SAINT PADDY´s DAY

 

 

And this recipe for the cabbage/vegetables:

 

 

Both recipes call for beer, and I usually use Killian's Irish Red rather than Guinness; however, this year, I used a local brew called Charlie Russell Red, from Harvest Moon Brewing of Belt, Montana:

 

From Harvest Moon's Website:     Because the water in Belt is almost identical to the classic Burton water in England, we have brewed a beer very similar to an ale from that region.  Two row pale ale malt combined with hops of a soft, flowery character but not overly aromatic or bitter, combine for an ale to be enjoyed year round.  This ale is red in color and has malt character like amber ale but with the hoppiness of a pale ale.  We're sure it would have been Russell's favorite.

 

Great stuff, and it was very well suited for both the corned beef and the cabbage/vegetables; I'll be using it again next year.

 

The delicious, fork tender, beer-braised corned beef didn't last long and was completely consumed with no leftovers, but we had quite a pile of cabbage and vegetables left over. I reserved both the leftover vegetables and the de-fatted cooking liquids from the corned beef, combining everything together. 

 

The next day, we roasted a chicken, de-boned all the meat, chopped it up and mixed it with the leftover vegetables and cooking liquds, adding one more bottle of Charlie Russell Red. We could have used ham, more corned beef, or anything else, but chicken is what we had, so that's what we used. This made a delicious, well-balanced soup that was slightly sweet from the brown sugar in the corned beef recipe, slightly salty from the corned beef liquids, slightly tart from the vinegar in the vegetable recipe, and full of good, wholesome, filling warmth from the combination of all ingredients - a true success.