve my speed with more practice. But still, I'd say it took me about two hours total.

Was it worth it? Well, yes. Learning something new - especially in a subject you are passionate about, like me with cooking - is almost always worth the work. And yes, fresh pasta tastes better and in a way is a totally different experience than dried pasta. But like I told Ronnie, I probably won't be making it for him at home anytime soon.

Okay, onto the lesson.

First, clear off a large portion of your counter and get some eggs and some flour together. Honestly I don't think Alan measured anything but just kind of knew. Mario Batali suggests 3 1/2 cups flour and 4 eggs for 4 servings of pasta, so I'm sure it was somewhere around there.

Sift the flour onto a large cutting board or straight onto the counter into a mound, then dig out a little bowl to crack the eggs into (as pictured below). Next start whisking the flour into the eggs with a fork. Be careful not to break the rim of the flour bowl. After what seemed like about an hour of me doing this slowly Alan assisted me and finished whisking in about two seconds. One thing he did which I didn't think to do was actually move the flour to create a smaller bowl shape.

 Note the third ingredient in making pasta dough: wine.

Eventually it will come together into a knead-able dough. Knead it by gathering it together with your fingertips and then pressing it with the palms of your hands. At first the dough will likely be horribly sticky and half of it will be stuck to your fingers. You can resolve this by slowly kneading in more flour.

You should knead for a solid 5-10 minutes until the dough is elastic and "tacky" but no longer too sticky to handle. Then wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest for 20 minutes at room temperature.

Now is a great time for a glass of wine and perhaps an appetizer.

Next, rolling out the dough. I assume every pasta maker and every noodle shape is different, so don't take this as an instruction manual. But what we did was cut about 1/4 or 1/5 of the dough off of the total, roll it out, and put it through the machine once on each thickness setting until we got to the thickness we wanted.

You can see it starts out fairly thick and short:

And ends up looking something like this:

Once it is at the desired thickness you can cut it into whatever noodle shape you choose. I believe we did a fettuccini noodle as that was one of the settings on their machine.

Cook time varies depending on the noodle, but it is much shorter than with dried pasta. I think for the fettuccini noodles we cooked them for about three minutes.

After all this work I had built up quite an appetite, and we all dug into the pasta before I had a chance to get a good shot. Here's what was left over:

Clearly it was delicious. This is something that every aspiring chef should know and I am glad to have this skill under my belt.

But I am also glad that someone invented dried pasta.