In anticipation of St. Patrick's Day in the US, here is a recipe I just tried, compiled from sources on the web, and some common cooking sense. The dish is corned beef, horse-radish/mustard sauce, cabbage, carrots, and mash potatoes. I am telling you, since I am also half drunk in anticipation of working tomorrow, this is one motherfucker of a delicious plate.
The only California style additions are white wine and garlic which are usually never called for.
Let's start with the meat topping sauce, because it should sit in the refrigerator for a while. Combine grey poupon or dijon style mustard, prepared horse-radish, in a 3:2 ratio and mix with sour cream to taste, and add fresh or dried chives. Stir and put in the refrigerator.
Make mash potatoes ahead of time with the pressure cooker. I use red potatoes because I like their color. Whip with butter and milk and put on top of the oven, covered in a separate heat resistant bowl.
Next clean the pressure cooker, and put brine cured corned beef in 4-6 quart cooker on the meat support lid provided. Fill the plastic bag that has remaining brine with water to make about 2-3 cups. Add a cup of white wine and a glove or two of garlic, plus a couple of heaping teaspoons of Coleman's mustard powder and a tablespoon of pepper corns. When the pressure cooker knobby is rattling at full steam, turn down a little to maintain slow rocking. Cook for fifty minutes for three to four pounds, forty minutes or slightly less for two to three pounds. Also gauge the time by the shape of the meat hunk. A large triangular wedge cooks more on the outside leaving the inside somewhat tough at the same time period as a relatively uniform thick piece. Cool pressure cooker under the tap. Pull the meat out of the brine, set in a glass pan with a ladle or two of brine and put in the oven in a Pyrex pan covered in tin foil and keep warm. Meanwhile cut onion, wedges of cabbage and baby carrots into the remaining brine, close lid and re-heat pressure cooker and cook for five minutes depending on vegetable volume (less time for crunchy vegetables). Save the vegetable/meat brine for cooking the left overs the next day.
Set all the plates out and slice corned beef slabs, add cabbage, onions, carrots, and then mash potatoes with a slab of butter. Take mustard/horseradish/sour cream sauce and spoon/smear on meat. Serve with well chilled white wine.
I decided the best way into the working class heart was through their stomach. If the white wine is too California, use any beer as a substitute for cooking and drinking.
After dinner serve a traditional Irish Whiskey (or martinis) until the merry glow of friendship shows on the guest's cheeks, then start on the radical politics.
Off the fucking Empire, me boys. Look out the steamed up windows at the dark cold night. Think on friendship, comraderie, other times and places. Warm your own soul, and by God people will harken to it. (That's the real secret of religion. Ideas have nothing to do with it.)
CG