St. Patrick's day has become one of my favorite holiday's to celebrate, and not just because of all the beer and whiskey. One of my favorite parts of St Paddy's day is the food, I know a lot of people don't really consider it a food holiday but for me it has become one of my favorite food holiday's. Most people have a plate of corned beef and cabbage or an Irish stew but that's about as far as they take the food aspect of the day. For the slightly more adventurous, colcannon or an Irish soda bread makes an appearance.
I love corned beef it is one of my favorite things to eat. A few years ago I read a recipe for corned antelope and I just happened to have an antelope roast in the freezer so I made a corned antelope roast. It turned out better than any corned beef I have ever had. Ever since then I have been making my own corned roast for St Patricks day. I have also discovered that you can corn just about anything. I had a bag of venison scraps that were mostly chunks of shanks and sinewy pieces of meat from the front shoulder. I corned those this year and then cooked them in a baking dish covered in water and then covered the dish with foil. Then baked the pieces in a 250 degree oven for about 5 hours, the pieces shredded beautifully and I mixed it with potatoes and leeks to make the
cabbage rolls you see at the top. The were fantastic and I will probably be corning all those little bits from now on.
The corning process is a very simple one, just find a recipe that you want to use, make the brine and soak the meat for the appropriate amount of time. The recipe I use for
corned antelope comes from Hank Shaw and I have used this brine on everything I can. Last year was my first attempt at making corned gizzards. I didn't have any duck gizzards last year so I used turkey gizzards and they turned out amazing. This year I had my friend down in Wabasha save all the gizzards from the ducks he and his family shot. After cleaning about 20 gizzard I ended up with 2 pounds of duck meat and they were even better than the turkey gizzards last year.
I had made okonomyaki about a month ago for my wife and while I was making it I was thinking to myself that it could easily be turned into an Irish dish. Okonomyaki it a japanese comfort food made buy mixing together a batter and stirring in cabbage and sweet potatoes and meat and topped with a special okonomi sauce and bonito flakes. The cabbage is what got me thinking about Irish food. The batter is made with Dashi so I changed that to Guinness in my Irish version. I also added leaks and then chopped corned duck gizzards and instead of the okonomi sauce I used a sweet horseradish mustard sauce and then sprinkled it with dried parsley flakes. It was really fricken good, I think I made 8 of them during the party and they kept disappearing.
I am really looking forward to finding out what else I can corn, I have some friends going out Elk hunting this year maybe I can get some Elk hearts and corn them.
Irish O'konomyaki
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup Guinness (or other stout)
4 eggs
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 a head of cabbage sliced thin
2 leeks thinly sliced
1 pound corned duck gizzards or other corned meat
1/2 pound thin cut bacon
1. mix the batter together then fold in the cabbage, leeks and meat making sure all the ingredients are coated in batter.
2. heat a tablespoon of oil in a 10 inch pan on medium high heat, then add about 2 cups of the cabbage mixture to the pan and spread it around the pan to form a flat pancake.
cook for 5-6 minutes.
3. while it is coking place a couple of strips of bacon on the uncooked side so when you flip the pancake the bacon will cook.
4. Cook for 4-5 more minutes until it is cooked through, if necessary you can flip it again to make sure it is done.
5. When you are ready to serve it place it on a plate bacon side down top it with dried parsley, Mayo and an
Irish mustard sauce and enjoy.
