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Boiled Corned Beef and Spinach
Use sufficient of the rump or brisket of corned beef, place in a saucepan and cover with fresh water; boil briskly for an hour and a half, serving with boiled spinach.
Oscar's instruction is a kitchen shorthand written for cooks who already knew how corned beef behaves; taken literally it gives tough, stringy meat. Two things need correcting: the heat and the time.
- Simmer, do not boil brisklyA rolling boil tightens the muscle fibres and squeezes out moisture, leaving corned beef dry and shredded rather than sliceable. Bring the pot to a boil, then drop it to a bare simmer where the surface barely trembles, and hold it there uncovered or loosely covered.
- Time by weight, not by the clock givenAn hour and a half will not tenderise a whole brisket. Allow roughly 50 minutes to 1 hour per pound at a simmer — about 3 to 4 hours for a 4 lb piece — and test with a skewer, which should slide in and out with no resistance.
- The cuts"Rump" of corned beef is rarely sold now; brisket is the standard supermarket cut, either the leaner flat or the fattier point. Silverside and bottom round are the usual equivalents, though being leaner they can come out drier than brisket.
- SaltCommercial corned beef varies widely in salt. If the meat came packed in brine, rinse it well and consider a soak in cold water for an hour or two, changing the water once, before it goes in the pan; period corned beef may well have been saltier than what is sold today.
- "Cover with fresh water"The phrase most likely means that the curing brine is discarded and the meat cooked in clean water. Do not add salt to the pot. A bay leaf, a few peppercorns and an onion are traditional additions.
- The spinachBoiled spinach here means wilted in a little water for a minute or two, then drained hard and pressed — spinach holds enormous amounts of liquid. Allow roughly 8 to 10 oz raw per person; it collapses to almost nothing.
- Resting and slicingLet the beef sit in its liquid off the heat for 15 to 20 minutes before carving, then slice across the grain. Cutting with the grain produces long fibrous strands regardless of how well it was cooked.
- YieldFigure 6 to 8 oz of raw corned beef per person; the recipe's "sufficient" leaves the size of the joint to the cook.
Corned beef takes its name from the coarse "corns" of salt used to cure it, and by the time this book appeared it was a staple of both American hotel kitchens and working-class households — cheap, stable without refrigeration, and endlessly useful boiled, hashed or sliced cold. Spinach appears frequently alongside boiled and braised meats on turn-of-the-century American menus, and pairing it with corned beef rather than the more familiar cabbage suits a hotel dining room. The extreme brevity of the entry is characteristic of Oscar Tschirky's book, which records what to serve with what and leaves the technique to the reader's hands.