'Flavours In The Round,' or Corned Beef Sandwiches and Continental Salad

Alright, give me your opinions on corned beef. I'll be the first to admit I don't understand it. As a kid, I was repelled by the name (beef with corn in it?!), then as a grown-up I lumped it in with green beer on the list of things you only really eat once a year. But then I went to Ireland two years ago and realised that, holy moly, corned beef is magnificent. It's perfect and tender, flavourful and perfect with a pint of Guiness and a pile of mashed potatoes on an icy autumn day.

Ireland is not that far from Scotland, so I figured our corned beef here would be similar... which was my first mistake. To be fair to Scotland and it's potential corned beef supporters, I had no choice but to buy the corned beef used in this sandwich from the grocery store deli section, as everything else was already closed by the time I decided to make this sandwich. It's like a totally different meat, though. Judson referred to it, tactfully, as 'the tuna fish of lunchmeats,' but I, less gracefully, responded, 'I think you mean cat food of lunchmeats.' It had that processed look that all canned meats have (even though it didn't come in a can!) and it was so thin that it just kind of tasted like poor man's paté. The bright spot of this ordeal is twofold, though.

First, I have found a substitute for my beloved banana peppers-- a pickled vegetable that I always had a jar of when I lived in the US. Since moving to Scotland, I haven't been able to find them at the store, so I've had to go without. In the effort to make this sandwich, though, I found the super-strange long and spindly peppers pictured here. The bottle is labelled merely 'pickled peppers,' and I've only found one middle-eastern grocery store that sells them, but I HAVE THEM and they taste like banana peppers, so I'm happy. Additionally, it turns out pickled peppers are awesome on sandwiches! I've spent all my life putting them on salads, tacos, pizzas, etc., but it never occurred to me to try them on sandwiches. Well, now I know and so do you, so go get yourself a bottle of pickled peppers, skip the corned beef, and go to town.

Second, I learned why corned beef is called 'corned,' after a certain husband who shall remain nameless tried to convince me that it somehow involved actual corn. (It patently does not.) As it happens, corned beef is just a tough cut of meat similar to brisket that is marinated or rubbed with 'corns' of kosher salt to render it more flavourful and tender. So now you know, and knowing is half the battle of convincing yourself to make this sandwich.

You could pair your sandwich with this salad... but I have to warn you: I love artichokes. I love them on pizza, or with butter, sautéed or canned or fried, it doesn't matter. But I've successfully found an artichoke recipe even I am pretty meh about, and it's this salad. There's nothing inherently wrong with it... there's just also nothing right about it, and now I'm stuck with a bottle of 'French' dressing I'm never going to make it through because of this recipe. (Incidentally, I ended up with a bottle of creamy white French because the actual recipe calls for a 1:1 ratio of blue cheese dressing and red French dressing, which doesn't exist in Scotland, so I figured creamy French would do the job. It didn't.)

I do have to say, though-- swap out the weird bottled dressing for a honeyed-balsamic vinaigrette, and this salad would be just amazing. Paired for dinner, as we did, with the odd dressing combination and the only mediocre sandwich and we had a thoroughly disappointing dinner. You don't have to, though! Make yourself some homemade dressing and whip up this salad-- it's got at least two servings of veggies in it, so your body will thank you!

The verdict:

2 spoons out of five on the sandwich; 3 spoons out of five on the salad, given that you make it with better dressing than what I did. As for the sandwich, if you like corned beef, you'll love it. But if you're not sold on the need in the world for corned beef, then you might want to save your banana peppers for something more reasonable.

The recipe:

Corned Beef Sandwiches & Continental Salad

The directions:
SANDWICH:

Spread two slices of bread with mayonnaise.
Layer two slices of corned beef on each slice of bread.
Cover with a slice of cheese on each sandwich, then top with remaining bread slices.
Garnish with banana peppers.
 

 

SAlad:

Tear greens into bite-size pieces into two salad bowls.
Add artichoke hearts, sliced mushrooms, halved tomatoes, onion slices, and cucumber slices.
Toss lightly, then add cheese and drizzle with dressing.

