I love briskit time. I do a corned one and a holiday briskit. Passover tradition I learned :) Mirepoix, garlic, tomatoes, red wine, brown sugar, cider vinegar, and beef stock. I like to add in thyme, bay leaf, and peppercorn.

Sometimes if the sale is good, I pick up a third one for the smoker :)

I bought a wagyu corned brisket at Costco and will cook Thibeaults Table baked in the oven recipe for St Patricks Day. With the cabbage not cooked with the beef, I still have a little time to decide on sides. Likely something with roasted carrots and I may look into some type of creamed cabbage and potato dish - although DH enjoys sauteed cabbage. This will be the third year I've done it her way - DH loves the low and slow baked brisket.

I begin looking for the Wagyu briskets at Costco in February. They are usually out in March and won't have more for another year. 😒 Snake River Farms (I know, unfortunate - to me - name) and available on their website too.

Thibeaults Table corned brisket

“…I pick up a third one for the smoker.”

I always like to buy extra for the freezer. It’s just too good!

For the recipe I posted, I often cook two 3- to 4-pound flat cuts since it can be hard to find one that’s much bigger.

The irony of this is that corned beef and cabbage is not a typically Irish dish...

Colleen, right…it originated here. Still darn delicious!👍🏻

We loved it the first time we bought one of the cuts that come with the packet. The second time, I think the same brand, it was too salty to eat.

Chloebud, I really like the sound of your cabbage recipe, and am saving it.

I just add chopped onions, celery, carrots to the crock pot, the meat, the seasoning packet and a bottle of beer. It's always delicious.

The one time we really enjoyed corned beef was when I bought a hunk from a barrel and cooked it sous vide. The barrel store closed, and this was too many years ago to remember time and temp.

I think I’m going with bangers and mash.

I currently have a venison roast corning in the fridge, Elery likes it better than beef. I'll do that and then on St. Pat's I'll have beef. I actually like the hash made from the leftover corned beef better than the corned beef meal itself.

We'll also have Colcannon, because that's another favorite, we just like it. I like the flat better than the point, not as much fat and leftover slices nicely for sandwiches.

Because corned beef is not really an Irish thing, it's more American, I feel free to experiment as I wish. I had a sample of corned beef at one of the "Taste Of" events that had a honey mustard glaze and liked it a lot, so I'm kind of leaning that way.

I usually do the brisket in the crockpot, because it's easy and comes out well, but if I decide to experiment even that's not a certainty. Elery does like to have a couple of pieces to put on the smoker, so I'll probably corn our own homegrown beef and just buy a couple of flat pieces at the store for him to smoke.

Annie

“I like the flat better than the point, not as much fat and leftover slices nicely for sandwiches.”

Annie, I agree.👍🏻

I love it, but being mostly Irish (for real!), I enjoy other Irish dishes such as Balnamoon skink, which is basically a chicken/leek/ soup! Just started making it cause I loved the name! Tasty, though!

Balnamoon skink…love that name!😆

I will go get a Ruben if I think abour it, Hubby will not touch corned beef if he had not ate in a month!

Mmmm Rubens. A nice side effect of the season is cabage is cheap. I got a new head shredder and 2 gallon fermenting crock to use. Homemade kraut, yay! And mmmm, I need to check the pantry for rye flour, think I might need to make some rolls soon.

Sherry, I love Reubens!👍🏻

Annie, how do you make your Colcannon? I saved these two recipes from another food forum some years ago.

Colcannon

While there are a number of ways to make it - some made with kale, some with a combination of both, and some with cabbage, we like the one that follows which is adapted from Darina Allen's Festive Foods of Ireland cookbook.

2-2 1/2 lbs of floury potatoes
1 small head of green cabbage
1 cup milk
2 or more tablespoons chopped green onions
1/2 stick butter
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Scrub potatoes and leave skins on. Place in cold water with a generous pinch of salt, cover and bring to a boil.

2. When the potatoes are about half done, (about 15 minutes), strain off two thirds of the water. Replace lid and place on a gentle heat and allow potatoes to steam until they are cooked.

3. Discard the dark outer leaves of the cabbage. Wash the rest and cut into quarters; remove the core and cut finely across the grain. Cook in a little boiling salted water until soft. Drain, then season with salt and pepper and a little of the butter.

4. When the potatoes are cooked, put the milk into saucepan with the green onions and bring to the boil. Pull the skins off the potatoes, mash quickly and beat in enough of the hot milk to make a fluffy purée.

5. Stir in the cooked cabbage and taste for seasoning.

6. Serve in a heated dish; make a well in the center and add the remaining butter.

Note: Today, many an Irish mother persuades her children to eat their colcannon by wrapping coins in heat-proof paper and hiding them in the dish; in the old days, the rural folk often placed a wedding ring in the colcannon; the first single person to get the ring would marry within the year. It was also customary, before going to bed on Hallowe'en, to put out a plateful of colcannon with a lump of butter in the center for the fairies and the ghosts.

