Normally when I make corned beef & cabbage I just throw away the stock. But that seems wasteful. So after removing the meat and cabbage from the pot, I saved the stock. How can I use it?
I thought about soup, of course. But what kind of soup can one make with the seasonings that are in corned beef and cabbage? Something doesn’t seem quite right. And I thought of using it to cook rice, instead of using water or chicken stock. But that seems a bit limited too.
It would be pretty fatty. I suppose you could use it to make pea soup since ham and pea soup is kind of a given. But I’d chill it and skim off all the fat, first.
Also strikes me as way too salty. I guess that you could boil potatoes in it…
Cabbage soup? Throw in some root vegetables if you want to absorb some of the saltiness, rutabaga works good if you want to keep some firmer texture, along with the carrots and potatoes, etc.
In the corned beef thread from 2 years ago, MikeG suggested making split pea soup from the stock. I’ve been doing that ever since. It is truly fantastic. You can always cut it with some plain water if you think it might be too salty.
Since we always include potatoes (and carrots) in our corned beef and cabbage boil, the stock makes a nice sauce to put on the potatoes, once mashed on our plates.
Though I’ve never tried it, I would assume it would also make a good base for borscht.
I usually boil up more potatoes, carrots, and cabbage in the stock. Very tasty. I imagine that I could use the stock for beans, too. I’ll have to try that.
I made split pea soup with the stock. It’s rather salty, but not inedibly so.
You can always whip up another batch of split pea soup, without salt, and combine the two to tweak the salt levels. Split pea soup freezes dreamily, by the way, if this seems like way too much split pea soup for yourself.