RECIPE: Second year that used Cook's Country REC: for Corned Beef &Cabbage. It takes a long time

RECIPE:

charlie

Well-known member
time (41/2 -5 hrs) in the oven, but with no effort, no having to check water level, etc.

The beef comes out wonderfully tender, but not falling apart; less salty than usual (my guess is that putting it in cool liquid and having the oven temp so low, gently poaches the roast and leaches out excess salt. By adding a lump of butter before adding the veggies makes them taste rich and wonderful.

Corned Beef and Cabbage

Recipe By: CooksCountry.com

Yield: Serves 6 to 8

Summary:

Why this recipe works:

Corned beef and cabbage makes its way to the dinner table (in this country, anyway) but once a year in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, and maybe for good reason. This meat can be unbearably salty, dry, and rubbery. And when cooked with the stale spice packet that often gets packaged with the meat, it’s flavorless at best. The accompanying vegetables are usually mushy, greasy, and monotone in flavor. To solve the dry, stringy meat texture, we got rid of the typical stovetop simmer and moved a covered pot into a low-temperature oven for gentler cooking. To help flavor the meat, we replaced some of the water with chicken broth and added celery, carrot, and onion, along with peppercorns, allspice, a bay leaf, and thyme, to the cooking liquid. For the cabbage, carrots, and potatoes typically served with the corned beef, we strained and defatted the cooking liquid and then cooked the vegetables in stages––potatoes first, then carrots and cabbage. A little butter added to the pot helped flavor the vegetables.

Ingredients:

1 (4- to 5-pound) corned beef brisket roast, rinsed, fat trimmed to 1/4 inch thick

4 cups low-sodium chicken broth

4 cups water

12 carrots, peeled (3 chopped, 9 halved crosswise)

2 celery ribs, chopped

1 onion, peeled and quartered

3 bay leaves

1 tablespoon whole black peppercorns

1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme

1 teaspoon whole allspice

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 1/2 lbs. small red potatoes

1 head green cabbage (2 pounds), cut into 8 (2-inch) wedges

Pepper

Directions:

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 300 degrees. Combine beef, broth, water, chopped carrots, celery, onion, bay leaves, peppercorns, thyme, and allspice in Dutch oven. Cover and bake until fork slips easily in and out of meat, 4½ to 5 hours.

2. Transfer meat to 13 by 9-inch baking dish. Strain cooking liquid through fine-mesh strainer into large bowl, discard solids, and skim fat from liquid. Pour 1 cup cooking liquid over meat. Cover dish tightly with aluminum foil and let rest for 30 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, return remaining cooking liquid to Dutch oven, add butter, and bring to simmer over medium-high heat. Add potatoes and simmer until they begin to soften, about 10 minutes. Add carrot halves and cabbage, cover, and cook until tender, 10 to 15 minutes. Transfer vegetables to serving platter and season with pepper to taste. (Reserve cooking liquid for making Creamed Chipped Beef using leftover corned beef; recipe at right.)

4. Transfer beef to carving board and slice against grain into ¼-inch-thick slices. Serve with vegetables.

Notes:

Use flat-cut corned beef brisket, not point-cut; it’s more uniform in shape and thus will cook more evenly. When slicing the cabbage, leave the core intact or the cabbage will fall apart during cooking.

TO MAKE AHEAD: Prepare corned beef through step 2. Refrigerate moistened beef and cooking liquid separately for up to 24 hours. To serve, adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Transfer meat to carving board and slice against grain into ¼-inch-thick slices and return to baking dish. Cover dish tightly with foil and bake until meat is heated through, about 25 minutes. While meat is heating, proceed with step 3.

 
I do basically the same thing with my brisket. I use red bliss potatoes, unpeeled and roast

them with fresh rosemary, coarse sea salt and freshly gr. pepper until nice and crisp on the cut side. I use long, slender carrots, and saute them in butter until they are a little brown yet tender crisp. Cabbage is cooked in the cooking broth for the last few minutes. I serve with Dijon and brown sugar mix for the meat. Yum!

 
Sounds great Karen--we have a local mustard here called "Lusty Monk" that went well with the meal

 
we had the homemade mustard posted up at 24010---very easy and good

since I didn't start 3 days in advance, I warmed up the liquids(I used beer instead of wine) and then soaked the mixture overnight. It ground up just fine in my blender, screwing the blender blade unit onto the mason jar and blending it in that smaller pint container. I did not add the horseradish---it was plenty spicy with my generous pinches of cayenne. I used local Birch syrup instead of the Maple. yum.

http://www.eat.at/swap/forum1/206708_To_check_out_Homemade_Mustard_-_David_Lebovitz

 
The mustard I used was Sierra Nevada, a stout, slightly grainy mustard

and it comes from Chico, CA about 80 minutes from where I live, so I guess you could say it is local. Sierra Nevada is a well known maker of fine beers, and they serve very good food in their restaurant.

 
Wow, very cool. They just recently went through some sort of change and had to regroup

in order to put beer in cans, as well as the bottles. I wonder if the Asheville plant had anything to do with that?

 
I used this recipe last night for my home-brined corned beef. So easy and really good. I cooked

potatoes, carrots, turnips and parsnips in the broth after straining.

 
Back
Top