Corned Beef

A (short) Origin Story

We all know that corned beef is associated with the Irish, St. Patrick’s Day, and that tiny green leprechaun with the large belt buckle and black hat. But truth be told, corned beef isn’t actually a dish that has ever been widely consumed within Ireland. Beef, an expensive protein made more expensive by the large amount of salt necessary for its preserving process, was generally exported and consumed by the elite. The term “corned” originated from the large (corn kernel) sized pieces of salt used to cure the beef ensuring that it wouldn’t go bad in transit.

It would be significantly more accurate if corned beef, as we know it today, was associated with the American-Irish; the ancestors of those who immigrated from Ireland to the United States. Like many immigrants to the United States, they suddenly found themselves able to afford beef (which was considerably less expensive in the United States than in Ireland). The story is the same for Northern European Jews who began making pastrami from beef only after arriving in the United States (earlier pastrami would have been made using goose breast). The newly immigrated Irish were finally able to produce, and consume, what we believe to be one of the best brined meats around.

Corned beef is simple, and perfect. At Rain Shadow our Painted Hills briskets are brined over a three week period to infuse them with plenty of flavor and salt. All our briskets are trimmed and weighed so that we can brine them using the appropriate ratios of salt, sugar, and spices.  We’ll leave the cooking up to you, so see below for guidance!

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Cooking Instructions

- Move your corned beef to a large stock pot with the pickling spice. Cover with cold water, and if available, a big splash of apple cider vinegar and an Irish Lager or two. The corned been should be covered by at least 2-3 inches of water.

- Bring the liquid to a simmer. Once simmering, cover and cook for 2-3 hours until the meat is tender enough that you are able to pierce it with a butter knife. Depending on the size of your brisket and the water cooking temperature it could take longer than three hours, so just keep checking on it and keep being patient; it will eventually become tender. Note that If you want to use it for sandwiches you’ll want it to be slightly tougher and not yet falling apart (otherwise it will shred when you attempt to slice it).

- About 30 minutes before the brisket is done cooking add the cabbage and potatoes, followed by the carrots 15 minutes later. Once veggies are cooked remove everything from stock pot and let the meat rest for 10 minutes before slicing. If the meat is ready before the vegetables, simply pull it out so it can begin its resting process. Slice, and enjoy with a whole grain mustard and some soda bread.

Cassoulet

Cassoulet may very well be one of the most rewarding dishes to make during the cold winter months; it is satisfyingly rich, tremendously flavorful, and, this is key, hard to screw up. Below is the recipe that I use as a guide when making cassoulet, but it’s a little different each and every time depending on what I have on hand (so don’t worry if you’re missing this or that).

If you’ve got a full day, take your time! The best cassoulet’s are cooked slowly at a low temperature. Beans hold their integrity best when cooked slowly, but even if they are cooked quickly, they’re still delicious - so work within the time frame you have.

At its heart cassoulet is a bean casserole, and I give you full permission to treat it as such even if it sounds fancy, French, and indulgent.

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Cassoulet

Yield: 3-4 servings

2 cups dried flageolet beans or canellini soaked for at least 8 hours in

2 tablespoons vegetable oil, duck fat, or chicken fat

2 toulouse sausages

3 ounces pancetta, cut into 1/4 inch pieces

1 small yellow onion, diced

1 stalk celery, minced

1 carrot, minced

5 cloves garlic, crushed under your knife or palm

2 sprigs fresh thyme

2 sprigs fresh parsley

2 bay leaves

1 quart (4 cups) water or unsalted chicken stock, plus more as needed

1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more as needed

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1-2 confit duck legs

1/2 cup breadcrumbs, optional

1. Add the flageolet beans to a large bowl or container and cover with 8 cups of water for 8-24 hours in the fridge. If using canellini, soak for at least 12 hours.

2. When the beans are finished soaking, it’s time to start cooking! Preheat a dutch oven or cast iron over medium high heat. When hot add in the vegetable oil (or your fat of choice) and the Toulouse sausages. Turn the heat down to medium. Brown the sausages on two sides, being careful not to burn the oil (you’ll know it’s burning if it starts to smoke). If things start to get smokey turn down the heat. When the sausages are golden brown on both sides, remove them from the pan and set aside for later use. The sausages do not need to be fully cooked as they’ll cook fully later in the oven.

