With Lashings of Butter,… a Perfect Irish Meal!

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baking soda, Baking with Julia, beef brisket, boiled cabbage, boiled potatoes, corned beef, Dorie Greenspan, fennel seed, Ireland, Irish Soda Bread, Irish Tradition, leavener, potatoe famine, soda bread, tradition, Tuesdays with Dorie

It’s Tuesday with Dorie again, and this week we have made Irish Soda bread! In a couple of weeks, we will all be going to Ireland and Scotland for a week with some friends for a little mini vacation and so I have been looking into Irish Soda bread recipes quite a bit with the intention of making some so this came at just the right time for me.

The recipe in the book calls just for white unbleached bread flour while all the Irish recipes that I have found call for either all whole wheat flour or a combination of the two so I decided to go 50-50. It made just the perfect color in the overall loaf and I was very happy with the texture as well, and it was just so darned easy to make!

Since this assignment landed in the middle of our largest family visit in Idaho, my mother-in-law agreed to let me make a full traditional Irish meal to go with the bread and serve it on St. Patrick’s day. But we would be having as many family members that wanted to come over to eat, so we had to make quite a bit of everything to prepare for the flood of family that comes in a steady stream all day long. Awhile back, I had brined my own corned beef and it turned out really good (although with the wrong cut of meat) and due to the sheer number of people we would be expecting for this meal, my mother-in-law bought a ten pound beef brisket to cure. I was very excited to see how the cure would work out with the proper cut of meat and to toast the spices again since the last time, I smoked out our kitchen by toasting some of the spices ground and the rest whole. So this time I only toasted the spices that we had that were whole and left the ground ones to be separated and added to the brine water and the final boiling water… it turns out that boiling the ground spices smokes out the kitchen more intensely, causing anyone who lifts the lid to check on the beef to cough pretty deeply, so I would suggest going out and getting whole allspice (usually the most potent culprit) and any of the other necessary spices before using them in the brine.

We bought three heads of cabbage to boil, adding a tablespoon of fennel seeds to the water they boiled in and about five pounds of boiled baby red potatoes for our meal. With a side of salad, a stick of butter for the very warm bread that came out of the oven just an hour before everyone arrived, the meal was incredibly filling and there was plenty for everyone that made their way to our house for an early dinner.

The bread dough itself came together very quickly, and buttermilk is fairly difficult to find around my mother-in-law’s house, so we managed to get enough to make two recipes worth and used whole milk to triple the recipe. The loaves looked crumbly, rustic and smelled amazing! Everyone was quite pleased with the texture and taste of the fresh-baked loaves, as well as with the rest of the meal as it was a first for almost everyone. The only thing that could have made it more complete was a pint of Guinness with a large, bubbly, white head on it but we made do with some local brew and sodas for the pregnant, children and others that weren’t interested in alcohol.

These loaves also keep very well, although most of the leftovers (of which there was very little) disappeared bit by bit as our guests left …. I think I will be leaving the recipe when I leave. Our meal led to some interesting  discussions with the younger children that were still in school about the potato famine, Angela’s Ashes, and haggis…

In addition to our meal, we were celebrating two birthdays, a rather belated one for Mei and a couple of weeks early for her cousin Mackenzie so we made mini chocolate and green-dyed white cupcakes with a variety of green and Easter jimmies to add a sweet note to the end of a rather successful meal!

If you would like to bake along with us, pick up a copy of “Baking with Julia” by Dorie Greenspan and you can enjoy all these delicious treats with us too! If you would like the recipe, head over to Cathy’s page on My Culinary Mission or Carla’s page on Chocolate Moosey!

Arnold Reuben, Milton Berle, Broadway Danny Rose & the Carnegie Deli

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corned beef, grilled reuben, reuben, St. Patricks Day

Those of you that know me, know that I watch a lot of Gilmore Girls. Well. Let’s be honest, quite a bit of it, actually I have seen each episode over a dozen or two dozen times. So it’s no surprise to me that while I was enjoying a grilled reuben sandwich, the episode of Gilmore Girls where a pickle train derailed in Stars Hollow, was playing. Why is this important? Because, Sookie makes her own pastrami to combat the pickle smell and Lorelai tells her the smell that makes her happy reminded her of Milton Berle, Broadway Danny Rose and the Carnegie Deli!

