Happy St Patrick’s Day

St Patricks Day tomorrow and the perfect excuse for cooking some good old “Corned Beef” Surprisingly, corned beef is not the Irish national dish. The connection with Saint Patrick’s Day originates as part of Irish-American culture. (In Ireland, the closest traditional dish is boiled bacon and cabbage.)

It became popular in the U.S. after Irish immigrants in the northeast used corned beef instead of pork in the dish. This substitution was likely due to the low cost of corned beef in the U.S. it’s usually sliced and served with mashed potatoes and boiled cabbage but my favorite way is to slice it warm into my home made soda bread with some English Somerdale butter and English mustard.

Corned beef is brined with salt, sugar, cinnamon sticks, mustard seeds, peppercorns, cloves, allspice, juniper berries, bay leaves and ginger and then boiled. I cook my corned beed sous vide now. this one in the picture was in the machine for 10 hours at 180 degrees f and came out amazingly moist and with such an intense flavor.

“Happy St Patricks Day and the top of the morning to ya ! “