CORNED BEEF AND CABBAGE

Cooking this simple Irish dish can be a challenge.  Not only is it super salty but it's also pretty tough and takes too long to cook to make it tender.  I don't normally  cook this Irish dish  because it is laden with artificial preservatives like sodium nitrate and sodium nitrite (carcinogens) and tons of salt. But because it's St. Patrick's day, and only once a year (what a lame excuse), it doesn't hurt to be in the spirit.

My morning was quite hectic and I was most of the time on the phone talking to clients .and I wasn't able to write down my strategies in cooking this simple but quite challenging dish.  My plan was to 1) wash the corned beef very well with running hot water (as hot as your hands can stand) and then 2) boil it for 1 hour. 3) Roast it in the oven at 250 F degrees for about 4 hours with sliced yellow onions underneath. 4) Cut into serving pieces and bring to a boil and simmer on medium-low heat for 1 hour.  Add the cabbage.  Serve with steamed rice or bread with black or green Irish beer.

My schedule was running behind and I didn't get to number 4 when my children came home from work and school, so I had to abort and change my plan of making Corned Beef and Cabbage Stew to Corned Beef and Cabbage Sandwiches.  We used whole wheat bread slathered with mustard and layered with thin slices of corned beef with a piece of cabbage on the side.  My daughter added a crunchy Vlasic whole dill pickles. 

My children invited a friend over to share our Corned Beef Sandwiches and there's still half of the corned beef left which I plan to make into a stew for tomorrow's lunch.  Not bad for a package of corned beef worth $12.83 that served 6 people plus leftovers for tomorrow's lunch.