Easter Ham (easiest ever)

 

It's Easter next weekend. Time for another family meal. You better have a Costco membership card in your wallet...otherwise you will miss out on one of the greatest epicurean delights known to modern man. Kirkland Ham. Bone-in and spiral sliced. Pre-cooked. Hickory smoked. I'm here to tell you it is the greatest ham you will ever taste.

Not only is the taste of this ham astounding, the price will absolutely blow you away. It's just $3.29 a pound. Cheaper than ground beef. Cheaper than wieners. Cheaper than that 47-week supply of Kirkland toilet paper. You've gotta be plum crazy not to take advantage of this. The world's greatest ham at the world's greatest price.

The ham also comes with a package of glaze. My advice.....throw the glaze away the minute you get home. The pit master has put the absolutely perfect amount of hickory smoke in this ham. The glaze is over-the-top sweet and detracts from hickory greatness. Plain ham and Becky's cheesy potatoes for my Easter dinner, please.

So let's tick off the boxes. World's best tasting ham. World's cheapest ham. And now for the trifecta...world's easiest ham recipe! 

Ingredients
One Kirkland spiral sliced ham (7-10 pounds)
Aluminum foil
1 cup water


Directions

1. Remove ham from store packaging and wrap tightly in aluminum foil.
2. Add water to bottom of slow cooker, then add ham and cover.
3. Turn slow cooker to low and cook for 8 hours. When done, remove foil and serve.

Wine pairing: Zinfandel

Slow Cooker Corned Beef

 

 

Beef. It's what's for supper.

Actually, it's corned beef and it's what's for St. Patrick's Day supper.

My Irish relatives created corned beef back in the Middle Ages. They used brisket to make it as it was a relatively unloved cut of beef (because it required hours of braising to become tender). Unloved also equated to low cost.

There was a shortage of electric refrigerators in Ireland during the Middle Ages, so they would brine the brisket in a bucket  of water, spices and salt nuggets known as "corns". This served to preserve the beef  so that it could be cooked at a later time without risk of spoiling.

When the Irish began migrating to America, they brought the recipe with them...and it became to be associated with St. Patrick's Day. And the popularity of corned beef grew across the land. In fact, on March 4, 1861, corned beef was the entree for Abraham Lincoln's Inauguration Dinner in Washington D.C.

This is my very favorite corned beef recipe. While it calls for a 10-hour cook, it will only take up 6 minutes of your time. The first 5 minutes of the time commitment requires you to simply dump all of the ingredients in your slow cooker and walk away. The last 1 minute is reserved for simply slicing and serving the corned beef. I guarantee you it will be one of the best St. Patrick's Day corned beef briskets you have ever tasted.


INGREDIENTS
1 corned beef brisket, 3-4 pounds
2 medium onions, cut into quarters (no peeling required)
5 ribs celery, cut into chunks
1 tablespoon prepared stone ground mustard 
2 cups chicken stock
12-ounces of beer (lager or pilsner)



DIRECTIONS

1. Place onions and celery on the bottom of your slow cooker. Add stock, beer and mustard.
2. Set brisket on top of onions and celery, fat-side up. Sprinkle meat with seasoning packet (which comes packed in your brisket). Put lid on slow cooker and cook on low for 10 hours.
3. Remove brisket. Slice and serve.

Pairing: You knew this

Vietnamese Garlic Noodles

 

This dish was created by J. Kenji López-Alt and was a featured entree at the Thanh Long restaurant in San Francisco. You can never go wrong with a meal when spaghetti noodles are the main attraction. While the noodles are glorious all by themselves, you can crank it up a level by adding a fried egg. But the flavors really shine with shellfish....so I'd select shrimp, crab or lobster meat for an absolute crowning touch.

INGREDIENTS

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

20 garlic cloves, minced, pressed or smashed in a mortar and pestle

4 teaspoons oyster sauce

2 teaspoons soy sauce

2 teaspoons fish sauce

16 ounces of dried spaghetti

1/4 cup grated Parmesan 

DIRECTIONS

1. Melt the butter in a wok or saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant but not browned, about 2 minutes. Add the oyster sauce, soy sauce and fish sauce, and stir to combine. Remove from the heat.
2. Meanwhile, bring 1-½ inches of water to a boil in a 12-​inch skillet or sauté pan over high heat. Add the pasta, stir a few times to make sure it’s not clumping and cook, stirring occasionally, until just shy of al dente (about 2 minutes short of the recommended cook time on the package).
3. Using tongs, transfer the cooked pasta to the garlic sauce, along with whatever water clings to it. (Reserve the pasta water in the skillet.) Increase the heat to high, add the cheese to the wok and stir with a wooden spatula or spoon and toss vigorously until the sauce is creamy and emulsified, about 30 seconds. If the sauce looks too watery, let it keep reducing. If it looks greasy, splash some more pasta water into it and let it re-​emulsify. Serve immediately.

Wine Pairing: Syrah or an oaky Chardonnay