3. If you’ve burned the fat and it no longer smells delicious, carefully pour it into the garbage or compost and add new fat. Otherwise, add the pancetta into the hot pan and cook over medium-low heat until the fat has rendered and the pieces are golden brown.

4. Add the celery, carrots, onion, and garlic to the pancetta and cook over medium heat until the onions are soft.

5. If you’re in a rush to get dinner on the table, preheat the oven to 400°F, if you’ve got time, go low and slow and preheat it to 300°F. Remember that you can adjust the temperature as you go if you feel like things are moving to fast or slow for your liking.

6. When the onions are soft, add the beans, thyme, bay, leaf, parsley, and 3 cups of water or stock. Turn the heat to high and bring to a simmer. Turn the heat down to keep at a simmer for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, taste the beans to get a sense of how done they are and add more salt if needed. Note that flageolet beans will cook much faster than canellini.

7. Place the sausages on top of the beans and move carefully to the oven. Bake until beans are nearly tender, adding more hot water or stock as needed to prevent them from burning; the beans should be just peaking out from the water. After 30 minutes, place the duck confit on top of the cassoulet and sprinkle with half of the breadcrumbs. Continue baking the cassoulet until the beans are tender. If a crust forms on top of the beans, crack it gently with a spoon to allow steam to escape.

8. When you’re ready to eat, remove from the oven, sprinkle with remaining breadcrumbs (if desired), and eat while hot. Cassoulet tastes even better heated up the next day, so feel free to make this dish in advance or simply get excited about leftovers!

Holiday Porchetta

Ah, Porchetta. Could anything be better than this Italian classic? Here at Rainshadow we use an entire de-boned pork side from the shoulder to the end of the loin, and then fill it with sage, fennel, garlic, salt, and pepper before rolling it up. It’s one of our very favorite things, and we hope you’ll love it as much as we do. Once you’ve picked up your porchetta, your only job is to cook it, serve it, and enjoy it!

Cooking directions:

- Remove the porchetta from the refrigerator two hours prior to cooking. This will allow the meat to come to room temperature, helping it cook evenly.  

- Preheat an oven to 400 degrees°F.

- Place the porchetta on a roasting rack in a roasting pan or on a sheet tray lined with foil. Make sure to use a rimmed baking tray as the porchetta will loose quite a bit of fat as it cooks. Roast the porchetta at 400°F until the skin starts to turn golden brown (about 30-60 minutes). 

- Once the skin begins to brown, turn the oven down to 325°F and continue to roast until the center of the porchetta reaches 150°- 160°F.

- The trickiest part of cooking your porchetta at home is removing it from the oven. PLEASE be very cautious as you do so! We recommend sliding the oven rack out part way and removing the roast from the pan (and onto a cool baking tray or plate) before removing the roasting pan.

- Once the porchetta has been removed, remove the roasting pan from the oven and set aside to cool. Please be very careful as the fat in the pan is very hot. Let the rendered fat cool in the pan, and throw away or save for future use.

- Cover the porchetta with foil and rest for at least 20 - 30 minutes before serving. If you would like to keep it warm for longer, place a kitchen towel over the foil.

Please note, that unlike a normal pork loin roast, porchetta should be cooked all the way through, so you need not stress about over cooking like you would another cut of meat.

ENJOY!

Turkey Tips

Turkey Tips

A primer on brining and cooking

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Hi all!

As Thanksgiving approaches and turkey orders continue rolling in, we thought it would be a good time to offer up a little guidance around seasoning and cooking a turkey.

There is plenty of information available regarding the best way to season and cook a turkey - so our goal isn’t to tell you what is best, but to give you some information so that you can choose a method that will result in a delicious turkey without too much fuss.

No, we will not be walking you through the art of the deep-fried turkey nor the turducken - yes, we will talk you through the pros and cons of a dry brine versus a wet brine, and a whole turkey versus a spatchcocked turkey. As always, we will be selling Rain Shadow dry brine and wet brine mixes at the shop for your convenience - so once you decide which route to take, come visit us and let us help you get set up for the holiday. Additionally, this year we will be have (free!) brine bags for you, in addition to our standard Thanksgiving offerings!

Brining:

Before brining (wet or dry), take your turkey out of the vacuum pack and remove the neck and giblets. If you find that your turkey has a little ice on the surface, just run cold water over it for a few minutes until it melts (not necessary if you’re wet brining).