"This is going to work..."

A friend of ours came over to enjoy reubens with us – once I told her my plans to make my own corned beef, she became very excited at the prospect of having her own reubens to satisfy a lingering craving for them. So, we threw a little lunch party in the kitchen for four. Mei, Patella, our friend and me. She brought the sauerkraut, and we had bought a loaf of rye bread at the market a few days before, so with those two things, swiss cheese and the corned beef cooking away, we were soon ready to grill some sandwiches. The only thing that would have made it better would have grilling the sandwich on a cast iron skillet -  but I suppose we would have to own one first!

country rye bread, ready for grilling!

According to Saveur, in their April issue – the Sandwich Issue, there is an article called “Say My Name: One Man’s Quest for Sanwich Immortality” by Daniel Pinkwater; in which, the reuben is discussed. There is much debate over the origin of the reuben sandwich. Some say that it was “Reuben Kulakofsky, a grocer from Omaha,” while others say that it was ”Arnold Reuben, who owned a famous restaruant called Reuben’s in New York during the 1900s.” It is said that Arnold Reuben was busy making sandiwches based on “the tastes of celebrity patrons, including Al Johson (raw meat, raw egg, chopped onion), Frank Sinatra (cream cheese, bar-le-duc currant jelly, tongue, sweet pickle), Elvis (peanut butter, banana, bacon – fried in butter) and Milton Berle (cream cheese, turkey, bar-le-duc).

all ready for the first big bite!

The first part of making the reuben was the corned beef, the only challenge left to hurdle was making the russian dressing. But a quick note on the wrong cut of meat that we made the corned beef with? We had to cut thin slices against the grain to make the sandwich easier to eat – I’m definantly going to be making more corned beef and stockpiling it to make sandwiches out of! As luck would have it, in the same issue of Saveur, there was a recipe for russian dressing, which can be found below. We adapted it just a bit by adding a teaspoon of garlic powder, to balance out the Heinz chili sauce we used which tasted more like tomatoes than chilies. Other than that, it was perfect!! My friend was using Thousand Island mixed with other things to try and achieve a similar flavor, but this was unanimously decided to be the closest to authentic russian dressing and was just as satisfying! Even though the sauerkraut was canned, we grilled it to warm it up and brown it slightly and it actually tasted pretty good! Usually I’m not a fan of sauerkraut, so this was pretty good for me. I think next time I might try to make my own swirly pumpernickel rye bread and maybe even some sauerkraut? You never know!!

Hope you enjoy your own reubens! They were so tasty we had two each! In one sitting!

Ingredients:

russian dressing!

• 1/2 C mayo
• 2 tsp chili sauce (American)
• 3 TBS finely chopped flat leaf parsley
• 1 tsp finely grated yellow onion
• 1 tsp drained, prepared horseradish
• 1 tsp worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper
• butter
• rye bread, sliced
• swiss cheese, sliced
• 2 C drained saurkraut
• 1 lb thinly sliced corned beef

Put the mayo, chili sauce, parsley, onion, horseradish, worcestershire, garlic, salt and pepper (to taste), in a medium bowl and stir well to combine. Set the dressing aside.

Butter the rye bread and flip it over, spread each side with 1 TBS of dressing. Top four slices of rye with 2 slices of swiss cheese, 1/2 C of sauerkraut and 1/4 lb of corned beef. Top each with slice of bread, dressing side down.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat. In batches, add the sandwiches in a single layer. Cook, flipping once and occassionally pressing the sandwich down with a wide spatula until they are golden brown and crisp on both sides, about ten minutes total.

assembled, about to be devoured!

Serve wtih a side of dill pickles.

*found and adapted from Saveur*