In Newport, RI the town I grew up in, the St. Patrick's parade day is a major holiday steeped in traditions that goes back 64yrs. Their large parade goes on rain, snow or shine and draws participants from near and far. This was the first year in the parade's history that it was forced to cancel.
On parade day, the Irish Fifth Ward is a bustle. Extended families gather like the generations before them with their family name proudly displayed to honor their heritage. The local college students fill in this end of the parade route as well and it gets pretty wild early in the day. Downtown along the upper part of the parade route streets are lined early with locals and out of towners who flood the city to enjoy the festivities. The party doesn't end when the parade wraps up, many visit various establishments for drinks and food for the remainder of the day, and the party rages on. I'm sure I have some Irish somewhere in my family tree but on this day it doesn't matter, everyone in Newport take on some Irish heritage by association.
One of the many Irish bagpipe bands that help set the mood!
I've marched in a few parades when I was younger with the high school band or other groups I was in at the time. After high school I moved away for a while. There were parades in other places that I lived but none had the same feeling as the Newport parade.
I participated marching with the high school band
After getting married and deciding to start a family my husband and I move back to Newport. One of the many things I was excited to share with my kids was parade day. As you can see from the pictures below we always had fun, they got dressed up and were thrilled to meet up with friends to watch all the excitement.
Along with watching the parade I usually cook a traditional corned beef and cabbage meal. As a kid we'd do this traditional type meal once a year around St. Patrick's day, it was boiled and in my opinion it was mushy and not the most flavorful.
(Stock google image of a traditional boiled corned beef and cabbage dinner)
As an adult, cooking is one of the things I love to do for fun. As I've honed in my cooking skills I've gone from making the traditional boiled dinner to one that is mainly roasted. This keeps things crisp and flavor packed. It might not be traditional but it's delicious! Below are images of this years dinner plated up and the Irish soda bread that I made. I've done lots of recipe searching and testing, and altering over the years and this was the first year that all aspects of my meal were on point. I'd love to share with you what I did to pull this meal together.
I started this year by making Irish Soda, this recipe comes straight from Ina Garten no need to reinvent a great recipe! I will tell you that the currants I had on hand were too old to use so instead of making an extra trip to the store, I took raisins I had on hand and cut them in half to make them more the size of a currant, this worked well.
My friend Tami over at Newport Sea Salt made Ina's Irish soda bread as well and created her own whipped Irish butter with sea salt an orange zest to top it with. I cheated a bit on the butter and just buttered my bread and sprinkled it with their sea salt and zested some orange zest on top and it was delicious.
With my bread made, I turned my attention to the corned beef, as this would require the most time to cook. I love my Instant Pot so I decided a few days before that I would use it to cook the corned beef. I watched numerous videos and read through a bunch of recipes. I ended up using a recipe posted by Easy Instant Pot Fun I chose a flat cut corned beef from my local grocery store, a Guinness stout beer to help enhance the flavor and followed the reset of the instructions in the video exactly. It took about 10min for my Instant Pot to come up to temperature, 75min cooking and about another 30min for the natural pressure to release on it's own. The whole process took just over two hours from prep to finished. The roast came out fork tender and was moist and flavorful. In the past I had used a crock pot which takes 8-10hrs. My Instant Pot will be my go to method for making this going forward.
While the corned beef cooked I began prepping the roast potatoes. I set the oven to pre-heat at 500º. I took 2 pounds of Yukon gold potatoes washed and peeled them and cut them into 1" disks and placed them in a bowl. In a separate small bowl I combined 3tsp of Newport Sea Salt Rosemary and Thyme salt (if you don't have their salt you can mix together 1tsp of chopped rosemary, 2tsp of chopped thyme and 3/4 tsp salt), 2 tablespoons of butter, melted and 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Once mixed I poured it over the potatoes in the bowl and tossed them with my hands to combine. I transferred them to a metal baking sheet and tossed them in the pre-heated oven. Set the timer for 15 mins, then flip and bake for 15 mins more. The potatoes turned out nice and crispy on the outside and fork tender on the inside.
While the potatoes started roasting I quickly prepped the cabbage to roast at 500º as well. I only used half a head of a large cabbage because I didn't think the cabbage would be a big hit with my kids. To my surprise my daughter loved it! I removed a few outer leaves, then cut the cabbage into 1/2" slices and placed them on a well oiled baking sheet. Drizzle a generous amount of olive oil on the top of each cabbage slice, sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper and chopped fresh garlic. Then sprinkle with red pepper flakes to your taste. Place them in the oven below the potatoes and roast 12 mins then flip and roast 12 mins more.
While the potatoes and cabbage roast it's time to prepare the carrots on the stove top. I used 5 large carrots, peeled them, cut them in half, I cut the small end in half one more time and the fat end I cut
into quarters. In a large frying pan, I melted 2 tablespoons of olive oil and 1 tablespoon of butter over medium high heat. Add the carrots and toss to coat in the oil/butter mixture. Cook tossing occasionally for 7mins. Add 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and season with salt and pepper to taste and toss to combine. Continue cooking for about 3-5 minutes while the brown sugar glaze caramelizes and reduces.
Now that everything has completed it's time to plate it all up!
This mainly roasted corned beef and cabbage meal was delicious, full of flavor and a hit with my family. This version will be on the menu again next St. Patrick's day. In the mean time I'll enjoy adding these roast vegetables to some of my regular weeknight meals.
Hope you have a wonderful St. Patrick's Day tomorrow!
