Jiggs: Traditional Corned Beef And Cabbage (a.k.a. New England Boiled Dinner)

By Peggio

Ingredients

• Makes. 6 servings (the meat shrinks a lot)
• Preparation time. 10 minutes
• Cooking time. 3 to 4 hours
• 3 pounds corned beef, preferably home made
• 4 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1" segments
• 2 pounds of potatoes, cleaned and cut into 2" chunks
• 1 small head of cabbage, outer leaves removed, cut in quarters

Details

Servings 6
Adapted from amazingribs.com

Preparation

Step 1

Optional. You can add an onion and in Eastern Europe, caraway seeds are popular.

Method
1) Follow the steps in the sidebar for desalinating and cooking corned beef. The extra step of changing the water after 30 minutes will mean that the broth will not be too salty to be served like with the meat and veggies like a stew.

2) Add the carrots and potatoes. After 30 minutes add the cabbage. After 15 to 25 minutes the cabbage will be done and so should everything else.

3) Remove the meat and place it on a carving board. If you got the point section, there are often two horizontal muscles with a thick layer of fat between them. Separate them by sliding a knife through the fat. Carve and/or scrape off the fat layer. Carve the meat by cutting across the grain about the thickness of a pencil. Any thinner and it will fall apart, any thicker and it will be chewy. Carve with the grain and you will have difficulty chewing.

4) Lift out the cabbage, potatoes, and carrots and divide them into serving bowls. Place the meat in the bowl. Spoon some of the cooking liquid over them and serve.

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Preparing corned beef for sandwiches or other dishes
Corned beef comes in two forms, ready to eat, and brined. Ready to eat corned beef is cured, desalinated, then cooked, and usually packaged in slices or sliced at the deli counter. Just open the package and eat.

Brined corned beef is usually a hunk of brisket that has been cured in a salt and pickling psice solution and packaged in a sturdy cryovac plastic bag with some of the brine. It is very salty and has not been cooked.

If you made corned beef from scratch, or if you bought a package of uncooked corned beef in brine, you can prep it for making Close to Katz's Pastrami, corned beef's ultimate expression. To do that, skip the steps below and click the link. To use it for Rockin Reuben Sandwiches, or forcorned beef hash, or for corned beef and cabbage you must remove some of the salt and cook it before eating it. Here's how:

Ingredients
1 (3 pound) slab of corned beef, preferably home made

Method
1) Open the package the meat came in and dump out all the liquid. If you have made your own corned beef, remove it from the brine. Rinse thoroughly. Some packages have some pickling spices in a packet. It is a joke. There is nowhere near enough to do anything useful and if the meat has been corned properly, there is more than enough flavor in it. Besides, if you follow the instructions on the packet and don't change the water, the spices will just find a way to get stuck in your teeth. Throw them out. Some cuts, from the flat portion, have a thick layer of fat on the surface of one side, called a fat cap. Trim it all off. This fat is not like marbling in beef. It brings nothing to the party but calories. If you bought the point section, there is probably a layer of meat, a layer of fat, and another layer of meat. Trim off the surface fat and leave the fat sandwich intact. You can remove the middle layer after it is cooked. It will come off easily.

2) Place the meat in a large pot along with enough hot water to cover it by at least 1" and put the lid on. Turn the heat to medium, bring to a low simmer and keep it simmering for 30 minutes. If you boil it, it will get tough and shrink. Beware that the meat is cold, so when it warms the water will slowly move from simmer to boil. Keep an eye on it and try not to let it boil.

3) After 30 minutes, dump out the water and cover 1" over the meat with fresh hot water. Bring to a low simmer again, this time for 3 hours or until it is fork tender. Keep the meat submerged even if you have to weight it down with a small plate. It is now ready for slicing across the grain for sandwiches or for adding cabbage and the other goodies. The water will now not be too salty to be used as a soup. If you wish, refrigerate it and eat it cold.