Wet Brine: Wet brining a turkey requires letting it sit in seasoned salt water for 24-72 hours. As the turkey sits in the salt water, it will absorb the salt and sugar from brine through osmosis. In addition to seasoning the bird, the salt absorbed from the brine causes the protein bundles in the meat to push apart from one each other, tenderizing it.

The pros: Well seasoned, moist, and tender meat

The cons: Difficult to store safely, pan drippings can be watery

If brining, we suggest using our Rain Shadow brine mix so that you don’t have to search for the perfect salt to water ratio. To prepare the brine, simply add the mix to a gallon of water and boil to dissolve the salt and sugar. It is VERY IMPORTANT to cool the brine completely in the refrigerator. Once cooled, move to a brine bag (which we have for you at the shop!) and submerge the turkey. Leave the turkey in the brine for up to 24 hours, flipping if necessary. If you run out of room in the fridge, consider placing the turkey in its bring bag, into a cooler. Surround the brining turkey with ice, but do not put ice in to the brine bag as this will dilute the brine. Remove the turkey 2 - 24 hours before cooking so that the surface of the turkey can dry out, ensuring a crisp, golden brown skin upon roasting. Please note that the skin of the turkey will burn very quickly if it’s not removed from the brine at least two hours prior to cooking. This is because the sugars from the brine sit on the skin of the turkey and tend to caramelize too quickly unless given enough time to equalize.

Dry Brine: Using a dry brine simply requires that you rub the seasoning salt over the surface of your turkey. While it doesn’t add moisture the turkey, it will result in a well seasoned turkey. If salting more than 24 hours in advance, I suggest placing it into a brine bag or placing it onto a tray and covering it with plastic. Just like with a brine, as the turkey absorbs the salt from the rub, the salt will breakdown the protein structure which causes the proteins to lose some water. This makes the meat more tender, and if covered, the moisture that is lost will be re-absorbed. (This is the same reason we suggest cooling braised meat in its braising liquid; denatured proteins will reabsorb some of their lost moisture.)

The pros: Easier to store in your fridge, well seasoned, better drippings for gravy, crispier skin

The cons: Less moisture than a wet brined turkey

Place the turkey on a rack over a baking tray. If using the Rain Shadow Dry Rub, rub it liberally over the surface and the cavity of the turkey. Move the turkey to the refrigerator overnight. This allows the skin to dry out which will ensure even browning. Just the same as brining, uncover the turkey 2 - 24 hours before cooking so that the surface of the turkey can dry out, ensuring a crisp, golden brown skin upon roasting. When cooked through, remove from the oven and let rest at least 20 - 30 minutes before carving. You can keep your turkey hot for up to an hour by covering it with foil and draping a kitchen towel or two over the top to insulate.

Roasting:

Spatchcocked vs. Whole Turkey Cooking

Ten years ago a good friend and I had a disagreement over the best way to cook a turkey. He wanted to spatchcock it, I wanted to roast it whole. We ended up having two turkeys on the table that year, and it remains a particular diplomatic low for me.

So let’s talk it out:

Spatchcocking: Spatchcocking (or butterflying) has become very popular in the last decade. To spatchcock a turkey, the back bone is removed so that it can be flattened. It helps ensure an evenly cooked bird, since the breasts (which are the most susceptible to overcooking) lay flat with the rest of the meat, and decreases the cooking time substantially. This is a fantastic approach for those of you with small ovens and many other things to bake, or for those of you whose greatest fear is an overcooked turkey breast.

Whole Turkey: It’s classic! And yes, can result in a poorly cooked turkey if you’re not attentive. Whole turkey roasts can be tricky to cook well since the breasts will inevitably be slightly overcooked by the time the legs are cooked through. Unfortunately, there is no magic solution for this. What I can suggest is that when your turkey is cooked through, that you let it cool for 20-30 minutes, remove the breasts and slice them very thin and then bury them in the gravy that you made from the drippings (while your bird was cooling).

To roast: Bake your Turkey at 300°F. Roast until the turkey is golden brown and deepest part of breast registers 150°F on meat thermometer and legs register at least 160°F. If you’re roasting it whole, this should take 3 to 4 hours for a 10-14 pound turkey. Check on the turkey after about 2 hours, and if the skin isn’t browning, increase the oven temperature by 50°F (remember, every oven is different!). When cooked through, remove from the oven and let rest at least 20 - 30 minutes before carving. You can keep your turkey hot for up to an hour by covering it with foil and draping a kitchen towel or two over the top to insulate.

