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Main Dishes/Entrées – Page 6 – surviving the food allergy apocalypse (archive)

surviving the food allergy apocalypse (archive)

Category: Main Dishes/Entrées

Main Dishes/Entrée [ahn-trey] noun: a dish served as the main course of a meal. These recipes will not contain dairy, eggs, gluten, wheat or hazelnuts. If we use a top 8 allergen, we will use a tag warning of its use.

  • Rice Vermicelli Salad Bowls with Beef

    Steamed Rice Vermicelli Salad Bowls with Beef
    Rice Vermicelli Salad Bowls with Beef

    I love Vietnamese food. Seriously, I love it. Before the corn allergy, our local Vietnamese joint could recognize my voice before I even finished stating that I wanted to order takeout. The owner knew my name and my husband’s name, and what we generally ordered. If Shawn forgot what I wanted when stopping in to pick up dinner on his way home from work, the owner could reel off my five or so favorite dishes until Shawn heard the one that jogged his memory.  I used to get #23 with Beef, i.e. Steamed Vermicelli Patties or Banh Hoi, that you wrap up in rice paper yourself, probably more than fifty percent of the time. So it was inevitable that I figure out how to make it myself in a way that’s safe for me. However, I didn’t actually do the rice paper and make my own fresh/salad rolls, because it’s winter (yes, I know it’s technically spring, but that’s not what’s outside and it snowed yesterday), I just moved, and I’m really tired. It’s all the good stuff without the rice paper wrapper, that’s all.

    Rice Vermicelli Salad Bowls with Beef

    Serves 4 or 2 really hungry people with maybe enough for a bit of lunch the next day.

    Beef and Marinade:

    • 1 and 1/2 pounds of beef sirloin beef tips, sliced across the grain into pieces about 1 1/2 to 2 inches long and 1/4 inch wide
    • 1 garlic clove, minced and crushed to a paste (if you don’t have a garlic crusher, just mince it and smoosh it with a metal spoon)
    • 1 shallot, finely minced, or 1/4 of a small onion, finely minced
    • 1 Tablespoon of brown sugar
    • 2 Tablespoons of oil (make sure it’s safe for you, I used grape seed oil)
    • 1 Tablespoon of soy sauce (I do well with San-J Tamari Gluten Free Soy Sauce, the alcohol is from cane sugar not corn), but if you can’t use soy, try Mary Kate’s recipe for a Soy-Free, gluten-free “Tamari Sauce”
    • 1 Tablespoon of Sriracha (I use my own homemade from this recipe, but I use rice vinegar instead of distilled)
    • a bit of oil for frying

    Salad Fixings:

    • 1 – 8 ounce package of fine rice vermicelli (for reference, this is what I used, no affiliation with Amazon, just ease of linking)
    • Scallion Oil Garnish (here’s the recipe, although I used grape seed oil)
    • fresh mint or fresh thai basil or both
    • Spring Mix lettuce
    • tomatoes, sliced
    • cucumbers, sliced
    • bean sprouts (I didn’t use them, but just because the grocery store didn’t have them today)

    Condiments of your Choice:

    Slice your beef to the correct thinness and length if you haven’t already.

    Sirloin beef tips, sliced into smaller pieces, cut across the grain
    Sirloin beef tips, sliced into smaller pieces, cut across the grain

    Place garlic, shallot (or onion), brown sugar, oil, soy sauce and Sriracha in a bowl large enough to place the sirloin tips.  Mix the ingredients well so that the sugar dissolves.

    Marinade, well combined.
    Marinade, well combined.

    Add the beef and stir well.  Set the beef aside let it marinate while you work on the rest of the dish.

    Beef combined with marinade.
    Beef combined with marinade.

    Fill a large pot with 3 quarts of water and bring to a boil. Once boiling, add your rice vermicelli and let boil for 3 minutes. Drain and place in a bowl to cool.

    Rice vermicelli cooling.
    Rice vermicelli cooling.

    In a skillet (I used a cast iron wok, because it’s new and I wanted to play with it, but you can use a cast iron skillet or other skillet), heat a bit of oil over medium heat. When the oil is hot, place the beef in the skillet, making sure not to crowd, or have more than one layer.

