St. Patty's Corned Beef Dinner

It is the week of St. Patricks Day, and nothing says St. Patty's more than corned beef and cabbage.


I have read a bit on how to make a brisket of beef a corned beef brisket - but I have no idea why it's called "corned." I do know it is delicious.

I bought a packaged corned beef brisket from Costco, about 5 pounds. You don't have to go to Costco for this - they commonly appear in most grocery stores during the month of March.

Preparation was really easy. The toughest part was peeling all the little boiling onions to line the bottom of the dutch oven. They were going to act as my rack to hold the meat off the bottom of the pan, but more on that later.

Next I put the corned beef on top of the onions, fat side down so it would be a prettier picture. Then I slowly poured in beer to cover the top of the brisket. This is where my "onion rack" technique revealed it's flaw - the corned beef floated in the beer and some of the onions popped up to the top of the pan. Oh well.

I preheated the oven to 450 degrees, then brought the beer floating brisket to a gentle boil. By that time, the oven was hot, I covered the dutch oven, and put it in the oven. Cook at the high temperature for 40 minutes, then reduce oven temperature to 225 or 250 and cook an additional 8 or 9 hours - seriously. (I started at 250 but checked the pot after a couple of hours, and the oven boil was a bit vigorous, so I dropped it further to 225 - you know your oven better than I.)

Remove the brisket from the dutch oven and let rest for 20 minutes; if your brisket had a side with a fatty layer, the fat will just scrape right off after it's full day in the dutch oven if it didn't disintegrate already.

I supplemented the meal with Roasted Garlic Potatoes. Scrub and dice a combination of red potatoes and white potatoes. Chop one medium red onion. Chop several cloves of garlic. Toss all together in a baking dish with olive oil, salt and pepper. Bake in the oven, covered, at 375 for 45 minutes. Uncover, stir the mixture, and continue to bake uncovered until it's to your desired crispiness.

Feel free to stir a few more times to get the most out of crunchy edged potatoes.

We also enjoyed cabbage wedges, steamed in plastic wrap in the microwave, and lightly buttered and salted and peppered.

Don't forget to add green food coloring to your beverage of choice.

AND, the leftovers make a GREAT corned beef hash - yummy enough for dinner. Enjoy.