Skip to main content
Main

To Boil Corned Beef

A boiled corned beef with cabbage, turnips, carrots, parsnips, and potatoes, served with horseradish, pickles, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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 not pre-soaked, soak it in cold water overnight.

  2. Place the beef in a pot and cover with cold water.

  3. Bring to a boil over high heat, then remove scum.

  4. Reduce heat and simmer slowly until tender, about 2.5 hours.

Cool or keep warm

  1. If not serving hot, let the beef cool in the pot, then drain.

  2. Cover with a cloth to keep it fresh.

Make the boiled dinner

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

  2. Add cabbage, turnips, carrots, and parsnips to the kettle with the meat.

  3. Add more boiling water if needed and add potatoes half an hour before serving.

  4. Serve with sliced boiled beets and vinegar.

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
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long slow simmering.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and a mild sweetness as it cooks in the seasoned broth.
Potatoes
Absorb the cooking liquid and add starchy body to the finished dish.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and color as they soften in the broth.
Turnips
Add a mildly sharp, earthy flavor that softens with gentle simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly until tender. Boiling hard toughens the meat's proteins and can leave it stringy. A gentle simmer lets connective tissue break down slowly, producing tender, moist beef.

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.

You might also like

Horseradish SauceHorseradish Sauce23 recipesHorseradish ButterHorseradish Butter6 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipes