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A New-england Boiled Dinner

A boiled dinner of corned beef with beets, turnips, carrots, parsnips, potatoes, cabbage, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and parsnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 590 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

A New-england Boiled Dinner

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Wash the corned beef in cold water and place it in a large pot. Cover with cold water by 3-4 inches.

  2. Heat the pot slowly until it reaches a gentle boil. Cook for 4 hours.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Wash the beets carefully and boil them in another pot of boiling water.

  2. Peel the white turnips and yellow turnip, cutting the yellow turnip into 4 pieces.

  3. Scrape the carrots and parsnips, and peel the potatoes.

  4. Trim and wash the cabbage, removing the stalk without breaking the leaves. Bind it with tape to keep it whole.

  5. Soak the prepared vegetables in cold water until needed.

  6. If using onions, boil them in a separate saucepan.

Cook together

  1. When the meat begins to boil, skim off the scum and add the red or green pepper to the pot.

  2. Add the vegetables to the pot in the proper order, allowing enough time for each to cook.

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.

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. Turnip + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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 and savory flavor as it simmers slowly until tender.
Potatoes
Their starch softens into a soft, hearty texture that thickens the cooking liquid slightly.
Cabbage
Becomes tender while absorbing flavor from the simmering broth and meat.
Beets
Add earthy sweetness and a deep color that tints the other vegetables.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness that balances the salty, savory meat.

The step that matters

Adding the vegetables in the proper order. Vegetables cook at different rates, so dense roots need longer than cabbage or potatoes. Adding everything at once can leave some undercooked and others mushy or falling apart.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, turnip, carrot, parsnip, potato, pepper, butter):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, turnip, carrot, parsnip, potato, pepper, butter. 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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