This Ain’t Your Mom’s Corned Beef and Cabbage

That’s right, fellas. It’s my mom’s corned beef and cabbage.

And it’s in a stromboli!

You’ve got to trust me when I say if you make this stromboli, you will never look at corned beef and cabbage the same way again. It is ridiculously easy to make, and it is the most wonderful combination. The secret is slowly simmering the cabbage in butter at a low heat, as opposed to just boiling it. That, and of course rolling the ingredients in deliciously fresh dough, which melds the flavors and creates a gooey, comforting, slightly salty and savory ode to Ireland and Italy together!

I realize we are a holiday behind on this here blog (Happy Easter!), but I must insist that this stromboli can and should be eaten and enjoyed throughout the year. Trust me on this.

Mom’s Corned Beef and Cabbage Stromboli:

Yields three stromboli loaves (they freeze very well)

3 lb. Corned Beef Brisket, flat cut
1 head of cabbage
Pizza dough (we used 3 Trader Joe’s pizza dough balls, in traditional white)
4 tablespoons butter
1 egg white
1 teaspoon poppy seeds
1 teaspoon roasted garlic
½ teaspoon sea salt

Boil the brisket in a large pot of water, making sure to keep the pot full (this helps rid the brisket of unnecessary salt content). For a tender brisket, boil around 3 hours. (It is normal for the brisket to reduce in size over this time period).
Thinly shred 1 head of cabbage. A mandolin is preferable, but you can also use a chopping knife. You’ll find that one head yields a whole lotta cabbage—we needed two pans to cook it all. Here’s a picture of one of the pans, after the cabbage has been simmering for about 30 minutes. Take care to use low, low heat, so that the cabbage doesn’t brown, it just glistens and softens (we used about 2 tablespoons of butter for each pan, and a little salt and pepper to taste).
When your brisket is tender, slice it thinly (removing any of the gristle), cutting against the grain. Place it on a rolled out Trader Joe’s pizza dough.

Put about 1 cup of cooked cabbage over the brisket.
Roll the dough into a stromboli (Never mind those cheese shreddings you see in the photo—we added it to one of our loaves, but it didn’t really add to the taste).
Fold in the ends, so it looks like so:
Place the stromboli on a baking sheet (we lined ours with cornmeal—flour works well, too) so that the folds are on the bottom of the sheet (this prevents the dough from opening in the oven). Cut a few openings up top too, so your stromboli doesn’t explode while it is baking.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, and repeat the steps above to make two more loaves.

Next, whisk an egg white in a small bowl. In a separate bowl, combine the poppy seeds, garlic and sea salt.
Brush all three loaves with egg wash (the loaf below looks different and slightly specked, because we were experimenting with a garlic-herb dough):

Sprinkle on the poppy seed mixture.
Place the loaves in oven for roughly 30 minutes.

And my, my—just look at what you’ve created! Here’s a picture of two of our finished loaves. The one on the right was for my uncle. His job does random drug screenings and he wasn’t taking any chances with those poppy seeds, so we left them off of his.
Slice open, and serve with mustard.
Enjoy! All year round.