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To Boil Corned Beef

A boiled corned beef served with cabbage, turnips, carrots, parsnips, potatoes, beet slices, horse-radish, and pickles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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To Boil Corned Beef

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 ↓

To Boil Corned Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. If the beef is already corned, place it directly in a pot.

  2. If not, soak it in cold water overnight.

  3. Cover the beef with cold water and bring to a boil over high heat for about 30 minutes.

  4. Remove any scum that forms on the surface, then reduce the heat and let it simmer slowly until tender, about 2.5 hours.

  5. If not serving hot, let the beef cool in the pot, then drain and cover with a cloth to keep it fresh.

Cook the vegetables

  1. For a boiled dinner, skim the fat from the pot and transfer some liquid to another pot.

  2. Add the cabbage, turnips, carrots, and parsnips to the second pot and cook for about 1 hour.

  3. About 30 minutes before serving, add peeled potatoes to the pot with the beef.

Serve

  1. Serve the beef with horse-radish, pickles, and the boiled vegetables.

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. 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. Radish + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together35 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Cabbage + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 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
Main protein; slow simmering turns its connective tissue tender and juicy.
Cabbage
Sweet, mild vegetable that becomes soft and tender during long cooking.
Potatoes
Starchy vegetable that absorbs the flavour of the cooking liquid and becomes soft.
Turnips
Firm root vegetable that softens while adding a mild, slightly peppery sweetness.

The step that matters

Simmer the beef slowly. Boiling hard toughens the meat's proteins and can make it dry and stringy. A gentle simmer lets collagen slowly break down into gelatin, giving tender, moist slices.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, horse, radish, cabbage, turnip, carrot, parsnip):

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, horse, radish, cabbage, turnip, carrot, parsnip. 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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