    Beef cooking in cast iron wok
    Beef cooking in cast iron wok

    You may (will) need to do it in batches. When you have a nice sear on one side, flip the beef over and sear the other side. Tongs really help for this. Depending on your skillet and your stove, it’ll take 2-4 minutes a side to sear (this make take some experimentation on your part). You might want to put the beef on a plate as you do batches.

    Beef on a plate after being cooked in batches
    Beef on a plate after being cooked in batches

    Once you have finished cooking the beef, it’s time to assemble your salad bowl.  Place some of the vermicelli in the bowl (you may need to cut it, as the noodles are long). Add the other salad fixings of your choice, and some of the beef.  Then add the condiments of your choice and voila!

    Steamed Rice Vermicelli Salad Bowls with Beef
    Rice Vermicelli Salad Bowls with Beef

     

    Almost like the old days!

  • Crispy Duck

    Crispy Duck
    Crispy Duck

    Crispy Duck 

    • 1 whole fresh duck (or some duck legs or breasts if you don’t want to deal with a whole duck)
    • 1 Tablespoon of sea salt
    • 2 teaspoons of Chinese Five Spice
    • a pair of good kitchen shears
    • roasting pan that can fit a rack in the bottom
    • oven safe cookie rack that fits in the roasting pan

    Preheat your oven to 350°F.

    Remove the giblets from the duck, and using your kitchen shears cut out the duck’s backbone, and then cut the breast down the center so you have two half pieces of the duck. I also trimmed the first two sections of wing off, as I didn’t want them to burn during the cooking process. (Save the giblets, backbone, and wing sections to make stock later, or discard if you don’t want to use them.) Trim any extra fat away from the duck, and remove any remaining quills. Using a sharp knife, score the skin of the duck, but do not cut so deep that you cut the meat.

    In a large shallow bowl, mix the sea salt and Chinese Five Spice so that it is mixed thoroughly. Placing each half of the duck in the bowl one at a time and use your hands to coat both sides of the duck half with the mixture.

    Place the seasoned duck halves on the rack in the roasting pan. The rack allows the duck fat to drip to the bottom, otherwise you’ll be spooning fact out as the duck cooks. (You’re also going to want to save this fat to use later, it’s a great cooking fat, especially for those of us with no safe butter, margarine, or shortening.) 

    Seasoned duck halves before cooking
    Seasoned duck halves before cooking

    Place the duck in the pre-heated oven and roast for about two hours, turning the duck halves every half hour. Once the duck reaches an internal temperature of 165°F, turn the oven up to 425°F for 15 minutes to really crisp up the skin.

    Cooked duck halves
    Cooked duck halves

    Remove the pan from the oven and let the duck cool enough that you can remove the meat from the bones without burning your fingers to bits. Then remove the meat from the bones. (Save the bones to make stock later, or discard if you don’t want to use them.) 

    Duck meat removed from the bones
    Duck meat removed from the bones

    You can eat this with Chinese pancakes, sliced cucumbers, scallions, and Hoisin sauce, like you would eat Peking Duck. Since I didn’t want to try to deal with coming up with a recipe for gluten-free Chinese pancakes, I used rice paper and ate the duck with lettuce, rice vermicelli noodles, sliced cucumber, sliced onion (I forgot to buy scallions), Carrot and Daikon pickle, homemade plum sauce, homemade Hoisin Sauce, and homemade Sriracha.

    Enjoy!

    Crispy Duck in rice paper with rice vermicelli and veggies
    Crispy Duck in rice paper with rice vermicelli and veggies

  • Citrus-spiced Beef Short Ribs

    Citrus-spiced Beef Short Ribs with mashed potatoes and green beans
    Citrus-spiced Beef Short Ribs with mashed potatoes and green beans

    There are two times of the year when I want to eat like the midwesterner I am — dead of winter, and height of summer. And by that, I mean there are two times of the year when I think of meat, first, and then figure out what goes with it. In the summer, I just want to grill things. But in the dead of winter, I want hearty meat and potatoes and veg meals. When I was at the grocery store browsing the meat section, I found some beef short ribs that just looked good — I’d never cooked beef ribs before, nor short ribs of any sort, but trying new things is sort of the point of this blog. So I bought them.

