Preparing St. Patrick's Day Dinner at the Farm
I hope you all had a wonderful St. Patrick’s Day.
This year, I hosted a small and intimate dinner for 10 at my Bedford, New York farm - complete with corned beef, cabbage, potatoes and of course, my own version of the traditional Irish soda bread. I got a large beef brisket from my friend Pat LaFrieda, and began preparing it about a week in advance, so it could corn for several days before cooking. Yesterday, my friend, Chef Pierre Schaedelin from PS Tailored Events and I prepared a wonderful menu. Along with the corned beef, we served pea soup with pea flan, and two wonderful desserts - a rhubarb crisp and my Milk Chocolate-Pistachio Tart. Everything was so delicious.
Here are some photos of the preparations.
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- Early in the morning, Chef Pierre and his sous-chef, Moises, start preparing the mis-en-place. It refers to having all the ingredients prepped and ready to go before cooking. For this dinner, they cleaned and portioned all the vegetables for the corned beef dish.
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- Meanwhile, a pot of vegetables simmered on the stove for the stock.
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- If you follow this blog regularly, you may recall the beef brisket I brined. This brisket started as a 20.9 piece of meat. After cutting off the fat, we ended up with a nine-pounder. Here it is before it is fully covered in water and boiled for the next few hours.
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- While the brisket cooks, Chef Pierre begins making the Irish soda bread. He used my recipe for Irish Soda Bread with Rye and Currants. It is available on my web site or just click on this highlighted link. Irish Soda Bread was first adopted in the late 1830s when the first iteration of baking soda—or bicarbonate soda—was introduced to the United Kingdom. Due to Ireland’s lack of access to ingredients at the time, the inspiration for Irish Soda Bread was one of necessity, in order to make the most of the basic and inexpensive ingredients available: flour, baking soda, salt, and soured milk. Here are all the dry ingredients and sum currants soaking in orange juice to soften.
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- The recipe calls for apple cider vinegar and whole milk – or buttermilk. Traditionally, buttermilk is the liquid that’s left in a churn after making homemade butter. It’s naturally non-fat and rich in cultures, and it stays fresh longer than regular milk. Nowadays, buttermilk is made by inoculating regular milk with cultures. Here, one can already see the combination beginning to curdle.
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- Chef Pierre cuts the dough into three equal loaves. He is working on a surface lined with durable cutting boards from cuttingboard.com, the Cutting Board and Butcher Block Shop. The company made these black cutting boards to custom fit the counter spaces in this kitchen. They’re so easy to maintain and great for all sorts of prep work.
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- The recipe was tripled to make three domed loaves. Once the loaves were formed, Chef Pierre used a serrated knife to cut an “x” about an inch deep into the top of each loaf. Legend has it that, in some areas of Ireland, a cross was cut on the top of the Irish soda bread with a knife to ward off the devil and protect the household. It also helps the bread cook evenly and thoroughly.
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- Here, Pierre also prepares a beautiful green pea soup – after all, it is St. Patrick’s Day. The soup was served with a pea flan and topped with pea shoots. Wait until you see it – it is so pretty and so flavorful.
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- All the vegetables are cut into smaller pieces – here are the carrots, celery and parsnips. I love serving lots of root vegetables with my corned beef.
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- Here is a bowl of beautiful bold orange carrots.
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- Once they are boiled, the vegetables are put aside in large pans. These vegetables will be warmed before serving.
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- Rhubarb became a popular addition to pies and other desserts in the 18th and 19th centuries after sugar became widely available in England. It has a sour-bitter flavor that works well with pies, streusels and crisps.
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- Moises fills the ramekins with the rhubarb. Ramekins are great for serving individual fruit crisps. Chef Pierre uses a streusel topping made with flour, light brown sugar, cinnamon, salt and butter.
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- Our other planned dessert is my Milk Chocolate-Pistachio Tart, also available on my web site or by clicking on this highlighted link. Here, Chef Pierre prepares the chocolate crust.
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- These crusts are then blind baked. Baking blind or pre-baking is the process of baking a pie crust or other pastry without the filling. Blind baking a pie crust is necessary when it will be filled with an unbaked filling, such as with pudding or cream pies, in which case the crust must be fully baked. I always blind bake with dried beans, but one can also use pie weights or even dried rice. I have been using this jar of dried beans for blind baking my crusts for more than 20-years.
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- Once the crusts are done, they are covered with chopped pistachios. You’ll find pistachios everywhere in this dessert. They are embedded in the crust, in a paste layered beneath the milk-chocolate filling, and in a dusted coating on top. I first made this recipe in Episode 501 of my television show, “Martha Bakes.”
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- This is the tart filling – made with five ounces of milk chocolate, a half-cup of while milk, and one large egg.
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- The tarts are now ready to go into the pre-heated 325-degree oven.
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- Here is the corned beef – cooked to perfection and more than enough for our group of 10. Chef Pierre sliced the brisket. This too will be warmed just before serving.
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- Chef Pierre also made gougères. A gougère, in French cuisine, is a baked savory choux pastry made of choux dough and mixed with cheese. The cheese is commonly grated Gruyère, Comté, or Emmentaler. These are always a big hit to serve before the main meal.
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- And can you guess what this is? Chef Pierre used one of my tuile cookie recipes to make special St. Patrick’s Day treats.
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- Shamrocks! And they’re green, of course. Chef Pierre just added a couple drops green food coloring to the batter. The recipe is also on my web site, but just click here to get it. These fun cookies can be made into any shape or color.
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- Everything is ready. Dinner was scheduled for 7pm in my Brown Room. Tomorrow, I will share all the wonderful finished dishes we enjoyed. Be sure to check back! How did you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day? Share your stories in the section below.
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