Corned Beef Hash with Poached Eggs and Toast Points

It's St. Patrick's Day and my parents always make corned beef and cabbage. I don't like corned beef and cabbage. Never have. It's too rich and I always feel sick after eating it. I do enjoy corned beef hash though, so for the past few years I've been trying different methods of making corned beef hash. The first year I tried it, I just took some of their cooked corned beef and shredded it. Then fried potatoes and combined the two. It was good, but not exactly what I was looking for. When I was growing up we'd occasionally have canned corn beef hash with eggs and toast as a weekend breakfast, which is surprisingly good considering it's a canned meat product. I realized that what I wanted was just a better version of that canned corned beef hash, and this year I finally nailed it. 

Ingredients:

2 C ground cooked corned beef brisket
3 red potatoes peeled and sliced
1 small onion chopped
1/2 red bell pepper chopped
2 tsp lemon juice
3 garlic cloves minced
2 eggs
1 tbsp vinegar
1 slice of bread for toast
1 slice of stale bread
salt and pepper to taste
chives for garnish

Alright I actually used smoked corned beef (because I have a smoker and brisket is great smoked so why not), but there's no reason why regular braised corned beef wouldn't taste almost as good. Side note: if you're smoking corned beef soak it in water for 2 hours before you smoke it because there is a TON of salt in corned beef and there's no liquid to leech out some of the salt like in a braise. Since I wanted to make this recipe super accessible for everyone you also need a meat grinder! It might be possible to take refrigerated corned beef and pulse it in a food processor to get something similar to ground. I didn't test this, but I think it could work. However, if it's in the food processor you need to be very careful to not let it get overly ground or you will end up with meat paste, which is just ew. Once you have confirmed that you have a source of ground corned beef everything else is very easy. First off chop that onion and pepper and mince the garlic.

You need to pre-cook the vegetables because they will burn if you add them at the same time as the potatoes.

This is how far you want the vegetables to cook; they should just be tender because they'll be reintroduced to heat later. I cooked them slow and prepared the potatoes while they cooked because there's a lot of slicing involved with the potatoes.

If you've ever had canned corn beef hash then you know that the potatoes are in pretty small pieces. There's not really anything to indicate scale in this photo, but those are approximately 1/4 inch cubes. Normally when I fry potatoes I par-boil them, but I was concerned that it would be difficult to cut potatoes that small if they were partially cooked. Once they're sliced, heat up a pan with a little bit of olive oil over medium heat then add the potatoes. They're small so they should cook in 5-10 minutes. I just started tasting them to check how they were doing after around 5 minutes. Add plenty of pepper and a little salt. As I mentioned earlier, corned beef is really salty, so just be careful how much you add.

That's what it looks like when you grind up corned beef. Weird beef pellets.

Alright that looks more like I was expecting. The best part about corned beef hash is that there is so much surface area you can get everything really caramelized and delicious. Just let it sit in the pan for a couple of minutes then flip it. Repeat this several times until you have beautiful, golden, caramelized corned beef and potatoes. This is why you didn't want to add the onion, red pepper, and garlic earlier. They would have burned during this process.

Mmmm corned beef hash just like out of a can (plus onion, red pepper, and garlic). I tasted it when I got this far and it was too salty and rich so I added lemon juice. Way better. Add some lemon juice. At this point it's time for some poached eggs. I have no pictures of this process because it's just an egg hanging out in a hot tub and nobody wants to see that. I can explain it though. Take a shallow pan and fill it with water and a tablespoon of vinegar. Distilled white or cider vinegar are fine. Bring that to a boil between a heavy boil and a simmer. Crack an egg into a small dish. Stir the boiling water in a small circle then add the egg to the swirling water. Cook it for 4-4.5 minutes. Drop some toast when you add your egg. Now you need a slotted spoon to remove the egg without taking a bunch of water with it. When it's out of the water make sure that none of the whites are still transparent, then place it on a piece of stale bread. You can use a paper towel in a pinch but the heel of a loaf of bread or a piece that's stale works even better. Butter your toast and cut it into strips if you want it to look fancy. Now plate your delicious hash, perfectly poached eggs and toast points.

A nice bed of the hash with poached eggs (don't forget to salt and pepper them) on top garnished with chives and toast points resting on the eggs. Lovely.

Proof of yolk! This dish was absolutely fantastic. It was the corned beef hash I'd been searching for. It's a little involved since you have to grind corned beef, but it's totally worth it. Much better than the canned version and a lot of corned beef hash I've had in restaurants, which is probably also canned most of the time. If you like corned beef hash you need to try this. Just LOOK at that yolk glistening in the light. If that doesn't convince you, nothing will.

