No. 1315

Corned Breast of Beef with Cabbage

Poitrine de Boeuf Sale aux Choux

Lay a breast of beef in a brine of half salt, and set it in a cold room, leaving it for twelve days. Unsalt it for two hours, then put the meat in a saucepan with cold water. Let it boil, skimming it occasionally, and place it on one side of the fire to summer for several hours, or until the meat be thoroughly cooked. Blanch two or three cabbages, cut them in quarters, remove the hard centers, called the core, and two hours before serving put the cabbage in with the beef. When the meat is done properly, drain, and arrange it on a dish, garnishing it round with the cabbage, put some boiled potatoes at either end, and serve a little good gravy separately.

BEEF, AMERICAN CUTS (Boeuf Coupe a l'Americaine).

1. Head.

2. Beef jowl.

3. Neck.

4. Brisket.

5. Cross ribs.

6. Shin.

7. Chuck ribs.

8. Plates.

9. Navel.

10. Inside flank.

11. Thick flank.

12. Six Prime ribs, A first cut, B Second cut, C third.

13. Short loin.

14. Hip.

15. Round.

16. Aitchbone rump.

17. Round bottom.

18. Leg of beef.

19. Butt.

20. Oxtail.

21. Horseshoe legs.

22. Hip and loin.

23. Whole chuck.

24. Round top.

BEEF FRENCH CUTS (Boeuf Coupe a la Francaise).

1. Culotte.

2. Tranches petit os.

3. Milieu du gite a la noix.

4. Derriere du gite a la noix.

5. Tendre de tranches interieure.

6. Tranche grasse interieure.

7. Piece ronde partie interieure.

8. Aloyau avec filet.

9. Bavette d'Aloyau.

10. Cotes Couvertes, a la noix.

11. Plat de Cotes.

12. Surlonge partie interieure.

13. Derriere de paleron.

14. Talon de Collier.

15. Bande de Macreuse.

16. Milieu de Macreuse dans le paleron.

17. Boite a molele.

18. Collier.

19. Plat de joue.

20. Flanchet.

21. Milieu de poitriue.

22. Cros bout.

23. Queue de gite.

24. Gite de devant.

25. Cros du gite de devant.

26. Gite de derriere

27. Cros du gite de derriere.

← No. 1314 Breast or Brisket of Beef a la Florence Beef No. 1316 Corned Round Bottom, Top, English Style →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

Ranhofer's method has two halves: a twelve-day home cure and a long simmer with cabbage. The simmer is ordinary boiled-dinner cookery; the cure as written cannot be reproduced safely.

Why the cure fails"A brine of half salt" gives no salt concentration, no volume of water, and no curing salt, and "a cold room" gives no temperature. A twelve-day submerged cure held anywhere in the danger zone is exactly the condition under which Clostridium botulinum can grow in an anaerobic environment; commercial corning uses measured sodium nitrite for that reason. Use a current, tested corned-beef recipe with weighed salt, weighed cure and a monitored refrigerator temperature, or buy the beef already corned.
"Half salt"The phrase appears to indicate a light or short cure rather than a specified strength; it gives no concentration and cannot be converted into a number.
"Unsalt it for two hours"This means soaking the cured meat in fresh cold water to draw out surface salt before boiling. Two hours suited a heavily salted piece; modern brined brisket is far milder and a soak of that length would leave it flat.
"Summer"Evidently an error for simmer. Placing the pan "on one side of the fire" is how a coal range held a pot just below the boil: on a gas or electric hob, the lowest steady setting with a bare tremble at the surface. A hard boil squeezes the brisket and turns it stringy.
Cabbage timingTwo hours in the pot is a long time even for tightly quartered heads. Modern cabbage will be well past firm long before that.
BlanchingHere it means dropping the whole heads into boiling water briefly, then refreshing them, which loosens the outer leaves and takes off the sulphurous edge before the quarters go into the beef broth.
The gravy"serve a little good gravy separately" most likely means a brown sauce or jus made apart from the pot rather than the cooking liquid, which after a salt cure may be too salty to reduce. A well-seasoned beef jus or a spoonful of demi-glace serves the same purpose.
YieldThe recipe gives no weight and no number of servings; two or three cabbages and potatoes at either end indicate a platter for a table rather than a portion dish, so any serving count is an estimate.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) belongs to a period when corning was a storage method first and a flavour second. The name has nothing to do with maize -- "corn" in the older English sense meant a grain or coarse particle, so corned beef is beef cured with grains of salt. The dish is the same idea as the French petit salé aux choux (properly salt pork boiled with cabbage), and on an American table the same plate would be recognised as a boiled dinner; the lists of American and French butchery terms appended to this page set the two systems side by side.