Skip to main content
Main

Boiled Corned Beef

A boiled corned beef served with butter, lemon, pickles or capers, horseradish, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Boiled Corned Beef

Why it works: Lemon and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,222 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Boiled Corned Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the corned beef in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Place the beef in a pot with plenty of cold water, the carrot, onion, and vinegar.

  3. Cook slowly for 25 minutes per pound if the beef is very salty.

  4. After cooking, let the beef sit in the liquid for 30 minutes.

  5. Trim any ragged edges from the beef.

  6. Place the trimmed beef on a hot dish.

Make the sauce

  1. Brush the beef with melted butter mixed with lemon juice.

  2. Strain 1 cup of the cooking liquid.

  3. Stir the strained liquid in butter rolled in flour.

  4. Boil the mixture for 2 minutes.

  5. Add minced pickles or capers.

Serve and press

  1. Serve with horseradish and mustard.

  2. Place a heavy plate on the beef.

  3. Leave the beef overnight.

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. Lemon + caperstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Flour + caperstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,024 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Onion + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Corned beef
The main cut; slow gentle simmering in water makes it tender and seasoned throughout.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and forms the base that carries the flour into the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the strained cooking liquid into a smooth, coating sauce when heated.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter sauce.
Pickles or capers
Add sharp acidity and salty bite that cut through the richness of the butter.

The step that matters

Boil the flour and butter mixture for 2 minutes. Flour thickens only once its starch is heated in liquid. A short full boil thickens the sauce evenly and cooks out the raw, pasty taste of the flour.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Cherryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, onion, vinegar, butter, flour, capers. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipes