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Boiled Corned Beef

A boiled corned beef dish simmered until tender, then served cold or warm with parsley, celery, pickles or mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Boiled Corned Beef

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Boiled Corned Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. If the beef is very salty, soak it overnight.

  2. Otherwise, wash off the salt and cover with cold water.

Cook the beef

  1. Simmer the beef for 4 to 6 hours, allowing 25 minutes per pound, until the meat is tender and bones can be easily removed.

  2. If serving cold, let the meat cool in the cooking liquid.

  3. For a firmer texture, press the cooked beef into a square or oblong shape with a weight on top and refrigerate until cold.

Make the pressed beef and serve

  1. Boil down the cooking liquid, remove the fat, and save it to pour over minced beef scraps seasoned with pepper or sweet herbs.

  2. Press the minced beef into a mold, pour the reduced liquid over it, cover tightly, and weigh it down.

  3. When ready to serve, unmold the beef, garnish with parsley or celery, and serve with pickles or mustard.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Beef + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,866 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Corned beef
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and sliceable after long, slow simmering.
Cold water
Covers the beef and cooks it gently, and its liquid is later reduced to moisten the pressed meat.

The step that matters

Simmer the beef slowly until tender. Tough connective tissue in corned beef breaks down only with long, gentle simmering. Boiling hard can toughen the meat's fibres and make it dry and stringy.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, parsley):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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