St Patrick"s Day Dinner

We had planned to have our St Patrick's Day dinner last night (Sunday) but I was still recovering from fixing our neighbors roof earlier in the week so we put it off until today...  assuming I felt better.  I was feeling quite lousy yesterday and I was so exhausted I didn't even have the energy to stand.  I did feel better today so we had this heavy, fat-laden meal tonight.

I started the day's cooking this morning by baking some Irish Soda Bread.  I cut the recipe for this bread in half this year so it didn't come out as well as expected.  Since it was smaller, it turned out a bit drier than usual but still more moist than most other people's soda bread.  So, I'd say it was "slightly" dry...  whereas I would say that most soda bread that I get elsewhere is "exceptionally" dry bordering on inedible.  My Irish Soda Bread is usually moderately moist.

I usually make this in a 9 inch springform pan but this year I only made enough to fill a 6 inch springform pan.  I took notes so I know what to do next time to make it more moist.  I don't want to make the same mistake again.

Another change I made this year is I didn't make the Irish Soda Bread with golden raisins like I usually do since we couldn't find them locally.  Instead I made it with dried currants and that worked out very well.  I also made a sweet butter spiced with cinnamon, honey and brown sugar.

It tasted great though and even looks good...

Most people will boil this meal...  all ingredients boiled together which inevitably results in everything tasting like corned beef.  I'm not a fan of my potatoes tasting like corned beef so I cook everything separately.  I par-boil the potatoes and pre-cook the carrots.  I then pan-fry the potatoes...  add some onions...  some seasoning...  then add the carrots to brown them a bit.  

I remove the potatoes, onions and carrots from the pan and then start pan-frying the cabbage.  Once the cabbage is browned a bit, I add the potato and carrot mixture to the pan to heat them up a bit. 

I really like this cooked this way...

So, I don't boil the corned beef either.  Instead, I slow cook the corned beef in the oven after seasoning it with pickling spices.  Today, the corned beef was in the oven all afternoon.  As I heated up the potato and carrot mixture with the cabbage, I broiled corned beef to crisp up the top a bit.  Then I let it rest for 15 minutes before slicing it.  Today's corned beef was incredibly tender...

Plated, it looks delicious...   actually, I could go for another plate now!

It was a really nice meal!