Colcannon

3-4 lbs Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 2” pieces
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
6 tbls unsalted butter, divided
2 tbls olive oil
2 leeks, sliced in half lengthwise, thinly sliced crosswise
1/2 onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
4 cups shredded cabbage
1 cup milk
½ cup heavy cream
3 scallion, thinly sliced
1/2 cup chopped parsley

In a large pot cover the potatoes with water and bring to a boil. Reduce and simmer until they are fork tender. Drain.
Meanwhile, while potatoes are cooking; melt 2 tbls butter and the olive oil in a large saucepan. Add onion, garlic and leeks and cook, stirring frequently, until very soft and just beginning to brown around the edges, about 10 minutes. Add the cabbage and cook, stirring constantly, until completely wilted and soft. Season with salt and pepper.

Combine the cabbage mixture, boiled potatoes, milk, cream, remaining butter, scallions, parsley and coarsely mash with a potato masher. Season with salt and pepper.

@chloebud, then you'd probably like Cullen skink :-D

Late evening of 3-7 and I wanted to edit. I'd said earlier Costco was always out of the wagyu corned brisket in late February. I needed to make an unplanned stop there for one of 4 brand new tires that had a question (they replaced my right front Michelin with less than 500 miles, no appt, no questions - and best - no fee) and when I went inside the store I found another couple dozen of the wagyu briskets this afternoon and bought another for the freezer.

We'll be having another St Patricks style dinner in a few weeks and I may have a totally different set of guests 😊

John Lui - I noticed a display of the lower height more basic style of Food Saver that I prefer right near the front entrance. Discounted $30 making them $89.99 and with a starter kit of bags and rolls included. Right next to them, stacks of boxes of roll making material and rolls also discounted until 3-30.

s

Where did this tradition come from? I love the history of dishes. In Ireland they'd traditionally have a beef or lamb stew with champ or colcanon .

I bet a wagyu brisket is amazing!

I suspect the corned beef is a substitute for gammon which may not have been readily available in the US.

“@chloebud, then you'd probably like Cullen skink…”

Probably! LOL, just thinking if I had two dogs I could name them Balnamoon and Cullen.☺️

@chloebud Even funnier if they were a pair of lizards :-D (a skink is a kind of lizard)! I always wanted a female/male pair of cats called Jones and Cojones...

I would have thought the New England boiled dinner well predated the coming of masses of Irish immigrants. Pickling meat to preserve it has been a British practice for centuries.

Chloe, I make my colcannon much like your second recipe. I like to add leeks, which I happen to have right now, and I like the cabbage more sauteed than boiled, that's how Grandma taught me.

I also was told that corned beef for St. Patrick's was a result of the proximity of the Jewish deli to the Irish immigrants in New York. The Irish celebratory dish was bacon and cabbage, but bacon was more expensive so the Irish/American adapted and made do with the readily available and cheaper corned beef. Corning beef was a preservation method, of course, and I don't know where that began.

I think most places have some version of boiled meat, from the boiled horse in Kahzakhstan to boiled mutton in Scotland to boiled beef in English and New England boiled dinner here. That cooking method was used almost universally to tenderize tough cheap cuts of meat and the pot could be shoved to a far corner of the fire and left to "stew" while the cook did other things. Add vegetables to that pot and you can stretch that scrap of meat to feed a family and the little bit of meat adds flavor to the pot of vegetables.

Annie

Ok, I have never made corned beef in my life. Ever. But, because of this thread I went out and bought some -- if dinner comes out terrible tonight I'm blaming you all. LOL!!! :0p

Irish immigrants go far back. Several of our founding fathers were, including a handful that signed the Declaration of Independance. New England boiled dinner was a thing early on and more Boston associated. Corned beef and cabbage became popular later, more notably associated with New York and the immigrant flow through Ellis Island.

Colleen, lizards…lol!

Annie, I agree about more sauteed than boiled.

porkchop, let us know what you think!

Another sauce option for the corned beef.

Mustard Cream Sauce

Makes about 3 1/4 Cups

2 T. butter
2 T. flour
2 cups broth from cooking your corned beef and vegetables
1 cup heavy cream
1 T. prepared horseradish sauce
2 T. whole grain mustard (or to taste)
2 T. fresh chives, minced

To make the roux: Melt the butter in small sauté pan, then slowly stir in the flour and cook over low heat for about a minute, stirring constantly.

To finish the sauce: In a small pot, bring the stock, cream, horseradish and mustard to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and slowly add the flour/butter, a little at a time, until the sauce is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Stir in the chives.

Not a big fan of corned beef but I'll order a Rueben occasionally.

I'll have a stop by the store to see if they have a sale on brisket for smoking. Not sure if there are sales on meat these days since we raise our own beef cattle and seldom buy any (although I did buy a whole loin of KC strips a few weeks back for $6.99/lb). Hopefully those steaks will last us until our next steer is ready to process this fall.

Beef never come with enough briskets or steaks!

"Reduce heat to a simmer and slowly add the flour/butter, a little at a time". Should there be a 'to' between 'add' and 'the flour'. That would be the normal technique for a roux based sauce. The other way round sounds like a recipe for lumps to me.

floral, you slowly add the roux (little bit at a time) to the broth/cream/horseradish/mustard mixture at a low simmer till you get the consistency you like. It‘s a little different but works...no lumps. You could also just do it the traditional way. It’s tasty but I actually prefer the Horseradish Cream Sauce I posted with the Corned Beef recipe.