Corned Beef and Cabbage

Corned beef isn't really a traditional Irish meal, it's more of an Irish-American one. I don't care about authenticity, I just care about having three days' worth of leftover Reuben fixings in the fridge.

This is a great meal for feeding a whole bunch of people without spending a bunch of time in the kitchen. You can cure your own corned beef with a week of lead time, but you can also find a nice fresh brisket at your local butcher. That's what I did here.

(See the next post for what to do with the leftovers.)

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Ingredients

3 corned beef briskets, 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 pounds each
5 pounds mixed red and white fingerling potatoes
5 pounds carrots
2-3 pounds onion
3 cabbage heads
For optional side dish
1 pound carrots
1/2 large onion

Directions

The main dish

Put each brisket in a separate pot. (I was feeding a large group. Cut down to one brisket if you're serving four.) Try for pots that are just large enough to lay the brisket flat, and at least 2-3 times deeper than the brisket. Include the juices from the vacuum pack -- assuming you didn't cure your own.



Add enough water to the pot to almost cover the brisket.



Bring to a boil, then reduce heat until the water is barely bubbling.

While the water is coming to a boil, start prepping the veggies. First peel the carrots ...



... cut off the stem ends ...



... cut into pieces a couple of inches long ...



... and cut the chinks lengthwise into slivers slightly bigger around than pencils.



Add the carrots to the pot with the beef brisket.



Next wash the potatoes thoroughly. The easiest way is to put them all in the sink and fill with cold water. Scrub each with a stiff brush until there is no dirt left on them.



Chop the potatoes into large bite-sized pieces.



By this time the brisket should have started changing color.



Add the potatoes, and enough water to almost cover them. Try to keep the veggies tucked down tight between the meat and the pan. You want to use the least amount of water that will cover everything to concentrate the flavors.



Next up is the onions. Cut the stems off and peel them.



Cut into quarters and slice out the root from the end of each quarter.



One more cut to make eighths ...



... and add them to the pot.

The optional carrot dish

Along with all the veggies in the pot, I did a separate dish of carrots and onions. For this I took half a large sweet onion.



Cut thin slivers of this one lengthwise ...



... so you end up with tapered wedges instead of rings.



Using a paper towel, grease a small casserole dish with bacon fat ...



... until it is thoroughly coated.



Add a layer of carrots ...



... and a layer of onions ...



... then more carrots, onions, and carrots again. Season with salt and fresh-ground black pepper.



Add several dollops of bacon fat, a couple of tablespoons' worth in all.



Cover this and place in a 350° oven.

The cabbage

Now back to the main dish. Core the cabbage heads and cut each wedge in half, making eighths -- same as you did for the onions.

If you've been taking your time up til now, the corned beef has been simmering for three hours or more. If you haven't been taking your time, do it now. Take a break until the briskets are done. Then, without dumping the water, carefully fish all the veggies and the meat out into their own bowls.



Then load the cabbage up into the water you just cooked everything else in.



Make sure the water stays at a low simmer. When you take all the meat and veggies out it will want to start boiling.

If you did the extra carrot carrot dish, turn the oven off and put the bowls of carrots and potatoes in the oven to keep warm. Otherwise set the oven on its lowest setting before putting everything in. Leave the meat out to rest.

After the cabbage has been going for about 15 minutes, take the corned beef and slice it across the grain.



You absolutely do not want to cut this with the grain unless you like stringy, chewy meat.

Once the beef is sliced, scoop the cabbage into a bowl along with a little of the water. Don't worry about trying to drain it, let it come out in the bowl.



If you did the extra carrot dish, toss the carrots together with the onions before serving.

Chili-cheese fries cooked in beef tallow

Fries used to be cooked in beef tallow. They were crispy golden pieces of goodness. Restaurants liked tallow because they could use the same tallow for a month as long as they didn't burn anything and they kept it clean.