    I looked up some things online — a few recipes for beef short ribs in particular, as well as some technique-focused posts on braising. I followed this post for the cooking technique, more or less. And I decided to go with a sort of sweet-and-spicy, braised in the oven beef dish. It was definitely a winner, and this is a perfect mid-winter dinner — it’s hearty and warm and sort of comforting. I highly suggest serving with mashed potatoes, and I added green beans for the vegetable. I’m thinking that bok choy might taste great with the sauce, though.

    A note on the sauce — the beef gets just a hint of the spice of the red pepper flakes. The sauce itself, which still contains the actual flakes, is a good deal spicier. Adjust the measurement according to your tastes.

    Ideally, use one covered pot or pan that you can do the stove top searing and then the oven braising in — fewer dishes is good for sanity and the environment, plus all the flavor stays together. If you have a Dutch oven, this is the time to use it. As soon as I sort out enough stuff in my storage area to create space to store one, I am buying one. I used my cast iron skillet and covered it tightly with foil as it doesn’t have a lid. This worked great, although I do need to re-season after cooking with an acidic citrus juice for a few hours. It was worth it.

    Citrus-spiced Beef Short Ribs
    Citrus-spiced Beef Short Ribs

    Citrus-spiced Beef Short Ribs

    • 1.5 lbs beef short ribs, bone in, separated into individual bones
    • salt and pepper to season the ribs
    • 1/2 of a medium (baseball-sized) onion, halved and sliced thin (I prefer sweet onions)
    • large pinch of salt (probably about 1/8 teaspoon)
    • 1 Tablespoon of minced garlic
    • 1/2t – 2t crushed red pepper flakes, adjusted to taste
    • 1 teaspoon sugar (optional)
    • 1 large grapefruit, juiced, with pulp in OR 1 cup of grapefruit juice
    • 1.5 inches of ginger, peeled and sliced into rounds
    • 2 Tablespoons coconut amino acids, gluten-free tamari, or faux soy sauce
    • 1/2 cup warm water

    Preheat the oven to 325ºF.

    Heat your chosen cooking vessel over medium high heat. If you’re not using a seasoned cast iron pan, brush or spray just a light coat of oil on the pan’s surface.

    Season your short ribs with salt and pepper, both sides. When the pan is hot, add the ribs. Sear well on both sides, and I also seared the edges of the few really thick ones. More flavor is always worth the effort. Remove the seared ribs to a plate.

    Add the onions with a pinch of salt, and cook until translucent. Then add the garlic and cook, stirring, until starting to turn golden. Add the pepper flakes and stir (but also, stand back and don’t breathe the steam right away!). Scooping all of this to one side of the pan, add the ribs back and then spread the onion-garlic-pepper mix over them.

    If using, sprinkle the sugar on the ribs. Scatter the ginger slices, add the coconut aminos, and then add the grapefruit juice and water. Cover your pot or pan, and slide it into the oven. Cook for 2.5 hours.

    After removing from the oven, let the dish sit for at least 15 minutes. I then sliced through the thin membrane holding the meat to the bones so I could just serve the meat. Serve topped with the pan sauce, but leave the ginger rounds out.

    As the post from The Kitchn suggested, if you find beef ribs to be fatty, you can either trim the fat (not all that highly suggested for this cooking method) OR cook them ahead of time and scoop the fat off the cooled sauce. I didn’t find them to be too greasy or fatty this time around, and enjoyed the richer sauce over mashed potatoes. Your tastes may vary, so know that this is an option.

    Enjoy with mashed potatoes and the vegetable of your choice.

     

  • Cottage Pie

    Cottage Pie
    Cottage Pie

    This recipe comes out of a birthday request. In my family, tradition was that on your birthday, you pick what we have for dinner. This weekend was a birthday, and the request was a cottage pie. I’ve never made cottage pie, so I did a bit of searching.

    So, here in New England, a meat pie topped with potatoes is called Shepherd’s Pie no matter what type of meat goes into it. As far as I learned, Shepherd’s Pie is lamb and gravy topped with mashed potatoes and baked. You know, shepherds? Sheep? Cottage Pie is the same basic idea but using beef as the meat. The internet has a variety of ideas about what cottage pie should be, from a basic lamb-based shepherd’s pie to a tomato sauced ground beef topped with potatoes and cheese. The former is poorly named, and the latter just sounds like casserole to me.

