1. When your family has a, shall we say . . . stormy . . . relationship with alcohol, a day devoted, from what I can tell, to getting as drunk as is humanly possible whether you are Irish or not really just seems stupid, irresponsible, and tasteless.
2. Marty Walsh and Bill de Blasio had it right when they boycotted the Boston and New York parades. I find it difficult to get behind, or even tolerate, organisations that refuse entry to gay people. Or, really, who refuse entry to "a people" of any kind based on religious/ethnic/demographic identity.
3. Putting on a plastic shamrock necklace and a green shirt that says "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" does not make you Irish. What makes you Irish, and anyone who is knows this is the truth, is a love of potatoes, clinically extreme sentimentality, a love of arguing with anything that moves, and a complete inability to forget and/or forgive a slight against you for the rest of time.
OH and this:
But since you can listen to The Pogues any day of the year (and believe me I do), and taking the above into consideration, we decided a while back that March 17th would be just that. March 17th. And so far, so much better.
HOWEVER.
It is difficult to ignore the onslaught of Irish-themed recipe slideshows, which, even if you are not celebrating, are very fun. And once you flick through the corned beef and green cupcakes (???), you are normally left with a lot of yummy, warm, dinners that feature cabbage.
Specifically, you are left with a Cabbage and Onion Torta from Melissa Clark at The New York Times.
I like cabbage.
MARCH 17TH "HEY LET'S HAVE CABBAGE FOR DINNER" CABBAGE AND ONION PIE
So let's just get the first point out of the way:
Who had a Cabbage Patch doll? I did. Her name was (IS) Emily, and she lives upstairs in the playroom. All of this came full circle on Saturday night when I sliced this baby up. CABBAGE PATCH. I GET IT NOW.
The other fun thing about cooking with cabbage at this time of year is that cabbage was on sale at the market for 39 cents a pound. So. I got a really big one. It cooked up into an absolutely ridiculous amount of cabbage, so I'm freezing half, to be used in something in future. Stay tuned. God bless freezable tupperware, you guys, FOR REAL.
BEETLE NOTES
Obviously a few Beetle substitutions were made (when are there not?). Shockingly, I did not opt for the corned beef version. I did Navy Beans instead for protein and colour-matching which is very important just ask Michel Roux Jr on MasterChef Professionals, used Cheddar instead of Fontina because Fontina = ???, and Wheat Germ instead of bread crumbs to make the taste slightly nuttier and to add the nutritional bonus iron and folic acid. Rah, healthy!
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| Wheat Germ sauteed with thyme and olive oil |
I've been reading through the comments section of the online version of this trying to see if anyone had the same crust issues I had. So far, no. So far, I'm the only one who managed to create a crust that could double as a snowshoe / flotation device / skateboard.
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| The offending flour mix |
For this, I know, I have only myself to blame. Myself and my scraptastical Beetle tendencies. The crust calls for 4 cups of white flour and 1/2 of whole wheat flour. I used 2 cups white and 2 1/2 cups rye flour.
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| Deceptively pliable dough |
This may have been (ok probably almost certainly was) the issue. It came together perfectly, kneaded, chilled, rolled out, baked, no problem. It was only when it came time to BITE INTO IT that the issues made themselves known.
It had, shall we say, gone to 11 on the crispy scale.
I think that overdoing the rye flour plus (MASSIVE FAIL) leaving it in the oven for a bit too long were to blame. By which I mean, I AM TO BLAME.
[horns brush the ground in abasement]
That being said, the entire thing was still golden when it came out, not burnt-looking or anything. And I know I didn't make it too thick. I think it does all come back to the flour ratio, and why, once and for all, I need to realise that switching out rye or spelt or whole wheat instead of white flour DOES NOT ALWAYS WORK AND MAKE IT BETTER. And what's the point of making healthy food if you need a crown replacement afterwards. Also what's the point of making food at all if you're going to faff about and leaf it in the oven when you know damn well it should be out by now.
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| This is me not making it too thick. |
I am being slightly hyperbolic, of course. What ended up happening, dining-wise, was the use of the crust as a spoon. Kind of like an enormous pita chip. Or a really extra-super-crunchy-crust pizza. When I do this crust again (the taste, apparently, is spot on, and would be appreciated in other uses in future), I will (sigh) make it with predominantly white flour, and hope that that solves the problem. I will say that the second and third nights were better, as the cabbage and cheese and beans and onions had had time to soften it up from the inside.
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| Just think of it like one big, healthy, delicious, Trojan Horse. |
I treated this like an enormous pie. Which duh it's a Torta which obviously means pie so WHATEVER.
The layers were as follows:
Crust
Wheat Germ
Cabbage
Beans
Cheese
Cabbage
Wheat Germ
Crust
Possibly because of my flour-induced problems, the oh-so-pretty slits in top crust that Melissa Clark was able to achieve in her New York Times kitchen did, um, not happen. What happened was that I pretended that the ragged, yawning tears in my top crust were in fact deliberate, artistic, avant garde openings, and hoped that the others I slashed in the same fashion would somehow complete the illusion.
Luckily, one of the deals of motherhood is that you have to love your daughter even when she makes a really ugly, pathetic, been-through-the-mangler-one-too-many-times crust.
You also have to love your daughter when she negotiates (or maybe unwittingly promises her hand in marriage? that might have happened?) with the cell phone store and gets you a Galaxy S4 six months before your upgrade date, plus a cheaper plan, plus programmes the whole thing for you so that, theoretically, you know how to work it
Emphasis on theoretically.
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