 

the ingredients:
the sandwich:

4 slices of bread
Mayonnaise
4 slices of corned beef
2 slices provolone or emmenthal if you live in Scotland and can't find provolone anywhere
4 banana peppers

 

the salad:

2 little gems
1 can artichoke hearts
1 handful white mushrooms
1 handful grape tomatoes
½ red onion, sliced as thinly as possible
1 small cucumber
2 heaping spoonfuls blue cheese, crumbled
Dressing of your choice

'Lucky Cheesecake Number 7,' or, Thick-Crust, Airy Cheesecake

So here's the thing about all these cheesecakes: I can't get graham crackers in this country, so every single one that I've made so far has been... well, ersatz. I can't decide whether I like digestive biscuits or rich tea biscuits better as a substitute for graham crackers in these recipes, and either way, since most recipes list graham cracker crumb quantities in terms of the number of crackers from which the crumbs came ('24 graham crackers, crumbled'), it makes it difficult to even determine the quantities I should be using. This time around, I used digestive biscuits and used 15 of them instead of the recommended 30 graham crackers, and the crust was the best one I've ever made, and far thicker than any I've previously created. This could be because I was using digestives, which are super thick, or because the pan I used (from Ikea, measuring 6.75x10.5 inches) was too small for what the recipe actually wanted (all it says is 'low rectangular baking dish'), but either way, it was awesome and I recommend it. Chances are you don't have a pan with those weird measurements, but it's roughly the same as using an 8x8inch square pan, so just go with that, and use way more cookies than what seems logical, and you'll have the same delicious cookie crust as me.

Eleanor is the one on the left.

but I did discover something new about making an (admittedly ersatz) graham crust this time around: cookie crusts work so much better if you make them in a food processor. Previously, I had been grinding the biscuits in the food processor, then pouring melted butter over them and dumping them in the pie pan, hoping for the best. The problem with that method (although it was the method prescribed in most of the cheesecake recipes and also these bar cookie recipes) is that the crumbs stay very dry-- and though they come together later in the oven, spreading them evenly across the bottom and up the sides of a pan is incredibly difficult.

This recipe, though, has slightly more nebulous wording, which led me to, rightly or wrongly, add the melted butter into the food processor with the crumbs. (Alright, alright: it might also have been laziness. I had already had a negroni and it was at least 10pm on a school night when I decided to start this project, so I was trying to speed things along.) Anyway, watching it come together in the food processor was awesome, and I knew immediately I had stumbled across something great. Once it's done being mixed together, it forms sort of a paste that's completely evenly mixed, and thus super easy to press into a pie dish and up the sides of the pan. Best of all, it still comes out flaky, buttery, crumbly, and delicious after it's baked. Definitely try it next time you need a graham crust.

As always, this is a cheesecake best eaten with your friends. So make it for a party, or when there's a crisis afoot, or really anytime you're going to be hanging out with your besties. A little less impressive than a traditional springform cheesecake, it's still delicious and the stiffly-beaten egg whites give it a light, almost meringue-y texture that makes it better than the cream-cheese laden bricks that cheesecakes frequently turn into.

Note: the back of this recipe has a note scrawled in perfect penciled penmanship that reads 'wash roof Tri Sodium.' I think it's a code. Judson disagrees.

The verdict:

4 spoons out of five. Not easy enough to beat out the cheesecake that still holds my number one spot, but still tasty and with the best crust I've made in awhile.

The recipe:

Thick-Crust, Airy Cheesecake

the directions:

Preheat oven to 180C/350F.
Grind the crackers to a fine powder in the food processor or blender.
Add melted butter and continue to blend until a thick, dry paste forms.
Pour crust into dish and press against bottom and sides until of uniform thickness.
Separate eggs and whip the whites until very stiff.
Set whites aside.
Mix cottage cheese in mixer until curds are broken up.
Add salt, lemon juice, sugar, and milk.
Beat until mixture is the consistency of thick cream.
Beat reserved egg yolks slightly with a fork, then add to cheese mixture with vanilla and mix to combine.
Pour beaten whites into cheese mixture and fold together gently with a spatula or the mixer on low.
(Mixture should be close to uniform consistency, with no large lumps of egg white).
Pour into crust, sprinkle additional crumbs on top, and bake one hour or until set and golden brown.
After cake is done baking, cool slowly in open oven or on countertop to avoid falling.
Once cool, place in refrigerator to thoroughly chill.

