As promised, and just barely in the nick of time, here’s how to make corned beef and cabbage out of that home-made corned beef brisket you made last week! You finished your corned beef assignment, right? Didn’t you?
Oh boy. Well, lucky for you a homemade corned beef isn’t completely necessary for this. If you choose you may use a store-bought one and yours will look pinker than mine because yours has nitrates, but the taste will be pretty much the same, and in fact yours will probably taste much more like the corned beef and cabbage my dear old dad used to make for us as kiddoes. Lassies. Laddies. Ladders? I forget.
This recipe uses a 2 pound brisket, but if you have a larger one, just double the vegetables and broth spices. There’s no need to add salt to the broth; the corned beef is plenty salty to season the whole pot.
- 2 pounds corned beef brisket
- ½ teaspoon ground allspice
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 celery heart with leaves, chopped
- ½ onion sliced
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 dried red chilies (optional)
- 1 large onion, cut into 6 wedges
- 1 large rutabaga, cut into 6 wedges
- 1 pound fingerling potatoes, or any waxy potato cut into 2″ chunks
- 1 pound cabbage, cut into 4 wedges
- Remove the brisket from the brine in which it is packed and rinse it off. This is to get rid of excess salt.
- Put it in a large pot and add enough water to cover by 2 inches.
- Add the spices, celery, sliced onion, bay, and chilies and bring to boil over high heat, covered.
- Reduce heat to a simmer and cook 1 hour, covered.
- Add the onion, rutabaga, and potato and simmer another 30 minutes, partially uncovered.
- Add the cabbage and simmer 10 minutes.
- Remove the brisket and let cool a few minutes before slicing and serving with the vegetables, broth, and some kind of breadstuff for soaking up all the brothy goodness.
Rutabagas, aka Swedish turnip or Swede or yellow turnip, are related to turnips. They have a thick, waxed, purplish skin that needs to be pared off. The flesh underneath is yellow and becomes brighter yellow once cooked. If you can’t find rutabagas, substitute a couple of small turnips.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Starting off, your recipe seriously made my mouth water. We like to have sweet butter and mustard on the side to put on the veggies and bread.
I would have thrown three to six whole black peppercorns in the water at the start. That could be our substitution for your chilies.
Maybe also add at the start a peeled fat carrot or two cut into big chunks. Since you used rutabaga, then maybe a peeled parsnip or two cut into chunks, instead of the carrot, for color contrast. But, if turnips are used instead of rutabaga, then carrots instead of parsnips.
Everything is personal preference, of course.
Oh man! Now you’re making my mouth water thinking about sweet butter and bread and mustard! We had some horseradish alongside ours and it was so good.
I like recipes like this that you can play loose and fast with the vegetables and it always comes out good.
I also buy my brisket from a butcher without being pre-corned and no it wasn’t as pink. I was lucky to get it because I didn’t pre-order, but they had one in stock, phew. Like your recipe, one of my favorite yearly meals.
Hi Diana! Glad you got your brisket. That would have been a sad St. Paddy’s day without it. Fortunately, I still have the other 2 pounds in my freezer so I can do another one soon. I’d like to try slow-cooking it next time.