Then the food police decided frying in beef tallow was bad for us. Ask them for the medical studies proving any connection between animal fats and heart disease and all they have is a study where they force-fed rabbits -- vegetarians without the ability to process animal fats -- a diet of powdered animal fat. If you think the result of that study were obvious before they did it, you don't understand how medical research funding works.

Funding, right. Who funded that study? If you guess that it was the people who made vegetable shortening, then you do understand how medical research funding works.

So for the past century we've been frying in vegetable shortening. The fries don't taste as good, so restaurants add chemicals and artificial flavors to the fries and the shortening. The oil goes rancid quickly and has to be changed every day. But before they change it, they're frying in carcinogens. You know, the stuff that causes cancer.

And even if you manage to keep it from going rancid, it's still 100% trans fat. And now the food police have realized how bad trans fats are, so everyone is scrambling to find a replacement. The same people who gave us bogus studies in support of vegetable shortening are now giving us new formulations of processed vegetable oil that look pretty much like animal fats.

So after decades of trying to replace beef tallow, it turns out the best thing for frying is ... beef tallow. And if you know what to look for, you can still get it for home use.

Following are directions for rendering tallow from beef suet, then a simple chili recipe for topping the fries. Although to tell you the truth, these fries are so good it's almost a shame to top them with chili.

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Ingredients

3 lb beef suet
6 medium Idaho/russet potatoes[1]
1 lb ground beef
28 oz crushed tomatoes (one large can)
1 large green pepper
3 small onions
5 cloves garlic
1/4 cup - 1 cup chili powder (see below)
2 tbsp bacon fat
1 cup each cheddar and mozzarella
1/4 cup real bacon bits
salt and pepper
popcorn salt (see below)

Directions

Rendering suet into tallow

Start with three pounds of suet. You can get it from your local butcher. They probably won't have it at the grocery store.



You would think from looking at it that this would be a flabby, sticky, greasy, nasty mess. It's actually very dry, stiff and waxy. You don't want to handle it too much or it can start to melt. Keep it in the fridge until you're ready to start cutting and it should be fine.

Dice everything into pieces about a half-inch square and put it all in a deep pan.



The one in the pictures is an 11-inch pan. Three pounds of suet filled this pan about two inches deep.

Fill the pan with enough water to just barely cover all the suet.



If you compare the photo above to the previous one you might think it looks much more than "barely covered". You would be right. Suet floats. Fill slowly and pay attention.

Put over high heat until the water starts boiling, then turn down to medium. Cook until the water is boiled away then turn heat to low. By this point you should have lumps of mostly-rendered suet floating in hot liquid fat.

Set a second large pan or pot next to the first, and place a colander in it. Place a paper towel in the bottom of the colander, or line it with cheesecloth. Using a slotted spoon, scoop the floating suet out and into a potato ricer.



If you haven't seen one of these before, it's just like a garlic press but much larger. It will take quite a few loads to get everything through the ricer. Squeeze the suet out into the colander, then scrape the remains out of the ricer, also into the colander.

Once you've processed all the chunks through the ricer, press the fat through the colander with the back of a spoon. Remove the paper towel and all the scraps left in it and dispose of them. Put a clean paper towel in the colander and pour the fat from the first pan through it.

NOTE: You'll be working with extremely hot fat, which can cause serious burns. Don't try to do anything else at the same time ... like take pictures. Yep, I took a break from shooting pictures. I didn't want a repeat of the tempura flounder incident. Next time I do suet I'll get help with the camera work.

Chili

Dice the onion and pepper fine and mince the garlic. Since this will be going on fries, you don't want huge chunks of veggies like I would normally do in my chili.



Sauté the onion, pepper and garlic in the bacon fat over high heat with some salt until the onions start to caramelize. (That means they're starting to get a little brown around the edges.) Push the veggies to the side so the hot center of the pan is clear.



Add the ground beef to the space in the middle. Add more salt and pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until the beef is browned.



Add the crushed tomatoes, stir well, then turn the heat to low once it starts bubbling. Add the chili powder to taste. If you like mild, go with ancho chile powder. It's sweet and smoky with barely any heat. For more heat go with chipotle -- roasted jalapeño. Or you can go with a pre-mixed chili powder.

