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Boiled Corned Beef

A boiled corned beef brisket served with a butter‑parsley sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Boiled Corned Beef

Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Boiled Corned Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and boil

  1. Select a piece of brisket that is not too salty and not too fatty.

  2. Boil the brisket in plenty of hot water for 15 minutes per pound.

Make the butter sauce

  1. In a separate bowl, melt the butter and mix in the strained beef broth.

  2. Add the chopped parsley and pickled onion to the butter mixture and stir for 1 minute.

Serve

  1. Pour the drawn butter into a sauceboat and serve.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

  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 brisket
Forms the main body of the dish; long gentle cooking softens its tough connective tissue.
Butter
Melted into the sauce, it adds richness and a smooth, fatty mouthfeel.
Pickled onion
Adds sharp acidity that cuts through the rich, salty beef and butter.

The step that matters

Boil the brisket in plenty of hot water for 15 minutes per pound. Brisket is rich in tough connective tissue. Slow cooking in water converts that collagen into gelatin, which makes the meat tender. Cooking too briefly leaves it firm and chewy.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Pepperfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, onion. 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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