    What I wanted for this was a ground beef, gravy, and vegetable pie topped with lovely browned mashed potatoes. Anything topped with potatoes is bound to be good, right? To add a bit of extra flavor, browned the onions quite well, and used mushrooms, arrowroot starch, and balsamic vinegar in the gravy. For veg, I’ve added corn, carrots, and celery. I think this recipe is pretty versatile — change up the veg for what you think you’ll like best, and make it your way — just let us know how it turned out.

    Cottage Pie is served, with garnish
    Cottage Pie is served, with garnish

    Cottage Pie

    • 1 lb. ground beef
    •  salt and pepper, to taste
    • 1 Tablespoon olive oil or reserved beef fat
    • 3/4 – 1 cup medium onion, sliced thinly
    • salt, to taste
    • 1 cup carrots, finely chopped (about 3)
    • I cup celery, finely chopped (about 3 outer stalks)
    • 1 cup corn, frozen (optional)
    • 2 Tablespoons fat of your choice*
    • 1/4 to 1/2 cup baby bella mushrooms, finely chopped (optional)
    • 2 Tablespoons arrowroot starch
    • 1 1/2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves
    • 1 to 1 1/2 cups beef broth
    • 1 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar (check to be sure this is “safe”)
    • 2 lbs potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
    • 2 Tablespoons Earth Balance or other margarine or fat
    • 1/2 cup non-dairy milk of your choosing, heated to at least room temp, if not a little warmer
    • salt and pepper, to taste
    • fresh parsley, chopped (optional)

    Heat a large skillet over medium heat. If you have a skillet that you can use a whisk in (i.e. not non-stick), use it. Brown ground beef, breaking it up. Add salt and pepper to the cooking beef, adjusted to your taste. Remove beef, leaving any fat in the pan — I used a lean beef, so there was almost none, but if there is some, you can either use it to cook the onions or to make the gravy. If you want it for gravy, set it aside. Put the beef in a greased casserole that will hold all your ingredients.

    In the remaining drippings or in 2 T of olive oil, add the onion and brown to the point of caramelization. This takes some time! Probably close to 40 minutes. Be patient, stir occasionally, and know that this pays off in flavor. When the onion is almost done, add the carrots, stir and let cook a few minutes. Then add the celery, do the same, and finally, add the corn and just let it thaw. Add the cooked veg  to the beef, and stir it up.

    In the pot or pan you’ve been using, add the reserved grease OR 2 tablespoons of fat — margarine, oil, whatever — and heat. If you’re using the mushrooms, add them to the hot fat.Whisk in the arrowroot starch and cook this paste for a few minutes, and then gradually add 1 cup of the beef broth or stock, whisking continually. When you have a slightly liquid-y gravy, add the balsamic and cook until the vinegar smell dissipates. Add thyme, and cook a few more minutes, adding a little more beef stock if you need to thin the gravy. Taste, and add salt and pepper if needed. Pour the gravy over your meat and veg, stir and set aside.

    Make potatoes! Boil the potatoes in salted water until soft when pierced with a fork. Drain and mash with your margarine and non-dairy milk, adding the non-dairy milk gradually. You want a consistency that you can pipe, if you’re going to do that, so aim that direction while mashing. Taste, add salt and pepper if needed.

    If you are piping the potatoes, let the cool to just above room temperature, and then load your piping bag and make pretty designs on top of your casserole. Bake 25 minutes if you’ve just finished making everything, 30-40 minutes if you refrigerated the casserole, at 350ºF.

    Top with more of the optional chopped parsley, because it’s pretty, and serve.

  • The World's Best Cauliflower (aka Aloo Gobi in the slow cooker)

    Aloo Gobi
    Aloo Gobi

    I wish I could claim credit for inventing the following recipe, but I can’t. My former neighbor told me, as we were all sitting outside one evening, that he made “the world’s best cauliflower.” I don’t know about you, but cauliflower is not a vegetable I’d ever considered for a “world’s best” anything nomination. As a child, we got cauliflower doused in cheese sauce on an occasional basis, and while it was fine, it wasn’t something any of us clamored for. Since then, I’ve seen it on raw veggie platters, had it in “California blend” frozen vegetable bags, and had it roasted once or twice. Again, not bad, but not generally exciting.

