A St. Patrick's Day Luncheon at the Office
I hope you all had a wonderful St. Patrick’s Day.
This year, because my busy calendar called for several meetings at our New York City headquarters, I decided to host a fun holiday luncheon for our entire staff - complete with corned beef, cabbage, potatoes and of course, our own version of the traditional Irish soda bread. I got a large beef brisket from Pat LaFrieda, and began preparing it about a week in advance, so it could corn for several days - the term comes from the ancient processes invented for preserving meat by packing it in salt or soaking it in a concentrated brine.
Our Irish soda bread contains currants and caraway - it’s absolutely delicious, and the recipe is from our newest book, "A New Way to Bake: Classic Recipes Updated with Better-for-You Ingredients from the Modern Pantry”. You can pre-order the book by clicking on the highlighted link. It was a fantastic meal and celebration. Enjoy my photos.
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- I received this amazing beef brisket from my friend, Pat LaFrieda, and decided to corn it myself in time for St. Patrick’s Day. http://www.lafrieda.com/
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- Here I am in my kitchen trimming some of the fat off the brisket.
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- I made the brine mix using kosher salt, sugar, garlic, pickling spices, and pink curing salt, or sodium nitrite.
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- My brine recipe was inspired by one I recently saw in The New York Times – it is for a four-to-five pound brisket. Here are the cloves of garlic, smashed and then placed in a large pot with about a gallon of water over high heat.
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- Our brisket was much larger – more than 20-pounds, so I needed to make a lot of brine to cover.
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- Here I am pouring a pot of brine over the brisket. It is so large, we needed to use a plastic storage bin for brining.
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- I also added two cinnamon sticks for additional flavor. And my secret ingredient – four bottles of Corona beer, which added a delicious sweetness to the brine.
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- The liquid was allowed to cool before I placed the brisket in the bin. I used a winter squash grown right here at my farm inside a plastic bag, to weigh down the brisket, so it was completely submerged in the brine.
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- I placed it covered in the refrigerator for six-days, turning it once every day.
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- On the sixth day, I took the brisket to our office headquarters in New York City, where it was rinsed in cool water and simmered with vegetable broth for at least five-hours.
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- We used 20 large carrots cut into these big three-inch pieces.
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- Thee parsnips are from my farm. They were dug up earlier in the week from my outdoor vegetable garden.
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- We used two large green cabbages.
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- Once the corned beef was cooked, all the fat was trimmed off.
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- Here are the carrots and onions that cooked with the corned beef – all of it was removed from the pot.
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- And then the vegetables were par-boiled in the broth of the corned beef, so it could absorb all the rich flavors. It is important to make sure the cabbage is really tender.
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- The carrots and parsnips were also finished and par-boiled in the broth. Depending on how much you are cooking, this could take about 10-15 minutes.
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- The corned beef was then sliced for serving – so tender and delicious.
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- And then transferred back into the broth to keep warm. You can also place the corned beef into a serving vessel and pour some of the broth on top to keep it warm.
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- Here I am joined by members of our test kitchen team: Josefa Palacios, Lauren Tyrell, Kavita Thirupuvanam, and Geri Porter.
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- This delicious rendition of Irish soda bread is from our newest book, “A New Way to Bake: Classic Recipes Updated with Better-for-You Ingredients from the Modern Pantry” – in bookstores next week. It’s called Soda Bread with Currants and Caraway.
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- We served the delicious bread with Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter – it was so very, very good. Did you see my post on my Instagram page @MarthaStewart48?
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- The potatoes were cooked separately – par-cooked and finished in the same liquid from the corned beef.
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- We served the corned beef with freshly grated horseradish, prepared horseradish, Dijon mustard and country mustard.
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- About 50-employees came rushing into the test kitchen for lunch and stood patiently in line.
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- Everyone was so excited to partake of this delicious meal!
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- Here is Greg Lofts, our senior food editor.
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- Look, the Irish soda bread was a big hit! We all had such a great time. How did you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day? Let me know in the comments section below.
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