Corned Beef Breakfast Hash

The world's best breakfast. Or lunch. Or midnight snack. Seriously, this stuff is good! All the work you did when you brined and boiled your brisket is about to pay off.

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons of butter
• 1 cup finely chopped bell pepper (red or yellow would be nice)
• 2 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
• 5 cups leftover boiled dinner, well drained and roughly chopped
• 1 teaspoon fresh chopped herbs, such as parsley, oregano, thyme, or cilantro
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

Directions

Melt butter in a 12-inch cast iron skillet (or some other very heavy-duty pan) over medium heat. Add the bell pepper and cook until it just begins to brown. Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds, until it becomes fragrant. Add the leftover boiled dinner, herbs, and pepper and stir to combine. Press down with a spatula and place a heavy skillet, pie plate, or lid directly onto the hash, pressing down to firm things up and increase browning (you may want to lube whatever you use with butter or nonstick spray). Cook until browned, about 10 minutes. Stir up the hash, trying to get all the browned parts facing up, press down, and cook for another 5 minutes. Serve with fried eggs (I like mine nice and runny!).

Boiled Dinner

Common throughout New England, the boiled dinner is both economical and tasty. I definitely do not reserve this dish only for St. Patrick's Day - that's not nearly frequent enough for me!

Ingredients

• One Corned Beef Brisket, store bought or prepared according to Monday's recipe.
• 1 tablespoon black pepper, coarsely ground
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 pound chopped carrots
• 1/2 pound chopped onion
• 1 pound red potatoes, peeled and chopped
• 1/4 pound chopped celery
• 1 small head cabbage (about 2 pounds), chopped

Directions

Thoroughly rinse the brisket under cold running water. Place the brisket, pepper, allspice, and bay in a large stock pot (at least 8 quarts in volume), with 3 quarts (12 cups) of water. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to low. Simmer gently for 2 1/2 hours.

Add potatoes, carrots, and onions. Return to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes. Add the cabbage and cook for another 10-15 minutes, or until the potatoes are just fork-tender. Remove the bay leaves and serve.

Note
This might seem like it makes a ridiculous amount of dinner. Do not despair - leftover corned beef hash is good enough to justify making this dinner just for the leftovers!

Home-Corned Beef

Frequently, we neglect to nurture our culinary heritage. Here in the US, one of our iconic dishes is corned beef and cabbage (although generally believed to be Irish in origin, it is much more common among Irish-Americans, as beef and salt were far to expensive for Irish peasants to afford, see this article). Many of us have it each year on St. Patrick's Day. Quite a few of us even like it (myself included). How many of us actually prepare it from scratch? I never had, until I saw Alton Brown's Good Eats and he enlightened me on how to make really good corned beef. Once you've had homemade, you never want pre-prepared corned beef again!

Tune in on Wednesday and Friday for ways to prepare this home-corned beef. You could also just cook this up the way you would other kinds of beef roasts - braised with aromatic vegetables, slow-roasted, or smoked.

Ingredients

• 2 quarts (8 cups) water
• 1 cup kosher salt (or 1/2 cup pickling salt)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons saltpeter (although optional, this ingredient adds additional preservation and that lovely red color that we usually associate with corned beef - look for it in pharmacies)
  
• 1 cinnamon stick, broken into several pieces
• 1 teaspoon mustard seed
• 1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
• 8 whole cloves
• 8 whole allspice berries
• 12 whole juniper berries
• 2 bay leaves, crumbled
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 2 pounds ice (which is the same as 4 cups of cold water, if you don't have that much ice around the house)
• 4-5 pound beef brisket, trimmed
  

Note: You can often find whole spices (such as allspice and juniper berries) at health food stores or organic grocery stores.

Directions

In a large pot, bring everything but the ice to a boil, stirring to dissolve the salt and sugar. Remove from heat and add the ice (if you pour it out of the hot pot, it will chill faster). When the brine has reached cool room temperature and all ice is melted, seal the brisket and brine in a 2 gallon zip-top bag and place in a large leak-proof container or a large plastic tub (make sure you use a wide tub, you don't want the meat crammed or folded up). Brine in the fridge for 10 days. Rinse off the brine and prepare as you would a pot roast, or check back on Wednesday for corned beef and cabbage.