Traditional Irish Dinner Night Before Prep

This is the prep I do the night before, just so that tomorrow will be easier. You can of course do all of this tomorrow AM, it isnt necessary to do this before hand.



Peel and cut up your carrots, I keep mine in sticks, pennies tend to get done too quickly. I also stick up my celery. You can keep them in Tupperware over night with water over them or you can go ahead and add them to your stock pot.


I have the carrots on the bottom, then the celery, then I did up a mess of the potatoes. My potatoes are just quartered. IF you have the pans available you could do your potatoes separately (I like to do little red ones like this ) and peel only a circle around them. It makes for a pretty presentation. But I am not getting overly fancy this year, so white quartered is fine.



I then cut up my onion and my cabbage. These I WILL NOT add to my stock pot tonight, I do keep my cabbage covered in water (the air will make it turn black on the cuts) and everything will soak up the taste of the onion if I let them soak all night in the stock pot. Michelle doesn't like boiled cabbage, and she says the taste permeates everything so I cook our cabbage separately. Thus why the potatoes get boiled with the carrots and celery. But if you want to you can cook your cabbage in with your carrots and celery even your potatoes. When you start to boil your stock pot, don't forget to add that onion!

Make certain you refrigerate your vegetables overnight!



This is my mustard sauce that we use for a "meat sauce" here is my recipe.

• 4 tab yellow mustard
• 2 tab brown mustard
• 2 tab horseradish
• 2 tab honey
• 1/2 cup Mayo

You may have to "dicker" with it due to your personal taste. If the brown mustard you use has a heavy horseradish taste you might want to cut down on the horseradish, or if you want it sweeter add a touch more honey. With us this is really a taste it till you like it. Mine is a bit on the runny side, I like it that way.


This is my brisket, Just so you know, if you haven't picked it up yet, there should still be some at the store.

This is the bottom side of it, I bought a large one because i never know who is going to be here for this dinner, ( I always cook enough for an army) As you can see its about as big as the bottom of my 6 quart crock pot. Its a 4.5lb brisket.

Tomorrow AM what I will do is, open my brisket, put it and its seasoning packet into my crock pot. add a pint of water and set it to high for two hours, then I will turn it down to med for the duration. If I were working, I would just have it on MED all day. and depending on what time I actually drag it out in the am I might do that anyhow.

After I get that done I will get my soda bread made, and by 4 PM I will start boiling my stock pot. Since its deep it will take a bit longer than just my cabbage, that I wont start until 4:30.

Your corned beef should nearly fall apart coming out of the crock pot. I once followed the directions on the package and boiled it. wow... no... very bad. chewy stringy, nearly never made it again. Mom taught me the only way is my crock pot and everyone loves it now.

This will make for a great traditional Irish dinner. I hope you will join me in it!