…eggs for breakfast!

So here I am with some exciting news, but first: this beef brisket is delicious. Just over a week ago, I bought a 3.5 kg beef brisket. I actually had to cut it in two, chiefly because I didn’t have any container big enough to fit the whole thing in and let’s just assume I only ever had 1.75kg. I then brined it for a week and cooked for a few hours. The whole process went a little something like this.

I prepared some brine in which I put in fresh thyme, one anis star, 500 g demerara sugar, more or less 1.5 kg of sea salt, 4 cloves, 4 bay leaves, 1 tea spoon of ground white peppercorns, covered with 4.5 litres of water. After boiling this concoction for about 5 minutes, I let it cool down and submerged the beef brisket in it. I used a brick wrapped in two plastic bags to push the beef down as it wanted to float in the salty water.

Left is the one in water, right is still in brine

After 6 days in the Fridge I drained the brine away and soaked the beef in fresh water for a further 24 hours. After the 24 hours, I removed the beef and rinsed it well, and it then looked like this.

Before cooking

I chopped up 2 carrots, 1 onion (not peeled, just cut in 4 wedges !), 2 celery stalks, 1 leek, 2 garlic cloves, some parsley and some fresh thyme to the bottom of a large sauce pan, placed the beef on top and filled with water so that half the beef was covered. I brought this to boil and then let simmer for 2 1/2 hours.

After cooking !

And presto ! Serve with mash… It’s delicious.

In other, much more important news: I got a job at Google and will be moving to Dublin on 12th April.

I think this is very exciting, potentially even a ‘little bit’ more exciting than a week-long beef-brining project. Google is one the big three in IT and it’s really the place to be to working now in the industry. I obviously don’t know yet too much about what the work entails, but I will be working with AdSense-customers in UK and Finland…So here I go, bye bye Birmingham….hello Dublin!

I have a sort of a sore throat.

I think I will get schwine flu.

And this has nothing to do with anything, but I suddenly have a terrible urge to write my will. A testament. Something, that my relatives will want to honour as my last dying wish. A sort of an epilogue of my life, a testament to my achievements and a celebration of giving and sharing. A last act of kindness, charity and love to those continuing their lives here on earth.

Here it comes. Tommi can have the Xbox. Vilkku can have iPhone.

In other not-news: Kentucky Fried Chickën.

About three years ago I went to KFC. It was a horrible and disgusting experience. However, today after a series of co-incidences and random events, I decided to go back and in a rather Samaritan way, give peace a chance.

It truly takes and idiot to never change their mind and now I can proudly say that I was wrong. They don’t serve disgusting and horrible food. They serve a shamelessly disgraceful abomination of anything ever intended to enter your mouth and spit acid in your eye as they prepare your self-inflicted torture mechanisms in a meat lump formerly known as Chicken.

I ate this much salt in a mouthful. (I realise you can’t see the gesture, but trust me, it is grandiose).

I might need that will in the end not because of getting hit by a blind bus driver or dying of some flu (which is, albeit sad, a fairly pathetic death, especially with the swine-prefix). I will need it because otherwise Tommi might take the iPhone and Vilkku keep the xBox…and we don’t want that now do we.