Market House Corned Beef
Vegetarians – Look away quick!
G doesn’t eat meat but I still do. I find it difficult around holidays to avoid traditional meals. At Thanksgiving, I always want to cook a turkey. St. Patrick’s Day is coming up soon and I’m feeling the need to have corned beef.
My ancestry is mixed. A little German, a little Scottish but mostly Irish. We always cooked corned beef for St. Patrick’s Day when I was growing up. It was not cooked in G’s household. I cooked it a couple of times early in our marriage but it never became a tradition in our house. It was easy to give up when G became vegetarian. But there has been that little nagging in the back of my mind in March that it is time to cook corned beef.
I tried it a couple of years ago. I bought one of the major commercial brands and boiled it up as my mother cooked it. Yech! It was so fat and salty. I decided to write it off. But the March nagging persisted.
Metropolitan Market is a local market which has a great selection of choice meats, fish and seafood. I love to shop at the Queen Anne branch during my lunch break. I was shopping last week and noticed that they had Market House Corned Beef. Market House is a small local company that brines their own corned beef. In Seattle, it is considered the best local corned beef and they provide corned beef to many of the local restaurants. I found a small piece and decided to give it a try.
I cooked it on Sunday. The package recommended baking it at 300 degrees covered in a pan with 1/4 water for 3 – 5 1/2 hours. My piece was rather small so I cooked it just about 3 hours.
I cut off a small piece after cooking. Oh my goodness, it was so good! It was not salty at all with a nice spicy taste. I couldn’t stop snacking and finished off about 1/4 of it.
Today I had a great sandwich made with whole wheat bread, mayo, horseradish and dijon mustard. I maybe able to get a second sandwich off the small piece I bought. But my craving hasn’t been satisfied. I’m making another trip to Metropolitan Market for another piece to cook next week.
For more information on the history of Market House – here is an article from the Stranger newspaper.
Yum! Corned beef at St Patrick’s Day is a tradition in our family, too. Although I’ve never cooked one…my mom makes it, and then shares with us (we’re spoiled). It’s a once a year food, which is probably why it tastes so good when we have it. Now I’m really looking forward to mid-month!
This reminded me that Palma and Jerry both mentioned corned beef recipes on their blogs; I’ll have to go look to see if they posted any – one of them bbqs it, which sounds interesting.
I’m the BBQer! I boil it the night before with the seasonings, then marinate it overnight in BBQ sauce. Wrap in foil, heat through for about 35 on the grill. YUM It gets charred and burns off all the fat.
I’ll have to try the BBQ. I only grill with charcoal so I’ll have to a bit more until it gets warmer to try it.