    But Mukesh was not lying — this really is the World’s Best Cauliflower, and it will make a believer out of you, too. The usual name for this dish is “aloo gobi” (just “gobi” if you leave the potatoes out), and it’s amazing. The cauliflower is tender but not mushy, well-seasoned but not “hot” spicy, and the color is gorgeous (we eat with our eyes first, supposedly). This is shared with permission, a family recipe from Mukesh Singh. The only modification I’ve made is to cook it in the crock pot because my version never turned out as tender as his did.

    I’d have given you more photos, but while this cauliflower tastes great, it’s kind of boring to photograph.

    The World’s Best Cauliflower (Aloo Gobi)

    • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
    • 1/2 small onion, chopped
    • 1 head of cauliflower, cut into bite-sized pieces
    • 3 small potatoes, cubed
    • 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
    • 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
    • 1/2 teaspoon paprika
    • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
    • 1/2 teaspoon curry powder
    • salt to taste
    • 2 Tablespoons water

    Heat the oil in a medium skillet over medium heat.

    Add onion and cook until lightly browned.

    Mix in the cauliflower and potatoes, and then all the spices. Mix well to combine.

    Scrape pan into your slow cooker. Use the 2T of water to “rinse” all the leftover spices out of the skillet into the slow cooker. Cook over low heat for 10 hours.

    Serve with rice for a full meal, or serve as a side dish.

     

  • Slow Cooker Pork Roast

    Slow Cooker Pork Roast with roasted broccoli and mashed sweet potatoes
    Slow Cooker Pork Roast with roasted broccoli and mashed sweet potatoes

    It’s set-it-and-forget-it season! Actually, the crock pot is good all year, but because it makes pots of lovely hot food, I think people associate it more with winter than summer. I know I do. The first thing I thought when I saw pork roasts on sale was “slow cooker.” But I didn’t really want barbeque. Nothing wrong with it, but it’s a flavor I’m bored of before the leftovers are gone. Molasses is a fall obsession of mine — while the world goes crazy for “pumpkin spice” everything, I want to drown in molasses (not literally. That stuff kills. Science!). So I started with molasses and went from there. Balsamic vinegar and some spices add up to earthy and hearty.

    This pork roast will make a lot of leftovers, if it’s just one or two of you, or it’ll feed a crowd. And it is quick enough to be made first thing in the morning. I served this with some roasted broccoli and sweet potatoes — I hope to share the sweet potatoes as soon as I work out some kinks with that recipe. Pork and sweet potatoes are great together, and broccoli goes with everything.

    Slow Cooker Pork Roast with roasted broccoli and mashed sweet potatoes on Surviving the Food Allergy Apocalypse
    Slow Cooker Pork Roast with roasted broccoli and mashed sweet potatoes

    Slow Cooker Pork Roast

    • oil to grease the crock
    • 1 sweet onion, halved and sliced thin
    • 1/2 teaspoon of oil
    • 1/4 teaspoon salt
    • 2-2.5 lb center cut boneless pork roast, fat side up
    • 1 Tablespoon molasses
    • 2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
    • 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
    • 1/2 teaspoon celery salt
    • 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
    • 1/4 teaspoon mustard
    • 1/2 cup broth or stock, whatever you have on hand
    • 1/4 cup hot water
    • fresh ground pepper, to your taste (I used about 1/2 a teaspoon, not that I measured)

    Grease the crock of your slow cooker. Add the sliced onion to the bottom, and drizzle on the 1/2 teaspoon of oil and the 1/4 teaspoon of salt.

    Place the pork roast on top of the onions, with the fat side up (I do not trim this for the slow cooker — it’s good flavor).

    In a small dish or right in a measuring cup, whisk or stir with a fork the next 7 ingredients (molasses through the broth/stock). Pour this over the roast. Use the last 1/4 cup of water to rinse all the seasoning out of the measuring cup, and pour this along the side (don’t rinse off the seasoning that landed atop the pork roast!). Grind the pepper right on top.

