Lucky WITH LEFTOVERS/ Corned beef is good, even after St. Patrick has

Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Mar 12, 2003 by TERESA J. FARNEY

First you have the inevitable St. Patrick's Day meal - corned beef and cabbage. Then you have the inevitable leftovers. Like the Thanksgiving turkey, corned beef leftovers present a culinary challenge. Sure, you can always do sandwiches, and there's nothing wrong with that, especially if you get creative with the dressings. But it's also nice to have a few other tempting tricks up your sleeve. We turned to some chefs to help us turn those leftovers into gastronomic gold.

Basically, corned beef is similar to an Irish ham, so any leftovers lend themselves to use in recipes that would normally use ham or bacon, like hash, soups and egg dishes. Corned beef also can be used to season vegetable dishes.

Janis McLean, a chef in Silver Spring, Md., whose grandmother was from Tipperary, Ireland, likes to combine leftover corned beef in a souffl.

"We would have sandwiches and the inevitable hash with poached eggs," she says. "I wanted to try some other ways to use leftover corned beef and came up with my corned beefcheddar cheese souffl recipe. The souffls make a nice luncheon dish paired with a salad, or an elegant first course to dinner."

The good part about this recipe is that it can be made ahead.

"It's foolproof," she says. "It's first baked and cooled. Then it can be refrigerated overnight and reheated before serving."

For another dish, she wraps thin slices of leftover corned beef around bunches of blanched asparagus spears and drizzles them with a mixture of Dijon-style mustard and crme frache.

Then again, you can always fall back on that old standby, the sandwich. It's pretty much a nobrainer - some bread, some corned beef, maybe some cheese - but the fun and touches of genius get started with creative dressings.

So when St. Patrick's Day is past, don't throw out the corned beef with the shamrocks. From start to finish, your table can be filled with tasty leftovers. And that's no blarney.

CONTACT THE WRITER: (800) 536-3252 or tfarney@freedom.com

HOW IRISH IS THIS MEAL?

When it comes to St. Patrick's Day traditions, there are believers and there are nonbelievers. And we're not talking about leprechauns; we're talking about corned beef and cabbage. James O'Shea, chef- owner of West Street Grill in Litchfield, Conn., grew up in Kenmare, in County Kerry, Ireland, and says that corned beef and cabbage is about as Irish as borscht. "Corned beef and cabbage is not eaten in Ireland," he says emphatically. "That's strictly an American thing. "As amatter of fact, celebrating St. Patrick's Day is more American than Irish." Au contraire, says Alan Davidson, a food historian and author of "The Oxford Companion to Food." He defends corned beef's Irish roots, saying it's a traditional dish on Christmas, Easter and St. Patrick's Day, and is one of the country's best-known dishes. Traditional or not, here are some corned beef basics:

Q: What is corned beef? A: It's a cut of beef that has been cured in a pickling solution, or brine. Corning is a form of curing: it has nothing to do with corn. The name comes from Anglo-Saxon times, long before refrigeration, when meat was dry-cured in coarse "corns" of salt.

Pellets of salt, some the size of kernels of corn, were rubbed into the beef to keep it from spoiling.

Q: Why eat it on St. Patrick's Day? A: Traditionally, corned beef was served for Easter Sunday dinner in rural Ireland. Because the beef had been cured to preserve it during the winter, it could be eaten after the long, meatless Lenten fast.

Irish immigrants in the United States started cooking corned beef and cabbage, like a New England boiled dinner. Corned beef was similar to the Irish ham that they were familiar with from their home country.

Gradually, it became a common Irish-American pub food and part of St. Patrick's Day menus.

Q: Where did the Reuben originate?

A: According to Sharon Tyler Herbst, author of "Food Lover's Companion," there are two theories: One is that this thick, hot sandwich was created by and named for Arthur Reuben, owner of New York's once-famous and now-defunct Reuben's delicatessen. He made the sandwich with generous layers of corned beef, Swiss cheese and sauerkraut on sourdough rye bread.

The other tale holds that Omaha wholesale grocer Reuben Kay invented it during a poker game in 1955. It gained national prominence when one of his poker partner's employees entered the recipe in a national sandwich contest the next year and won.

Q: How is corned beef cooked?

A: Corned beef briskets come already cured and ready to cook. Most come with their own little plastic bag of seasonings you can add to the cooking water.

Vegetables cooked along with the meat are usually carrots, cabbage and potatoes. The meat is simply boiled along with the vegetables, until the meat is done. Carve the meat diagonally across the grain into thin slices.

Q: Is it good for you?

A: Because corned beef is made by soaking in a brine solution, it will be higher in sodium than uncured beef. It's a good source of protein, iron, zinc and niacin.

SECRETS FROM THE CHEFS