French fries in tallow

Cut the potatoes into wedges, square-cut sticks, whatever shape you like. You can even mix and match, as long as everything is about the same thickness. Rinse the potatoes in cold water. If you want them to be extra fluffy, soak them for up to a half hour in cold water. The extra moisture will steam out as the potatoes cook, producing a lighter texture under the crispy crust.

Dry the potatoes thoroughly, then carefully add them to the fat. (Did I mention "carefully"?)



Don't crowd the pan. You don't want the oil to cool off, or the fries will get soggy. Once they reach a deep golden color, darker around the edges, scoop the fries out to a plate covered with one or two paper towels.



Once they're all done, add a coating of popcorn salt.[2]

Assembly

Put a single layer of fries on the plate, add a scoop of chili, a handful of cheddar and mozzarella, and a topping of bacon. Give it a quick hit in the microwave or under the broiler to melt the cheese.

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1) Medium potatoes are about the size of a baseball. Since russets are oblong, that means these should be a little longer than a baseball is but not as big around.

2) You can usually find popcorn salt in the snack aisle with the popcorn. It is ground finer than regular table salt, so it sticks better to snacks like popcorn and French fries.

A day at the West Side Market -- Cleveland, OH

Today's post will be a little bit of a detour. Before cooking real food, you have to buy some real food. For me, that starts -- and usually ends -- with a trip to the West Side Market.

Anyone in the Cleveland area who doesn't love the West Side Market either has never been there, or isn't into food at all. While it doesn't compare to markets in New York or L.A., there is more variety in this one spot than in most of the rest of the state combined.

Even the best grocery stores tend to stock only the most common foods. Some of them have a pretty good international foods aisle, but that will be mostly prepared foods. You're just not going to find fresh buffalo steaks at the local Dave's.


photo courtesy of Yvonne & Mark Sanderson
Focal Plane Photography

If you've never been there, the large red-roofed building is the interior concourse. You'll find meats, cheeses, prepared foods, spices ... pretty much everything except fruits and vegetables, which are in the outdoor arcade. That's the two long buildings that form a backwards 7 around the left side.

A typical visit for me starts with a quick trip through the vegetables to see what looks good for a side dish.



I don't usually buy on the first pass, since then I'll just have to carry everything for the rest of the trip. On a typical Saturday expect to see a pretty good crowd the entire day.



Maybe you can avoid the crowd by getting there earlier. I wouldn't know, I don't get up early weekends.

Some of the vendors have a little bit of everything. A one-stop-shop approach.



Others are more specialized, offering five varieties of onion, or eight varieties of apples.



In the picture above you can see the doors behind the stalls. The outdoor market was seasonal until a couple of years ago when they enclosed all the stalls with garage doors. It's not heated, so it can still get chilly in the winter. During the summer they can open everything up and it's almost like an open-air market.

On to the inside market.



This is classic early 20th century construction you don't see any more. If you need to make your purchases and get out fast, make sure to get a map to the vendors. From ground level, everything looks the same and it's easy to lose track of where you are.



Like I said, I don't get up early weekends. So by the time I get to the market it's approaching lunch time. Fortunately, there are quite a few places that offer ready-to-eat food inside. This includes everything from pizza and subs ...



... to fresh-made crêpes.



What you won't see advertised is that many other stalls that sell prepared food to take home will also warm it up for you. My daughters love the Pasties and Irish meat pies.



There isn't really a dining area, but up above the West end of the market is a balcony with a wide ledge that locals use as a mini-cafeteria.



I set the girls up with their pasty while I have either a meatball sub or a gyro.



From the balcony you get a good view of the whole place including:

Interesting stall decorations ...



Ridiculous variety ...



Personalized service ...



And of course more butchers than you've ever seen in one place.



After lunch, we head down to find a main course. This day we went with the rib steak.



