When our dinner plans fell through for Thursday I thought, what a perfect time to make a meal fit for an Irish King! I headed over to one of my favorite grocery stores in Columbus, Lucky's Market and saw that they had corned beef and cabbage on sale for Monday's holiday. Perfect! Having never made corned beef and cabbage before I was feeling adventurous and decided to give it a try.
Doesn't that look amazing? It was.
After reading a few different recipes and consulting a some cookbooks I had around the house I decided to wing it. The results were good enough to share with you!
Ingredients:
3 lbs corned beef (make sure it includes the spice packet)
1 onion
1 head of cabbage
2 Tbs butter
1 Irish beer (I used Harp, but I bet a Guinness would be yummy too!)
2 C beef broth
Melt butter over medium-high heat in a Dutch oven, or some other oven safe dish. If you don't have one, you can always transfer the food to a baking dish, no biggie. While the butter is melting, pat dry the corned beef so it sears nicely in the pan. Once the butter is melted and hot sear the corned beef on all sides. (A helpful cooking hint-you know the meat you are searing is ready to turn when it no longer sticks to the pan.)
In this photo, it looks like the bottom of my pan is burned. No way! This is actually the yummy flavor that will be set free once I add some liquid to my pot! Once all sides of the corned beef are browned add your beer and broth and seasoning packet. Have a wooden spoon handy so that when the liquid touches the pan you can scrape all that yummy flavor that will easily unstick from the bottom of the pot!
Lower the heat to medium-low and cover while you prepare the next step of chopping the veggies. Coarsely chop the onion and cabbage. Add it to the pot and do your best to coat as much as you can with the broth.
Cover everything back up again and let cook for about an hour, giving it a stir every once in awhile. After an hour turn on your oven to 300 degrees. Once preheated, put the Dutch oven and all the contents inside the oven (covered), or, transfer the food to a baking dish, cover with foil to put in the oven.
Bake for about another hour or until your meat thermometer reads 145 degrees.
Serve your corned beef and cabbage with a roll and a cold beer, and if you are feeling fancy whip some two-bite St. Patty's day cake bites for dessert! Find the recipe here.
Happy Saint Patrick's Day everyone!
xoxo, Kate