the ingredients:

15 digestive biscuits or 12-ish graham crackers (the whole rectangular ones) plus 1 additional biscuit, ground fine, for sprinkling on top
4 oz butter, melted
3 eggs, separated
2 c cottage cheese
pinch of salt
1 tsp lemon juice
¾ c sugar
½ c milk
1 tsp vanilla

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Alpine Favourite, or Sardine Sandwiches

Eleanor was a strict Catholic. Her family emigrated from Poland not long before she was born, and as a first-generation citizen, she took the role of religion in her everyday life very seriously in the way that only a newly-minted American can. When Eleanor was on vacation, she searched out Catholic churches to attend on Sundays so that she would never miss a week of mass. In the letters that Wilbur, her husband, wrote to her during World War II, he frequently assures her that he's attending church every week so she needn't worry about his soul. When I was a kid I loved looking at the stack of funeral cards that belonged to Eleanor, and which my mom kept tucked into my grandpa's Bible, each of them with a beautiful (I thought) painting of Mary on one side and a prayer for the soul of the departed on the other. Eleanor had a saint for everything, so it should come as no surprise that my mom was in her twenties before she ever ate meat on a Friday. Lent or no, Eleanor served fish on Fridays and would sooner have eaten the paint on the walls than meat on a Friday.

I learned a new thing!

So although I can't imagine her ever going through the work that this sandwich requires for her entire family, it's possible she did. And if she did, it would have been on a Friday.

Sardines get a really bad rap, and I'm not gonna try to defend the canned ones, because tinned fish overall is a touchy subject. My mom is probably already so grossed out by this concept that she's already stopped reading, but hear me out on this one: there's a reason sardines persist in grocery stores, cartoons, and restaurant menus (at least in the UK), and it's because they're a relatively cheap but still totally delicious fish. The fact that they come in tins is sort of irrelevant, and it means you don't have to cook them, which is grand.

The weird thing is that this recipe is called 'Alpine Favourite,' when I'm pretty sure sardines live in saltwater and thus not particularly near the Alps.

Plus, I learned a new thing: how to sieve an egg yolk. It sounds like it would be simple, but since I only have one mesh strainer that's fairly large, it took a bit of getting used to. If you make this sandwich, to sieve the yolk, just hard-boil an egg until it's cooked all the way through-- no juicy yellow bit in the middle. For me, this was 8 minutes in boiling water, and then another 3 in the hot water left on the stove while I tended to other things. Peel your egg and cut it in half. Gently scoop out one yolk half at a time and place in the bottom of your strainer. Holding the strainer over the surface you want to cover in sieved egg and using the back of a spoon, press firmly but evenly on the yolk and let it sprinkle down onto the surface. Keep using smooth motions to press the entire yolk through until there is none left, then do the same thing with the other half of the yolk. Note that you can't really re-locate sieved egg once it's been sprinkled somewhere, so try to do it directly over the surface where you want it to be.

The verdict:

4 spoons out of five. The sandwich was just a little bit dry, but I'll fix that next time with a bit more mustard. Seriously, give this one a try. The flavours play off of each other beautifully, with the hard-boiled egg, mustard, and cornichon accenting the sardines just perfectly. Honestly, it reminded me of every meal I ate in Copenhagen when we were there a few years ago, and trust me, that's a good thing.

the recipe:

Alpine Favourite, or, Sardine Sandwiches

the ingredients:

2 slices bread
Spicy English Mustard
Leaf lettuce
2 slices Swiss cheese
2 cornichon pickles, sliced lengthwise
1 tin best-quality sardines
1 egg, hard-boiled

THE Directions:

Toast the bread.
Spread with mustard and lay a leaf or two of lettuce over it.
Add cheese (preferably sliced into triangles), cornichons, and 1 ½ sardines per sandwich.
Sieve the hard-boiled egg yolk over the open-faced sandwich, top with the other slice of toast, and enjoy.

Yields 2 open-faced sandwiches, perfect for dinner with a salad.