Until I started going to the West Side Market, I never realized there were butchers who specialized in one kind of meat. I got my steak at Wencer's, which only does beef. Other stalls have only pork, or poultry, or sausages.



So, main dish in hand, I head back out to get the sides. Salad fixings ...



Asparagus ...



And fresh berries for desert.

Rib steak with broiled asparagus and broccoli

You might think after three days of eating prime rib I'd be a little tired of it for a while. If so, you'd be wrong. Maybe if I had gone four days straight then I'd have gotten tired of it. I guess I'll have to try it sometime and see.

Until then, I'm going to keep enjoying days like this past Saturday. I took the girls to the West Side Market, had some lunch on the balcony, and picked up a rib steak and some veggies for dinner.

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Directions

Prep

I started with two heads of broccoli.



Cut the stem off really close to the head.



A few florets will come free if you cut close enough. Next cut everything down to bite-sized. Any florets that are too big, split the stem in half then pull and it will come apart cleanly. Don't try to cut all the way through or you'll end up with little bits of the head all over.



Keep going until everything is prepped.



Next is the asparagus. Note the small, white-ish, triangular leaves down the sides of each stem. These become important later.



As soon as asparagus is cut in the field it starts losing moisture through the cut end, which starts getting fibrous and tough. Unless you can guarantee yours was just harvested that day -- or maybe the day before -- you'll need to remove the dried out part. But you don't know how much that will be.

So here's what you do. Hold the un-cut end in one hand. Bend the cut end with the thumb and index finger of your other hand until it snaps. It will break right at the edge of what has gotten tough.



With the veggies prepped, I started on the rib steak, on the bone. It's the same cut as the standing rib roast, but cut one bone thick and cooked like a steak.



This is about a pound. I could easily eat the whole thing, but with side dishes this is plenty for my wife and I to share.

Pat it dry with a paper towel, then apply a generous coating of kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper.

For the girls, I always get a half-pound of stew meat.



It's way cheaper than nearly any other cut of steak, and I have to cut their meat up for them anyway. I cut it before cooking which exposes much more surface area to the pan for the Maillard reaction to work its magic, so the taste is generally just as good.

Cook

Throw a couple of tablespoons of bacon fat in a hot pan.



Let it melt and get hot enough to start forming tiny little bubbles. That's how you know it's ready for the steak.



As soon as you put the steak in you should hear a strong sizzle and see bubbles all the way around.



Leave it like this for two minutes without lifting it to see how it's doing. You'll know it has formed a delicious brown crust when the steak moves around when you give the pan a quick shake. When it moves around freely, it's ready to turn over.

While the steak is cooking, season the asparagus. Put it on a baking sheet covered with foil. Drizzle with a couple of tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, and add kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper.



Toss everything in with your hands to make sure every stem is coated, then spread them out in a single layer.



Put the pan six inches under the broiler set to low. Once you've practiced this once or twice you can go on high. Don't try it the first time though -- greens under extreme heat are very touchy.

By the time the asparagus is in the oven, the steak should be ready to flip.



Already looks good enough to eat. Notice the steam. As Rachael Ray would say, that pan is screaming hot. It should only take about 30 seconds to form the crust on the other side and come loose from the pan. As soon as it does, put the whole pan in the bottom of the stove, well away from the broiler.

Now you've got just a couple of minutes to season the broccoli. The asparagus will cook very quickly. I wouldn't try doing two sides at the same time like this until you're pretty comfortable with all the techniques going on.

Put the broccoli in a mixing bowl that is quite a bit larger than you need to just hold all of it. Pour the olive oil in around the edge of the bowl so it runs down underneath, not directly onto the florets. You want the oil on the surface, not soaked in. Toss well to coat, and add salt and pepper.



Somewhere in the midst of all this going on, I found the time to get the diced stew meat into a hot non-stick pan with some bacon fat in it. I went with the non-stick so I could do a stir-fry.



Way back when I first showed the asparagus, remember I said to notice the white-ish leaves on the stems? Take a look at them now.



