My parents are coming to visit me. They’re due in tomorrow, which puts a damper on the usual St. Patrick’s day festivities - ie, we go out, drink Guinness, and party.
In order to create a festive atmosphere at home, I think I’m going to attempt to cook up some corned beef and cabbage. Problem is, I have no clue how. And the only recipe that I have for it calls for me to corn my own beef, a good idea, but I don’t have 5 days to wait for it.
It’s beef brisket, so you cook it in liquid (broth or water) pretty much like a potroast. I think it is usual to put potatoes and carrots, and maybe onions in with the meat, too. I think some people may cook the cabbage with the meat, but I’ve always had it cooked separately. Not my favorite meal, but the leftovers make pretty tasty sandwiches.
Put pickling spice and a can or two of beer in with the cooking water. It’s the best that way.
Your basic corned beef and cabbage is simple: take four pounds of corned beef, put in cold water to cover, and simmer for three hours. Add one large head of cabbage, cut into eighths, and continue to cook until tender. This serves eight.
Now, this is your basic “We’re too poor to afford anything else, and can only afford the corned beef once a year” type of cooking. Assuming that you have a bit more in the budget, you can also add six of each of carrots, onions, and turnips (the real turnips, which are small white vegetables with purple on the peel, not those massive yellow things, which are rutabagas), and eight potatoes and beets. Cook the beets separately in boiling water (otherwise everything will be beet-colored); add the other vegetables directly to the meat pot, cutting the turnips into quarters first, cooking them until (you guess it) tender.
If you really want to go hog-wild on the seasoning, you can add a little black pepper, a couple teaspoons of salt, and even half a green bell pepper, although the corned taste of the meat is strong enough that it doesn’t need enhancement for those who like it, and can’t be hidden for those who don’t.
“I don’t just want you to feel envy. I want you to suffer, I want you to bleed, I want you to die a little bit each day. And I want you to thank me for it.” – What “Let’s just be friends” really means
Yuck. Why not do a nice leg of lamb instead? That’s pretty Irish.
With colcannon on the side!
My boyfriend makes a great corned beef, so I’ll post his method here.
Buy a corned beef at the supermarket (Mose is good, Nathan’s is okay, or ask your supermarket butcher for recommendations). They usually keep the corned beef near other things liked smoked hams.
Put the corned beef in a large pot, top it with sufficient water to cover it, add the spices that came with the corned beef to the water. (You can add a palmful of pickling spice if there was none included.) Bring to a gentle boil, and leave it that way, covered, for at least 4-5 hours (longer, if you have the time & the beef needs it). Add some water to the pot as needed to keep the beef covered.
I know it sounds nuts to boil a piece of meat for that long, but corned beef honestly benefits from such treatment - the result is an incredibly tender, melt-on-your-tongue dish that is far superior to corned beefs cooked for less time (which often wind up tasting tough & stringy).
As for the cabbage - do that separately, starting about 20-30 min. before you’re ready to serve the meat.
Good luck!
Hijack! I was thinking of making some soda bread for tomorrow evening. The thing is, I would like to make it so that it’s warm out of the oven, and the recipes I see say “1 hour preparation time.” I’ve never made bread from scratch before. How much of the work can be done in advance? Can the dough sit in the refrigerator overnight?
All right, anyone done corned beef in a crockpot? I rarely make oven pot roasts any longer, as my crockpot does a wonderful job. I don’t make corned beef very often, because I’m the only one here who likes it, but I might try cooking a large one and freezing it.
Lynn
I used to fix corned beef and cabbage fairly often – I don’t recall the brand of the beef, but it was almost always too salty.
Maybe it’s sacrilege, but I got in the habit of changing the cooking water halfway through cooking to cut down on the saltiness.
If you need to watch your salt intake, might be a good idea to do this.
I think that most soda breads rely on baking powder for leavening. Breads that use baking powder for leavening are called “quick breads.”
Most baking powder sold these days is “double acting,” meaning that it has two phases–the first, when it comes into contact with the wet ingredients, and the second when it hits the heat of the oven.
The problem with making quick breads in advance is that when the baking powder comes into contact with the wet ingredients, it starts to work immediately. It causes a chemical reaction that creates bubbles in the batter, leavening it.
The completed batter should not sit too long before going into the oven, or else the baking powder will lose its first fizz, so to speak, and you’ll have yucky bread.
Therefore, you can not make the completed batter in advance. BUT–here is the shortcut:
Combine the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, etc.) in a bowl. Combine the wet ingredients in another bowl. Refrigerate as needed. Combine the dry and the wet at the last minute, and put it in the oven. Voila!
If you want to post your recipe, I can make some more specific recommendations.
Good luck.
I’ve already got my crockpot ready to go tommorrow morning. I’ve found that with corned beef it needs to cook at least 8 hours on low to be tender and stringy. Yum!!!
I have great faith in fools, self-confidence my friends call it.—
Edgar Allan Poe
It’s on a Friday. During Lent. Don’t talk to me about corned beef and cabbage.
The trouble with Sir Launcelot is by the time he comes riding up, you’ve already married King Arthur.
agisofia, you can have corned FISH and cabbage! Yeah, that’s it! Take a haddock and boil it for four hours . . . .
I don’t know about the corned beef, but the way to cook cabbage is with all the doors and windows open.
Jodi
Fiat Justitia
I don’t know about the rest of you but here in Chicagoland we Irish-Catholic have a special dispensation (I think that’s the word)I’ve read about it somewhere, and my mother confirmed it. That’s good enough for me!
I have great faith in fools, self-confidence my friends call it.—
Edgar Allan Poe
Here in NY, Cardinal O’Connor was
gracious enough to grant us
dispensation as well. Hooray!
Corned beef for everyone, on me! 
Well if Agisofia’s parish has been granted special dispensation…
Anyway we usually only boil the cabbage until done, usually the last ten minutes or so. It also seems to keep the bright green color better.
What’s stinkier than cooking cabbage, is when farmers till under the remains of the cabbage plants into the soil. I’ve driven by a field where the cabbage remains were plowed under and it smelled like a thousand people farted simultaneously…
Now that I have grossed you all out, i shall mosey on to bed…
“I must leave this planet, if only for an hour.” – Antoine de St. Exupéry
Are you a turtle?