Cabbage Rolls

For probably 20 years of my life, I thought I didn't like cabbage. I was a fool. Cabbage is a fantastic vegetable. It is especially fantastic when you use it as a vehicle for ground meats and rice, also known as a cabbage roll. They are basically the reason I decided that I'd finally give cabbage a try. I watched my mom make them, and realized that everything about them seemed delicious except the cabbage. It turns out that was true, and even the cabbage tasted better than I expected and way better than it smelled. I've been making cabbage rolls since that day. They taste great, they're really easy, and you can make them ahead and cook them all day in a slow cooker. They also taste even better the next day, so if you make them you've already got tomorrow's lunch.

Ingredients:

1 head of green cabbage

1.5 lbs ground beef

1 lb sausage

2 C rice

1 large onion chopped

1 red bell pepper chopped

2 jalapeños diced and separated (I hope you appreciate the tilde;it took forever to figure that out)

2 tbsp salt

1 tbsp ground pepper

2 tbsp dried basil

2 bay leaves

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp crush red pepper (optional)

1 28 oz can whole tomatoes

1 14.5 oz can stewed tomatoes

1 10 oz can tomato sauce

Making these isn't difficult, but it's a bit of a process. If you have someone there to help you, it makes it go way faster. The first part is the worst. Unless you don't like touching ground meet because then the second part is the worst. Neither is difficult, but the first is tedious and you have to stand over a hot pot of water. Which reminds me, you should put a pot of water on to boil.

Cabbage is basically a big ball of large greenish-white leaves connected to a core. To be able to roll the leaves you need them separated, so cut the core out which will allow the leaves to come apart. If you try to remove them as is, they tear too easily because they're pretty stiff. Oh wait, you've got water boiling. That was a wonderful idea. Throw the whole thing into the water (don't actually throw it). Cabbage floats so I like to take a tongs and shove it under the water until air bubbles stop coming out of it. You can also turn the temperature down now that the cabbage is in the water. Now just take that tongs and start peeling each layer off by grabbing a single leaf at the core end and pulling. Once it's free, put it on a plate. I like to take one of the huge forks usually used for holding meat while it gets sliced and use it to hold the cabbage. It also wouldn't be a terrible idea to put a paper towel on the plate where you're putting the leaves. I usually take about 15 leaves off the cabbage. It should look approximately half as large as when you first started.

Ideally you have someone helping you who can take care of this part while you get the cabbage leaves ready, but if not take care of as much of this as you can while you wait for the water to boil. You need to chop the onion, pepper, and dice the jalapeños. Now mix together the meat, onions, red pepper, one of the jalapeños, rice, basil, salt, and ground pepper. You need to seriously get all up in there and mix that stuff because if you don't there will be pockets of rice or basil or whatever and that's not a pleasant bite.

Before you roll them you need to cut out the thick part of the stem. I didn't get a before picture, but it should be pretty clear what you need to cut out. The picture above shows the amount of meat mixture you need for each cabbage roll. It's equivalent to two meatballs slightly larger than golf balls. As for actually rolling, you can see there are two "wings" on the bottom. The first step is to bring those up and cross them over each other.

Above is a picture of that first step. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the next step, but it's pretty simple. The sides that stick out wider than the meat need to be tucked in so that it will roll into a consistent package. Then just roll it up.

Well those look lovely. They can be set off to the side at this point because there's a couple of things that need to happen before they're needed.

This is the cabbage that's leftover after removing the leaves for the rolls. Chop it up into fairly large pieces. If you put this in the bottom of the pan you get delicious cabbage that has soaked up tons of flavor from the juices of the meat and tomatoes as they drip down. Put the cabbage either in a five quart or larger pot, dutch oven, or equivalent size slow cooker.

Back to the big ol' pile of rolls. On top of the chopped up cabbage add the stewed tomatoes. Honestly you can really use whatever tomato products you want, although you will want the can of sauce to get the appropriate amount of liquid. In general I like whole tomatoes that I tear apart myself and I had stewed tomatoes on hand, so that's what I used. I also sprinkle a little more basil, crushed red pepper and salt on the tomatoes. Now get all of those cabbage rolls in there.

I probably should have used a larger pot, but everything worked out. Now crush the whole tomatoes and add them and the sauce along with the other jalapeño, more basil, the bay leaves, sugar, and crushed red pepper. If you don't want it spicy just omit the jalapeño and crushed red pepper throughout. Everything is ready to go. Turn your slow cooker on high, or put a lid on your pot and put it in a 250 degree oven. I let them cook for six to seven hours, so that the cabbage is nice and tender and the rice is fully cooked. The rice is also why you need to have enough liquid. If you're doing it in the oven make sure you put a sheet tray under the pot if it's anywhere close to the level that I had mine. If I hadn't there would have been a huge mess in my oven.

Well that just looks like a big pot of red stuff with some green mixed in.