When you see the edges just start to turn brown it's time to turn everything over. Put it back under the broiler and keep a close eye on it. At this point you can go from "done" to "charcoal" in about 30 seconds.

During that minute or two to finish the asparagus, I gave the stew meat a quick toss.



Starting to look good. It's not getting as much crust yet as it would in the steel pan. That's good, though. As small as these pieces are, they wouldn't release well -- they would stick and burn.

Now everything is going to start finishing up all at the same time, so make sure you don't have any kids or cats underfoot.

First up is the asparagus. It's done when the leaves are dark brown.



You want to pull it just before things start to go black. This will take some practice to get right. It's definitely better to pull too soon than too late.

As soon as that's out the broccoli goes in. That will take less than a minute on each side. So like I said, don't try both sides together until you've practiced, and make sure no small creatures are around to trip you up.

Next up is the beef stir-fry.



Turn the broccoli as soon as you see the first sign of brown, and pull it as soon as you see brown on the other side. Broccoli wants to burn. I think it doesn't want to get eaten.



Now pull the steak from the bottom of the oven.



It smells even better than it looks. Plate up the steak with the asparagus and prepare to collect rave reviews.



Serve up the beer stir-fry and broccoli to the kids.

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The pan sauce

All that wonderful baked-on crust in the steak pan should have been more than enough flavor for a fantastic pan sauce. (Should have been? Yeah, a little foreshadowing there.) First step is to melt a couple of tablespoons of butter over low heat, swabbing it around to pick up plenty of the stuck bits.



Don't forget, like I did, that this pan has been in the oven and the handle is still very hot.



Once the butter is melted, add a couple of tablespoons of flour.



You need to stir this constantly over low heat. Much lower than what I had it set to. And don't go out on your back porch to dispose of the dead mouse the cat just brought home. The flour will burn by the time you get back.



It may not look that bad in the picture, but the dark brown area is already starting to get grainy and lumpy. I stirred and beat that sauce as hard as I could to try to rescue it. No such luck. I had to put the whole pan outside before the smell of burnt flour made it out of the kitchen and into the rest of the house.

How to make a standing rib roast -- and the world's greatest leftovers

The traditional showpiece of the American holiday meal is either a roast turkey or a giant ham. If you really want to impress someone, go instead for a standing rib roast. The recipe is about as simple as can be and the preparation is even easier. The key is a simple preparation of the best cut of meat you can get.

You may look at the length of the directions and wonder how I can say it's easy. It's because there aren't very many steps that each step is so important. And when you're working with a $60 piece of beef you don't want to miss something, so I've included lots of detail along the way.

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Ingredients

1 (3-bone) standing rib roast, loin end
1/2 cup rendered bacon fat
1 lb fatback (optional, see below)
kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper

Directions

When ordering the rib roast, ask the butcher to leave about a quarter-inch trim of fat over the whole roast. If you aren't able to place a special request, or if the trim is too close and there are large parts of the meat showing through the fat, you'll need enough fatback to cover the whole top. The one I got was in between: enough fat to not need the fatback, but not enough to trim.



Here you can see the three bones across the bottom.



If you get one with a thick layer of fat, trim it in one continuous piece right where it joins the meat. Leave it attached at one end of the bones. It should form a flap that covers the entire roast. If it had a narrow "low-fat" trim, arrange one or more pieces of fatback so they cover the entire roast, then set the fatback to the side.

Now that you have the meat exposed, coat it liberally with kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper. Do the bone side, too.



Fold the flap of trimmed fat over the meat, or cover with the fatback. Tie the roast at each bone. If you've never tied a roast, ask your butcher to show you how. If you don't tie it, the fat will curl back as soon as it starts to cook and the exposed meat can dry out. I wish I could show a picture of this, but like I said mine was trimmed too close.

Finally, place the prepared roast, bone side down, on a rack in a shallow, stovetop-safe glass or earthenware casserole dish, or a flat baking sheet.



Insert the probe of a digital meat thermometer in the top of the roast, so that the tip is as near the center as you can get. Here I'm measuring to make sure I hit the center.



