Some New Favorite Recipes

Chris and I had the honor of attending the Pebble Beach Food and Wine Festival.  Many talented chefs attended this event.  I had the opportunity to see several cooking demos, purchase cookbooks, and even meet a few of my favorite chefs.  When having the book, Cooking with Love, by Chef Carla Hall signed I asked her what her favorite recipe was.  She responded that the buffalo wing burgers were her favorite.  Inspired by meeting one of my favorite chefs, I had to try this recipe out when I got home.  We decided to make these burgers as sliders using mini baguette rolls from our favorite local bakery.  I must say the sliders were amazing.

 So amazing that we then decided to make her flank steak with red pepper tapenade the next night.  I was a bit skeptical of some of the ingredients in the tapenade, I am not a huge fan of capers.  But the balance of flavors in the tapenade was fabulous.  We were both full, but could not stop eating this wonderful meal.  If you have a chance, check out some of Chef Carla Hall's recipes.  We have enjoyed making them since returning home from the Festival.

More to come on the Food and Wine Festival, stay tuned.

Elevating the Lowly Corned Beef

Corned beef is a mistreated dish.  A fatty cut of beef boiled for several hours (even using that traditional preparation it tastes better than it should).  Of course we eat this once a year on Saint Patrick's Day.  Last year, inspired by Michael Ruhlman, we "corned" (i.e. cured) our own brisket.  It was pretty simple and the results were excellent so we did it again.  This year I wanted treat the entire preparation differently.  Here is what we did with one corned beef brisket throughout the course of the Saint Patrick's Day weekend.

Saturday Night, March 16: Bacon Wrapped Corned Beef braised in Bell's Amber

After curing for a week we rinsed the brisket prepped it to cook.  Instead of the aforementioned crockpot boil we went for a basic braise which seemed appropriate for this type of meat.  First we seared all sides, then we wrapped in bacon and let the beef sit in a bath of carrots, celery, thyme and Bell's Amber Ale for five hours.  We ditched the dry Irish soda bread of my youth for salt-topped rye and Irish butter plus thyme roasted potatoes.

Pairing: 12 pints of Guinness


Sunday Morning, March 17: Corned Beef Hash 

A basic recipe that is pretty simple.  Leftover corned beef shredded and combined with onions and potatoes.  This is a simple breakfast that is far superior to that you'll get out of the can or at most diners.  Serve with a easy-over egg and thick cut bacon

Pairing: Coffee and Ibuprofen


Sunday Night, March 17: The Reuben

 

This is usually the big payoff to making a corned beef at home.  One of the world's greatest sandwiches, the Reuben tastes much better with real beef in favor the the slimy, odd lunchmeat version.  While I'm usually a Reuben purist, in this case I swapped out the Russian dressing for a basic remoulade and I dropped the saurkraut for a mustard based coleslaw.  It worked really well

Pairing: Potato Chips