Nose To Tail At Home

A very good dish if you are feeling a little dented.

This is a very useful and delicious way of using up the remains of your Pot Roast Brisket and Boiled Beef and Dumplings.  I cannot tell you how much you will have left over, so we cannot be exact here.  Look at your remains and decide what will be appropriate.  You will need roughly equal amounts of meat and veg.

Firstly, I’d like to say Happy New Year to everyone!  I know I’m not the only person ready to forget that 2009 ever happened.  2010 is looking good so far, so let’s keep it going!

Secondly, another cook the book blog has joined the fray: Momofuku At Home.  I’ll admit that I was secretly hoping to start working on David Chang’s magnum opus myself, even going so far as to buy a domain name.  Thankfully, Chris over there is doing a fine job, kicking things off with some awesome looking steamed buns and pork belly.  Head on over and say hello!

While this recipe is a fantastic way to finish off that corned brisket you made last night, I ended up needing to make a whole new corned brisket for this post.  Terrible fate, right?  While I was shredding the meat, I noticed that it lacked the usual rosy pink color that one would expect with corned beef.  The reason can be summed up with this little blurb from Hank Shaw’s awesome site.

Do you add flavorings to the brine? Yes, you do; it’s what makes your corned meat different from mine. Do you add sugar? Probably, as it softens the salty twang of a salt-only brine. Do you add nitrite? Yes. And this is where I defend the stuff: Nitrites are what give you that pretty rose color. Nitrites add flavor. And most importantly, nitrites defeat botulism, which is among the most toxic substances known to man.

Can you make corned meat without nitrites? Yes. But it will look gray, lack the proper flavor — and you will have a small-but-real possibility of dancing with your new friend clostridium botulinum. And it will be a brief dance. Do nitrites cause cancer? Not in the levels used in modern meat. The poison’s in the dose, like a lot of things. Booze for one. Fat for another. OK, I’ve said my piece. If you hate the notion of adding nitrites to your brine, leave them out.

So that means that not only have I dealt with acid, I’ve also been playing Russian roulette with lethal diseases!  Pair those two with fire and knives, and I’m shocked I’ve not managed to do any real damage to myself or my loved ones.  Cooking: it’s not for pansies.

In a cast iron pan, chopped onions were fried in a little olive oil until they were nice and soft.

In another pot I started boiling a bunch of little red potatoes.  I love little potatoes.  They cook quickly and sport the same big flavor of larger spuds.  Once they were finished cooking, I chopped them roughly and set them aside.

Next, crushed canned tomatoes were added to the onions and allowed to cook for a little while.

At this point the onions and tomatoes had fulled cooked through and were ultra soft.  I mixed in the shredded beef and chopped potatoes, and then seasoned everything with just enough salt and pepper.  No more over-salting for me!   The pan looked a little dry at this point, so I added some leftover tomato juice.

While the hash cooked in the cast iron skillet, I fried two eggs with a little butter.  Pretty much anything could stand to have a fried egg added to it, right?

And here’s the final dish.  A healthy amount of steaming hash in the bowl, with a fried egg right on top.  While you won’t find something like this at Alinea or French Laundry, that’s quite all right.  It’s a much more homey, simple recipe that’s meant to be enjoyed on those cold days when you want to be comforted (Like right now in Texas.  Brrrr!)  The hash itself was rather filling, and very tasty.  Meat, potatoes, tomatoes and onions topped off with a fried egg sounds like a lumberjack’s breakfast, and that’s okay.  Heck, I’d say that a man could work all night and work all day with a meal like this.

One down, sixty two to go.