Then I insert the probe and connect it to the thermometer.



Set the thermometer for 120° -- or as close as your thermometer will go, mine doesn't go below 122° -- and place the roast in a 200° oven. The wire on the probe lets you keep an eye on the progress without opening the door. Digital thermometers with remote probes cost less than $20. If you're cooking a $60 piece of meat, don't guess – buy the thermometer.



Now comes the hard part: Leave it alone. Don't check on it. Don't baste it. Don't open the door to see how it's coming. All you need to know is when it hits 122°. Work on the side dishes. Make the horseradish cream sauce. Entertain your guests. At this low temperature every time you open the door and let the heat out you'll be adding nearly a half-hour to the overall roasting time.

When the thermometer reads 122°, take the roast out and wrap it with heavy aluminum foil. Here is what it looks like now. Note that it has given up almost no juices.



And here it is covered. I just ripped the foil to go around the probe. DO NOT remove the probe. You will lose more juice through the hole than you would believe.



Turn the oven up to 500°. While the oven is warming up, you will see the temperature on the roast continue to rise. When the oven hits 500°, or the roast hits 130°, remove the foil, remove the layer of fat (which I didn't have) and put the roast back in the oven. Keep an eye on it to see when a nice crust has formed. It should be less than 10 minutes.



Remove from the oven (you can turn it off now), and transfer the roast to a cutting board. Leave the probe in. Put a serving platter in the oven to warm up. Cover the roast with foil again and let it rest for 20 minutes, or until you see the temperature peak and start heading back down, whichever comes first.

To carve, turn the meat upside-down on the cutting board and cut away all the strings, if you didn't remove them with the fat before finishing the crust. Using an electric knife or filleting knife cut all the bones away from the meat in one piece.



Hide the bones where your mother-in-law won't find them before you get to them. (Hi, Nancy!) They make an excellent chef's snack.

Turn the meat back over onto the cut side where the bones were. Carve slices up to a half-inch thick. You should typically get about two slices for each bone so use the width of the bones as a guide.



Take your warmed serving platter from the oven and reassemble the entire roast onto it.



If you got a lot of juices from the carving and your cutting board has a channel for catching the juice (look two pictures back) use this to make an au jus. Divide the au jus and the horseradish cream sauce into individual bowls before bringing them to the table. Serve the meat from the platter at the table.

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World's greatest leftovers

The next morning, cut the ribs apart. Place one on some foil in the toaster oven for about five minutes at 400°. Let it cool a bit and gnaw on it like a caveman.

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For lunch, take out the leftover prime rib. (Yup, that's what it is: prime rib. No wonder it's so good.)



If you look at the cutting board you'll see where I learned you shouldn't use an electric knife on a wooden surface. Oops.

Carve off a piece about a quarter-inch thick.



Get some onions going in a very hot pan lubed up with melted bacon fat.



Toss them a bit so they get a little brown all around.



Add the prime rib and let it cook for about 30 seconds to a minute without touching it. Add a little kosher salt.



It's ready to flip when a quick shake of the pan makes it move around. At first it will stick to the pan, but as the surface caramelizes it will break free. Yay for the Maillard reaction. Flip it over and give it another 30 seconds to a minute.



Split and lightly butter a French or crusty Italian roll, and throw it in the pan to toast it. If there's still a good bit of bacon fat in the pan (like I had) you can skip the butter. You just need it moist enough that the bread doesn't stick to the pan.



Remove everything from the pan and assemble. You can add cheese, but it really doesn't need it.



I wouldn't think this was ruined if you replaced half the onion with an equal amount of mushroom. But for goodness sake, don't bury the prime rib in vegetables. This sandwich is all about the meat.

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For breakfast the next day, fry it up the same way as the sandwich, but without the onions. Add a couple of eggs, sunny side up with kosher salt and plenty of cracked black pepper.



And if this is your third straight day of eating prime rib -- it was for me -- plan on having a salad for lunch. You'll need it.