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More Savory, Less Sweet

Adventures in Food - Taste, Explore, Inspire and Share

Corned Beef on Rye, please!

06/27/2016 by Laura Leave a Comment

Cooking officially turns into a project when it results in three trips to the store for ingredients, an hour searching for necessary equipment, and having the stove on all day.  Dave did not realize what he had done by pulling a corned beef brisket out of the freezer on Saturday!  I had bought it in March  for a traditional St. Patrick’s dinner.  He was not up to that kind of food, back then, so in the freezer it went.  A traditional corned beef and cabbage dinner just did not sound good at the end of June.

What did sound good?  Corned beef from Katz’s and Swirl Rye from Zabar’s!  Since flying to NYC was not an option, I went in search of the swirl rye that shows up occasionally  at one of our local supermarkets.  No luck!  With the corned beef simmering away in the crockpot, and the swirl rye determination of Jerry, I had no choice but to make the bread myself.  I had everything on had except rye flour.  For some reason Safeway had four different offerings of almond and coconut flour in three different sections of the store, and no rye flour anywhere.  As a matter of fact – there were very few whole grain offerings, but that is another story.  As an industry professional, I could fully explain the “reasoning” and/or “logic” behind what does and does not get stocked in the store, but you would all fall asleep in two minutes.  So, off to Whole Foods I went.  I easily found the necessary rye flour and some beautiful organic blackberries that I decided, on the spot, would go into a cobbler along with the “less than beautiful” apricots hidden in the back of our fridge.  See – this is how it goes.  All I wanted was a decent corned beef on rye, on a Sunday afternoon!  Now I’m baking bread and making cobbler.

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I consider myself a fairly accomplished bread baker, although I do not recall ever making a swirl rye.  I used the recipe I found on line from Red Star Yeast.  My biggest surprise was that darker dough is the same as the lighter dough, with the addition of some cocoa powder!  The recipe can be found here.

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Roll out the dark dough. Fold over and set aside

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Roll out the light dough.

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Place the dark dough on the light dough. Trim the sides and edges as needed.

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Roll into a loaf.  Place on a parchment lined baking sheet that has been oiled.

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I made some mini bread sticks with the trimmings.  The back deck is a great “proofer” in the summer.  I got a great rise on the loaf.

Bake according to directions.

To assemble the sandwich, I sliced the bread a little thick.  I spread both sides with mustard.  I warmed the sliced corned beef in a small pan with Swiss cheese on top, until it got soft and gooey.  I placed the meat and cheese on the bread.   I served store bought coleslaw alongside.

I mentioned cobbler, didn’t I!  Well, sharing this is going to result in coming clean with one of my short cuts.  I use a cobbler mix.  It’s fantastic.  You can even make this with canned fruit and people will think you spent hours baking.  There are a few mixes out there.  I used one in a small bag that looks a lot like the fish fry product they also produce.  Use any fruit you like.  I used chopped apricots and blackberries.  Bake according to the directions on the package. By the time I was ready to snap a shot of the finished product, half the pan of cobbler and a pint of ice cream had gone missing.  Dave assures you, it was good!

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Thanks for stopping by.

Have a great evening,

Laura

Filed Under: Baking, Beef, Dave's Diner, Dessert Tagged With: blackberries, corned beef, deli, marble rye, summer cobbler, swirl rye

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

03/17/2014 by Laura Leave a Comment

There was no doubt we would make Corned Beef and Cabbage for a traditional Saint Patrick’s day dinner.  We love this meal and we always comment “why don’t we make this more often”?  Our only “twist” is using Guinness Stout as the cooking liquid.  Other than that, it is 100% traditional: corned beef, carrots, small potatoes and cabbage – roasted for many hours in a slow oven.

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What was not so traditional was the Orange Cornmeal and Almond flour cake I made for dessert.  Dave asked me “How is this cake Irish”?

I explained that I was browsing Irish recipes on the Saveur website,  when I came across the most beautiful Irish blog, Farmette.  The cake recipe was created by an Irish chef, Donal Skehan and included in his new book, Homecooked,  and was featured on Farmette as part of a virtual book tour.  In spite of the fact that none of the ingredients come from Ireland, my explanation was accepted and we agreed this was an Irish dessert.

I followed the recipe exactly the first time, using polenta.  The cake was far too gritty and heavy.  I made it a second time with finely ground corn meal and it came out perfect.  I am wondering if Irish polenta is more finely ground than the Bob’s Red Mill polenta I had on hand.  I increased the ingredient quantities to fit a 9″ pan, rather than the 8″ pan used in the original recipe.  I added “semi-candied” orange peel*, as a garnish.

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ORANGE CORNMEAL CAKE

adapted from Orange Polenta Cake with Honey and Rosewater Syrup, Donal Skehan, Homecooked, via Farmette blog

2 teaspoons ground cardamom

2 cups almond flour

1 cup finely ground corn meal

1/3 cup all purpose flour (or gluten free flour blend, such as Cup 4 Cup)

2 heaped tsp baking powder

1 1/2 cup caster (bakers) sugar

12 ounces softened butter

4 large eggs

Grated zest of 3 large oranges

Additional 2 oranges if making candied orange peel garnish

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/3 cup pistachio nuts, roughly chopped

Creme fraiche, to serve

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1. Preheat the oven to 350′.  Grease a 9″ diameter springform pan, then line the base with baking parchment.

2. Place cardamom in a bowl together with the almond flour, corn meal, all purpose flour and baking powder.

3. Beat the sugar and butter in a bowl until the mixture is light and pale. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Fold the dry ingredients into this mixture with a spatula until just combined. Add two-thirds of the orange zest together with the vanilla extract, and just fold through.

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4. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and place it on the middle rack of the oven to bake for about 40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Remove from the oven and the pan and allow to cool on a wire rack.

FOR  THE  SYRUP

Juice of 2 large oranges

1/4 cup of sugar

1 Tablespoon Grand Marnier or other orange liquor (optional)

5. Prepare the syrup by placing all the ingredients in a small saucepan over a medium heat and bringing to a steady simmer.

6. Pierce holes all over the cake with a wooden skewer while it is cooling and pour over half the syrup, a little at a time, until the cake has soaked it up. Sprinkle with the pistachio nuts, drizzle with the remaining syrup and sprinkle with remaining orange zest to decorate.

7. Serve in slices with a little creme fraiche.

*Laura’s Semi-Candied Orange Peel

I wanted something quick and pretty.  Searching the web did not really give me the results I wanted, which led to my little experiment.  I made the orange peel “shreds” using the special peeler I bought to make Green Papaya Salad.  It worked really well.  I put the shreds in a pyrex bowl, covered them with a little water, covered the bowl  and microwaved it on high for 4 minutes.  I drained the water, covered the shreds with 1/2 cup of sugar, a little more water, covered the bowl, and cooked another 5 minutes on high in the microwave.  I let it cool for a few minutes and then removed the shreds from the bowl with a fork, onto a cutting board.  They were not as curly as I wanted, so I wrapped them around a chop stick, held them for a second, and let them continue to cool.  It was a lot of extra work, but I really like the results!

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Filed Under: Baking, Holiday, Irish Tagged With: almond flour, carrots, corned beef, cornmeal, holiday, oranges

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