Category Archives: Beef

Last year, we had a St. Patrick’s Day bash at our condo. My favorite part about throwing parties is creating a menu. There’s nothing more traditional in this part of the country than corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick’s Day. I wanted to include it on the menu, but I had to think of a way to make it portable and easy to eat at a party.

The solution: I created this recipe that stuffs the usual corned beef and cabbage dinner ingredients into a calzone — with a delcious tangy, mustard dressing. Everyone seemed to really enjoy these calzones.

They are a bit of work, but if you’re only going to make them once a year or for a party, they are well worth it. And you can actually do a lot of the prep work ahead of time*.

Corned Beef and Cabbage Calzones

2 lbs. of your favorite pizza dough (I’m partial to this recipe — or you can get it at your grocery store.)
1/2 head cabbage, shredded
3 large carrots, medium dice
3 medium red bliss potatoes, medium dice
2 lbs. corned beef, cooked and medium dice
1 medium onion, minced
3 tbsp. olive oil
1/3 cup cider vinegar
1/3 cup grainy mustard with horseradish
1 tsp. garlic powder
Salt & pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

All of my veggies chopped and ready to go.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a rapid boil. Add shredded cabbage. Cook for 1-2 minutes or until cabbage is cooked but still al dente. Drain and rinse with cold water until cabbage is cooled. Dry in a salad spinner or between paper towels. Set aside.

Put the carrots and potatoes in a medium pot. Cover with water (about an inch over the vegetables) and bring to a boil. Cook until fork tender. Make sure that when you dice the carrots and the potatoes, you keep them even in shape so that they cook at the same time. Drain and set aside.

In a large pan, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring often, until the onions are soft, but not browned — about 10 minutes. Add the diced corned beef (should be roughly the same size as the carrots and potato) and cook another 2-3 minutes.

Add cider vinegar, mustard, garlic powder, salt and pepper (to taste). Stir and toss in the cabbage and coat with the dressing. Add the carrots and the potatoes and stir to coat with the dressing. Turn off the heat and set aside.

Divide your dough into 10 equal portions**. Roll into balls and allow to rest about 10 minutes.

To assemble the calzones, flatten a pizza dough ball into about a 6-inch round (the dough should be about 1/4 inch thick). Fill with a healthy 1/2 cup of the corned beef filling. Fold the dough over to create a half-moon shape. Crimp the edges of the dough to close the calzone. Repeat for the rest of the dough balls.

Transfer to a baking sheet (or better yet, a pizza stone you have warming up in the pre-heated oven.) Bake for 12-15 minutes or until the calzones are GBD (golden brown and delcious!)

Enjoy with a Guiness, Harp, or Magners!

* You could create the filling ahead of time and store it in the fridge until you’re ready to stuff your calzones — will probably last a couple of days in the fridge.

** Play around with this recipe. For a party, you could make mini-calzones to feed more people! You’d just need to divide your dough into smaller portions and put less of the corned beef mixture into each calzone.