What about the stuffing?

Stuffing is best left as a side dish. Stuffing your bird will mean that it’ll take longer to cook, and by the time the stuffing is safely at 155°F, the rest of your bird will be overcooked. In lieu of stuffing, toss some garlic, herbs, a lemon or two, and plenty of salt into the cavity of the bird.

Troubleshooting:

(speaking from experience here)

Turkey is overcooked: Oh well! Make a quick gravy (equal parts butter and flour, stock, and pan drippings). Encourage your guests to pour it all over the turkey, it’ll contribute an illusion of moistness. Remember that you’ve done a kind thing in offering to cook the turkey, feel a solidarity to all the other cooks who have accidentally overcooked their turkey while hosting, and don’t beat yourself up.

Turkey is undercooked: Yikes! If you’ve already let the bird cool and the breasts are done, feel free to cut them off and then place some foil where they once were. Slip the bird back into the oven and let it continue to cook until done.

You dropped the turkey: Give it a rinse, shake it off (literally and figuratively), have an extra glass of wine.

Prime Rib Roast

PRIME RIB ROAST

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Turkey sales began this week, marking the official start of the holiday season. While this holiday season may not look like that of years past, we do hope that your homes will still be filled with laughter, love, and plenty of delicious, home cooked meals.

To help, we’ll be putting together a short primer (pun intended), on some of our favorite holiday meals and suggested cooking techniques. There are many ways to prepare and cook a prime rib roast. Below is what we think to be the easiest and best route, but we encourage you to season and adjust this recipe as you desire to make it yours.

A couple notes:

• All whole rib loins have 7 ribs. Each rib contains enough meat for 2 - 2.5 people, making a whole loin suitable for 14 - 17 people. The smaller the rib roast, the less cooking time required, but generally speaking, they will take between 1.5 and 3.5 hours.

• Please remember that no two ovens are the same! We encourage you to adjust the time and temperature as needed for your oven.

• Using a meat thermometer is the only way to know when you meat is cooked properly and to your liking.  Rain Shadow recipes will never include a ‘time per pound’ chart, as they tend to be inaccurate and misleading. Use your eyes, nose, and thermometer as guides.

• Roasts continue to cook after they are removed from the oven, so please don’t wait until your meat is overcooked to remove it from the oven.

• Terminology: A classic prime rib roast is one in which the rib meat is still attached to the rib bones. A golden lion rib roast is one where the meat has been removed from the bones and then tied back together with butchers twine.

You will need:

Prime Rib Roast (1 rib per 2 - 2.5 people), ask your butcher how many ribs they suggest for your party size

Salt, Pepper, Olive oil

Optional: Herbs (rosemary, sage, thyme, and savory), Garlic, Horseradish*

*we love a thick coating of horseradish and black pepper

Equipment: Roasting pan and rack, oven, meat thermometer, cutting board, knife for carving.

Remove the roast from the refrigerator at least two hours before you plan to cook it so it can come to room temperature. This allows the meat to cook evenly. While out of the fridge, liberally season the roast with salt, pepper, olive oil and any other seasonings you’re using. Remember that this is a large piece of meat, so be generous with the salt.

Preheat an oven to 450°F.  Place the seasoned roast on roasting pan, using a rack if possible.  Place the roast in the oven until it starts to brown on the surface.  At this point turn the oven down to 350°F, or even lower to 300°F if you have the time.  Rotate the roasting pan every 30 minutes or so to achieve even browning and cooking.

The only way to truly know when any meat is done is by using a meat thermometer.  When testing, make sure you’re taking the temperature of the meat from the very center of the roast.

Rare rib roast: pull from the oven at 125°F.

Medium-rare to medium: Between 130°F to 140°F

Medium: Between 140°F - 145°F

Once you’ve removed the roast from the oven, let rest for at least 30 minutes covered loosely with foil. If you need to hold it for longer, move it to a warm area and place a kitchen towel over the foil.  A whole roast will stay warm for 2 hours this way. Trust us - the longer you let it rest the better. 

If the bones have not already been cut away, run your knife down the inside of the rib bones and cut all the way down until the bones are completely removed. Place the roast on a cutting board and slice to your liking. To separate the remaining rib bones, cut between the ribs. Be sure to give one to your favorite person at the table, and save one for yourself; how the remaining ribs are shared is up to you. 

Enjoy!