That looks better. A delicious meat mixture packaged in a cabbage leaf. If you don't like cabbage after this then you are not me; I told you earlier this is why I like cabbage now. By the way, good luck not destroying your mouth on these because they are molten on the inside and stay that way for a super long time.

Chicken, Shrimp, and Sausage Jambalaya

I didn't bother with a garnish BECAUSE THIS JAMBALAYA DOESN'T EVEN NEED ONE. It already looks delicious with the beautiful brown sausage and plump, juicy shrimp, so why bother with some parsley.

Time to get technical for a second. This is a cross between Cajun and Creole jambalaya. Creole jambalaya gets its color from tomatoes rather than from browned meat. It's sometimes referred to as red jambalaya. Cajun doesn't have tomatoes and requires browning the meat. It's sometimes referred to as brown jambalaya. Since I'm not from Louisiana and don't care about their silly distinctions, I enjoy the best of both worlds by browning the meat and adding tomatoes. 

Ingredients:

3 boneless skinless chicken thighs cut into large chunks
1 ring spicy sausage (andouille is traditional but not available everywhere) cut in large pieces
1 lb fresh shrimp peeled and de-veined with tails removed
1 large onion chopped 
1 red bell pepper chopped 
3 stalks of celery chopped 
5 cloves of garlic minced
1 14.5oz can of whole peeled tomatoes
1 C long-grain rice
3 C chicken stock
1 bay leaf
5 sprigs of thyme
Cajun seasoning

Don't bother buying Cajun seasoning because you probably have everything you need to make it.

Combine equal parts:

dried thyme
onion powder
garlic powder
paprika
cayenne pepper
black pepper
white pepper

You're going to need a large skillet with a teaspoon of olive oil over medium high heat. That skillet is also going to need a lid for later on. Throw the sausage in and let it get nice and brown. As they brown, take the chicken thighs and cut them into two inch chunks. Season them with salt, pepper, and Cajun seasoning. 

Well this is already looking tasty. Take the sausage out of the pan and try not to eat them all as you prepare the rest of the ingredients. Start browning the chicken. You want it nice and brown because these two steps are going to add tons of flavor to the jambalaya. While the chicken cooks, chop the onion, celery, and red pepper, and mince the garlic. Fun fact: in Louisiana onion, peppers, and celery are known as the holy trinity.

The chicken is nice and brown as promised. Don't snack on the chicken; it's probably not fully cooked yet. Time to cook the veg, so add the holy trinity to the same pan along with a pinch of salt.

Beautiful colors here, but those vegetables are still very raw.

Much better. They've cooked a little and they soaked up some the fond from the chicken and sausage. At this point I'd added the garlic and let that cook for a minute as well. Now the broth that the rice cooks in gets made. Take a can of whole tomatoes and drain the liquid into the pan. Then crush the tomatoes with your hands and add them to the pan as well. Warning: the tomatoes will shoot juice all over your kitchen if you're not careful. Make sure to gently puncture them and squeeze out the juice before you get too crazy with your crushing. You can use a can of crushed tomatoes if you want, but you actually get chunks of tomato if you crush them yourself. Once the tomatoes are crushed add three cups of chicken stock, the bay leaf, and the thyme sprigs, which you should wrap with butcher's twine. Taste the broth and if it needs it add salt and pepper. If you'd like it spicier add cajun seasoning.

Ooooh now we're getting somewhere. When you've added the liquid make sure to scrape up any fond left on the pan after you've cooked your vegetables. Now I just let this simmer for about 30 minutes. If you're rushed, skip that, but it will help your broth develop. Then you bring the mixture to a boil, add the rice, and take it back down to low. Cover the pan. Now here's where things get a little wacky. The rice is regular long-grain rice, but it doesn't cook the same way that regular white rice does. This is actually going to cook for about an hour, which is like 40 minutes longer than traditional white rice. There's also more liquid here than regular white rice. Good news though, you're actually supposed to stir it very minimally, so you can mostly forget it at this point. Stir it every 15 minutes or close to it.

This is after an hour. Yum. Now the shrimp are already cooked in this picture, but this about the level of liquid you should have after an hour, which is why I wanted to show it now. There should be a little visible liquid bubbling in the center, but when you stir it should disappear. If the jambalaya starts to look like there isn't enough liquid while it cooks, just add some more chicken stock. If after an hour you have a whole lot of liquid still, just let it simmer for a while longer. Anyway, when you have about this level of liquid throw some salt and pepper on the shrimp, and put them in the pan to cook for about 5 minutes. 

Soooo delicious. Since everything is cooking together in the same pan all of the flavors meld into every ingredient. And that is a good thing. The starch in the rice also makes it weirdly creamy, and I mean that in a positive way. It makes the jambalaya have a wonderful texture. I just realized today is Mardi Gras. What a completely random and totally genuine coincidence! Well I guess that gives you a reason to try this!