    Cover and cook all day. Or, you know, 4-6 hours on high, 6-8 hours on low.

    When this is done, take just the meat out. Attempt to slice it, and find out that it will shred instead. After breaking it up, put it back in the liquid you cooked it in, and stir well. This lets the meat soak up a little more of the cooking liquid to serve.

    Alternately, you could also make a starch slurry (starch of your choice mixed with water, 1:2 ratio) and add that to the liquid for the last 30 minutes or so of cooking — this will give you more of a gravy consistency.

    Serve with side dishes of your choice — roasted veg would be great, but go wild. You’re coming home to dinner almost done.

     

  • Mung Bean Patties

    Mung Bean Patties with roasted potatoes
    Mung Bean Patties with roasted potatoes

    This recipe is actually perfect for coming out of last week, as, like so many things that happened last week it arose out of the ashes of me screwing something up because I did not know what I was doing and was not paying attention. Last week was just that kind of week. I need a nap. Or a vacation.

    A few years ago, I’d bought mung beans, dried, because I understood that they could be cooked relatively quickly, like lentils. So I put them in a pot with water, on a burner, and then wandered off to do something else. By the time I came back, I had mush instead of beans. Oops. So I made a bean loaf. You know, like meatloaf, but without vegetarian. The thing is, “bean loaf” sounds kind of gross, and baking this in a loaf meant you only had a few edges. Plus, it wasn’t really that successful at holding its shape when sliced.

    You really should soak the beans overnight, so far as I can tell, but you can also just dump a kettle of boiling water over them and soak them for about an hour. They will plump up quite nicely. They are “done” cooking when they are starting to fall apart but haven’t actually fallen apart yet.

    Since then, I’ve refined this so that I have less bean mush and more mushy beans, and revised the add-in vegetables and seasonings somewhat to create a flavorful bean-based patty. Actually, if you make them my way, they’re more ball-shaped, but bean balls isn’t appetizing either. We’ll go with patties. This recipe makes 16 patties measured out by a 1/2 cup ice cream scoop. These store and reheat well, but I have not tried freezing them. Structural integrity is still low, but they taste good, and who cares if your patty falls apart a bit? You already have a fork on hand.

    Soaked Mung Beans before cooking
    Soaked Mung Beans before cooking

     

    Mung Bean Patties

    • 2 cups dry mung beans, soaked overnight or covered in boiling water and soaked an hour
    • 3-4 carrots
    • 1/4 of a bell pepper (use up to half if you really love the flavor)
    • 1 bunch (6-8) scallions
    • 1 portobello mushroom cap
    • 2 cups fresh parsley leaves
    • 1 Tablespoon olive oil
    • 1 Tablespoon red wine vinegar
    • 1 teaspoon ground coriander
    • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
    • 1 teaspoon tarragon (crush the leaves as you add it)
    • 1 teaspoon thyme (also crush this as you add it)
    • 1 Tablespoon basil
    • 1/2 to 2 teaspoons salt (to taste)

    Put soaked mung beans in a saucepan and cover with water so that there’s about an inch of water over the mung beans. Put over high heat, covered, and bring to a boil. Boil 8-10 minutes, turn to low, and simmer, covered, for 25 minutes. Water should be completely absorbed, and beans should be slightly mushy but not entirely without structural integrity at this point. Remove from heat, remove cover, and let cool while you prep the veg.

    Preheat the oven to 350ºF.

    Using a food processor, grind up all the veg. You can do this any way you like, but here’s what works for me — I use the shredder attachment for the carrots and bell pepper, and then put the S-blade in to grind them up a bit more. The scallions and parsley will need liquid, so add the oil or vinegar to this. The mushroom should be fine with just the S-blade.

    Add the ground vegetables and all the seasonings, along with the mung beans, to a large bowl. Stir well, longer than you think you should, and then use your hands to really work the beans.

    There are two ways to form patties — either grease a muffin tin and fill it, or make scoops with an ice cream scoop and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or greased lightly. Make sure to pack the bean patties/balls together as you form them — these won’t be masterpieces that will stay together through a coming apocalypse, but they will hold their form as you dump them out of the muffin tins.

