All Things Irish

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Corned Beef

Cook's notes: Look for Brussels sprouts that are on the small size and tightly closed. Make sure the leaves are fresh looking and stem ends aren't too brown or dried out. Wash Brussels sprouts before starting the recipe. Cut off the ends, pull off and discard outside leaves. Cut sprouts in half from stem to top. Roasting Brussels sprouts brings out their deep nutty flavor and the unusual pairing of corned beef adds to the savoriness of the dish. 
Recipe adapted from Food Network and serves 4.
Ingredients:

• 1 lb. petite Brussels Sprouts
• 3/4 cup deli corned beef, diced
• 1 cup red onion slices
• 1-1/2 TB. Extra Virgin Olive Oil or Blood Orange Olive Oil
• Sea salt and pepper
• 3/4 tsp. crushed coriander seeds
• 1 TB. good quality dark Balsamic vinegar 
• 1 TB. honey
• 1/2 tsp. Dijon mustard

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees and line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
• Place Brussels sprouts and red onions in a bowl. Coat with olive oil. Spread evenly on baking sheet, sprinkle with salt and pepper.
• Roast for 15 minutes. Add in diced corned beef and sprinkle with crushed coriander seeds. Stir and roast for 10 minutes more.
• Whisk vinegar, honey and mustard, drizzle over roasted sprouts.

Seamus Justin Heaney, MRIA was an Irish poet, playwright, translator and lecturer, and the recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Seamus Heaney's poem, "Digging," has a central theme which presents an analogy comparing the poet's pen to the spade of his father and grandfather. Love the metaphor in this poem.
Digging

by Seamus Heaney

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner’s bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.

Seamus Heaney, "Digging" from Death of a Naturalist. Copyright 1966 by Seamus Heaney. Reprinted with the permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC.