It is perhaps against my better judgment to reveal a closely guarded recipe forged in the immortal hovels of my forebears, but because I'm in the mood I'll do it anyway. The traditional value of devotion to family has been under attack from the traditional value of personal liberty for a long time, so this exposition shouldn't cause any more of a scandal than America's declining number of arranged marriages or the neon-lit Taco Bell serving Cheesy McFritters on my deceased grandfather's memorial plot back in Iowa. It's all about convenience, right?
Corned beef with colcannon and soda bread is the kind of meal that sticks to your ribs. The thicker your beard and more calloused your hands, the greater the chemistry will be between you, the food, and the wood you just chopped out back after punching a grizzly bear in the face. A mélange of sorts, its basic components work neatly with one another to make a reliable plate of comfort neither excessively adventuresome nor terminally bland. As every part is served steaming hot, it's best cooked during that dark time of year when salads are useless and adding layers of doughy husk to your cold, frail being is an imperative matter of survival.
To stuff yourself appropriately gather the following:
The Meat--
5 pounds corned beef brisket
The Sauce--
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup horseradish
The Colcannon--
5 large peeled potatoes
1 bunch green kale
1 cup 2% milk
1 stick and 1 tablespoon butter
1 leek
1 yellow onion
1/3 cup chives
1/4 cup garlic
1 teaspoon of salt
The Soda Bread--
3 cups flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 tablespoon salt
9 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon caraway
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/3 cup currants
1 cup buttermilk
Start by dumping the brisket into a large pot. Fill the pot with water up to the top of the meat. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 4-6 hours, the longer the better.
While the meat's cooking, you can peel the potatoes. Then cut each potato into six pieces and finely chop the kale, onion, and leek. For those of you unfamiliar with leeks, discard the green leafy top part two inches above the white middle section and throw away the very bottom tip-o-the-leek with roots. Dump the potatoes into a large pot, then fill with water up to the top of the potatoes. Boil potatoes until soft, about 15-20 minutes. Sauté the chopped vegetables in a pan coated with one tablespoon of butter until soft. Drain out the water in the potato pot, mash them 'taters, then add the sautéed vegetables. Add one stick of butter and one cup of milk, stirring until well blended. Heat on low. Ten minutes before serving, stir in chopped garlic, chives, salt.
For the soda bread, preheat oven at 375 degrees. Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Cut nine tablespoons of butter into the mixture with a pastry blender, or the old fashioned way, with two knives until the butter is reduced to pea-sized pieces. Mix in caraway, raisins, currants. Add buttermilk, stir until evenly moistened, though not too much or you'll toughen the bread. Gather into a ball, knead until turned over about sixteen times. Gather into a new ball, pad down until one inch thick. Put on a greased baking sheet, cut an "X" 1/4 inch deep across the top. Brush lightly with milk for a shiny top. Cook 30-35 minutes until golden brown, rotate pan halfway through.
When everything's ready, drain out the water from the meat pot and slice up the corned beef. Now mix the sour cream and horseradish in a small dish to serve with the brisket. Sweet cream butter is a mandatory condiment for the soda bread, while a tall stout or porter completes the bouquet. Serves five people, with plenty of meat leftover.
There once was a time when this was Poor People Food, as potatoes were the only thing that could be grown in any abundance in the thin, rocky soil reserved for the majority of people on a certain occupied island across the Atlantic that shall go nameless. When a massive blight wiped out their potato crop, the only other food on the island was being grown on the mega-estates of their conquerors, who found it more profitable to export the agricultural surplus to other countries. Starvation followed, and many of the survivors fled to the United States, where potatoes were plentiful and cured brisket was cheaper than pork. Back on the island, pigs were the most affordable source of animal protein owing to their mystical ability to convert filth into meat. But in America, cattle is King, and the newcomers adapted accordingly.
Personally, all dead animal tastes good enough for the likes of me, but the common potato has been a bitter antagonist of mine for years. For as long as I can remember, it was a ubiquitous, constant, and unyielding source of distress, and as justice denied anywhere diminishes justice everywhere, in the spirit of solidarity I invite you to join me in punishing it brutally without delay. Skinning and boiling it alive is indeed properly torturous, but the medieval insult of warping its very essence beyond recognition is the kind of rough penalty most suitable for such a villain. The trick with potatoes is to serve them in a form that doesn't resemble a potato, with its starchy, flavorless nature transformed into something quite the opposite: creamy and rich, as most of us prefer. After all, it's all about convenience.
