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Corned Beef
Start corned beef cooking in cold water to more than cover, bring slowly to boiling point and simmer until tender. Slow and even cooking is the secret. For a boiled dinner, add all the vegetables you have, in proportions to suit appetites. Calculate the cooking time of each vegetable before putting it into the pot, so that meat and all vegetables will be done at the same time. Corned beef takes hours, like all the other pickled and smoked meatssay about 3 hours for a 4-pound cut, more or less, depending on the cut and the idiosyncrasies of the man who corned it.
Corned beef and cabbage are twins so long as the meat is hot, but the minute it is cold the twinship switches to corned beef hash and eggs. And here's where the arguments begin, for folks grow passionate about corned beef hash.
Some like it wet And some like it dry Some like it thin And some like it high- If the cook can't please He gets it in the eye.
Without taking sides, we give a popular camp version that might get the majority vote:
A method rather than a formula: cold-water start, slow simmer, and vegetables timed backward from the finish. The instructions hold up, but a few numbers are worth pinning down.
- The hinge: never let it boilThe hinge: slow and even -- Bring it slowly up, as the recipe says, then hold it at a bare simmer rather than a rolling boil. A hard boil tightens the muscle fibers and squeezes out moisture, which is how corned beef turns stringy and dry rather than sliceable.
- Timing by weightThe three hours quoted for a 4-lb cut is a fair average for flat-cut brisket. Point cut, with more fat and connective tissue, often wants 3 1/2 to 4 hours. Go by feel: a skewer should slide into the thickest part with no resistance.
- "Depending on the man who corned it"The joke points at a real variable: how heavily and how long the beef was brined. Commercial corned beef is more consistent than home-cured and often comes with a spice packet; if it is very salty, soak the piece in cold water for an hour or two, or change the water once during cooking.
- Vegetable timings for the boiled dinnerWorking back from the end of cooking: potatoes and carrots 25-30 minutes, turnip or rutabaga 25-30, onions 20, cabbage wedges 12-15. Add them in that order so everything lands together, as the recipe instructs.
- Skim and keep it coveredSkim the grey foam off in the first twenty minutes or it settles back onto the meat. Keep the beef submerged the whole time; add boiling water if the level drops below the top of the cut.
- SlicingRest the meat ten minutes out of the pot, then slice across the grain. On a brisket the grain runs the length of the cut, so slice crosswise into short strips, not lengthwise.
- YieldA 4-lb cut with vegetables will feed a table of six or so, with luck leaving some cold for the hash the passage promises. Save a cup or two of the cooking liquid to moisten that hash.