    Bake 15 minutes, then enjoy.

    Mung Bean Patties
    Mung Bean Patties

  • Cure your own Corned Beef

    Cure your own Corned Beef
    Cure your own Corned Beef

    You may remember that we posted a Stout Braised Corned Beef and Cabbage recipe way back in the depths of time. Well, that was in the time before my wheat and corn allergies were diagnosed.  At the time, since Mary Kate had issues with gluten, and a lot of our readers are gluten-free, I had put in the modifications needed to make it gluten-free. But once my corn allergy hit, I couldn’t find a safe brand of corned beef that I could buy, because of the dextrose, sodium erythorbate, and other corn ingredients that tend to show up in commercial versions. A while ago, I came across a beef brisket while shopping, and it occurred to me that maybe I could research how to make corned beef, just like I had for learning to cure bacon. Worst case scenario, I’d cook it as brisket if it didn’t work. So I bought it, but I didn’t have time to deal, so I threw it in the freezer. During my most recent “vacation” otherwise known as “food prep week”, I finally decided that it was time. So I looked at recipes from Alton Brown on the Food Network and the Wellness Mama, and modified and added things based on my other research.

    I prepared the brine, then I brined the brisket for 10 days, and cooked it according to my original recipe, but using the gluten free tweaks, and without cabbage, because I forgot to buy any. And it was corned beef, and it was good. Even my husband (no food allergies) said it was good. So I’m sharing.

    Just a note, this takes a long time. And it’s probably best to do the brine the day before you’re actually going to start marinating, because it has to be completely chilled. Also, be aware that it’s not the right color because we’re not adding curing salt or saltpeter, but it still tastes right.

    Cure your own Corned Beef after curing and cooking
    Cure your own Corned Beef after curing and cooking
    Cure your own Corned Beef after cooking and slicing
    Cure your own Corned Beef after cooking and slicing

    Cure your own Corned Beef

    • 2 quarts of water
    • 1 cup of kosher salt
    • 1/2 cup of brown sugar
    • 1 cinnamon stick, broken into pieces (I used a zip top bag and a rolling pin and smacked it a couple of times)
    • 1/2 Tablespoon of brown mustard seeds
    • 1/2 Tablespoon of yellow mustard seeds
    • 1 Tablespoon of whole black peppercorns
    • 8 whole cloves
    • 8 whole allspice berries
    • 2 bay leaves, broken into bits
    • 1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger or 1/2 Tablespoon of crystallized ginger (whichever you have on hand)
    • 2 pounds of ice
    • 1 cup of fresh celery puree (Take 5-7 stalks of celery and put them through a food processor or blender until they are pureed)
    • 1/4 cup of juice from sauerkraut made from red cabbage (optional – just an attempt to get the correct color since I’m not using curing salt)
    • 1 – 2 1/2 gallon zip top plastic bag (They have these now! They are brilliant for marinating and knitting projects!) 
    • 1 – 4 to 5 pound beef brisket

    In a large stockpot, add the water, salt, sugar, cinnamon, both kinds of mustard seeds, black peppercorns, cloves, allspice berries, bay leaves, and ginger, and mix to combine. Bring to a boil over high heat until salt and the sugar have dissolved completely. Remove the stockpot from the heat, and add the ice. Stir the mixture until the ice has melted. Put the brine in the fridge until it has completely chilled. And I mean it, completely chilled, so that could take several hours or it might even be the next day.

    Once the brine is completely chilled, mix in the celery puree and the sauerkraut juice.  Place the brisket in the 2 1/2 gallon zip top plastic bag and add the brine mixture to the bag.  Push as much of the air out of the bag as you can and seal it.  Place the zip top bag in a container that allows it to lay flat and put it in the fridge for 10 days. You want to check it daily to make sure that the brisket is completely submerged and to flip the bag to stir the brine. After 10 days, remove the brisket from the brine and rinse it off using cold water. Discard your brine, it can’t be used again.  Now you have corned beef brisket to cook as described in our original Stout Braised Corned Beef and Cabbage recipe, or to cook it how you normally cook corned beef.

    Enjoy!