Trusting your taste buds

My father was an excellent cook and my siblings and I all owe our culinary prowess to him. He imbued us each with a deep appreciation for a good meal and to treasure time spent in the kitchen cooking side by side with loved ones.

That said, we were occasionally served up some pretty unappealing looking meals at our family dinner table. A few of the more memorable dishes include boiled tongue, creamed tuna on toast and stuffed sauerkraut. The latter is a bit of a misnomer as it’s impossible to stuff sauerkraut. Rather, it was a concoction my dad invented that involved cooking the fermented cabbage for hours and hours on the stovetop with white rice and ground pork. These meals, I now suspect, were an attempt to stretch the food budget. They had one other thing in common: they were colorless, drab and completely unexciting visually. Yet they suited my childish palate perfectly and I loved them all even if they did look like something you’d be forced to eat in a prison cafeteria.

Now, as an adult, my quest for great meals is driven by the need to satisfy multiple senses. On our annual trip to Santa Fe, for instance, we’re left breathless sometimes by the works of art on our plates. It’s as if the chefs have gathered every color of the New Mexico desert and sprinkled those hues like fairy dust over their creations. This dish, a quinoa stuffed relleno from santacafe, illustrates my point perfectly.



Recently, Kathy and I both test drove a recipe for another childhood favorite: Corned Beef. The recipe looked too good to be true. A simple brine, five days in the fridge, and voila! Corned beef sans chemicals. These days, we’re a bit more mindful of what we ingest so we both decided to forgo the pink salt, otherwise known as curing salt, because it contains sodium nitrite. Neither of us realized the consequence that would have on the look of the finished product.

Unfortunately the end result was about as visually stunning as the boiled tongue referenced above. I didn’t help matters by serving my dreary looking brown beef on a brown plate. However, comparing notes today, Kathy and I both agree that the taste won us over. This is delicious corned beef and as my 19 year old son remarked as he was gobbling it up, it doesn’t have that overwhelming processed taste that pre-brined ones can have.

We’ll leave it up to you as to whether to omit the pink salt or not. If you choose to make it without, just remind your guests that sometimes looks aren’t everything.

Corned Beef and Cabbage

Adapted from Saveur Magazine
SERVES 10



1 tbsp. allspice
1 tbsp. cloves
1 tbsp. coriander
1 tbsp. crushed red chile flakes
1 tbsp. mustard seeds
1 tbsp. whole black peppercorns
5 bay leaves, crumbled
1 1/4 cups kosher salt, plus more to taste
3/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp. pink salt (Curing salt)
1 5-lb. first-cut beef brisket
4 cloves garlic
1 medium onion, peeled and quartered
3 lbs. small new potatoes, peeled
1 head green or Savoy cabbage, cored and shredded
1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice



Combine spices and 3 bay leaves in a 12″ skillet over medium heat. Cook, swirling pan constantly, until spices are toasted and fragrant, about 3 minutes. Transfer 3/4 of the mixture (reserving the rest in a covered jar) to a 5-qt. pot and add 8 cups water, kosher salt, sugar, and pink salt. Bring to a simmer; remove pot from heat and let cool to room temperature. Refrigerate brine until chilled. Add brisket and weigh it down with a plate so brisket is submerged. Refrigerate for 5 days.

Drain corned beef and rinse. Transfer beef to a 5-qt. pot along with the reserved pickling spices, garlic, and onion. Cover corned beef with cold water. Bring to a simmer over medium heat and simmer until corned beef is tender, about 2 1/2 hours. Remove pot from heat and set aside.



Meanwhile, put potatoes into a 4-qt. pot of salted water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until potatoes are tender; drain. Put cabbage into a 3-qt. pot over medium-low heat, season with salt, add lemon juice and 1/2 cup water, cover, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and cook, stirring occasionally, until cabbage is tender, about 30 minutes. To serve, transfer potatoes and cabbage to a large serving platter. Transfer corned beef to a cutting board, thinly slice beef across the grain, and transfer to the platter. Spoon some of the cooking liquid over the beef and serve warm.