Corned Beef and Cabbage

Posted by admin on October 17, 2008

Sorry, my fellow Irish-Americans. This is a dish you won’t see served on St. Patrick’s Day very often in Ireland - except where they are catering to the American tourist. Corned beef was traditionally served as the Easter dinner. The beef was salted in the winter to be preserved, and then once the 40 day Lenten fast was over, the beef would be served with - what else? - potatoes and the first spring cabbage. But on a St. Patrick’s Day buffet, this is almost an essential meal.

I do not list potatoes in this recipe, but you can certainly put the potatoes in the same sauce pan. They taste wonderful, but if you have guests who cannot or will not eat cabbage, preparing the potatoes in the same pan will give them the essence of cabbage. If you are adding potatoes, just peel and cut into good sized chunks before adding them.

Ingredients

4 pound corned beef

3 large carrots, cut into bit sized chunks

6 small onions, chopped

1 teaspoon dry mustard

large sprig of fresh thyme

a few stalks of parsley

1 whole cabbage, cut into quarters

salt and pepper to taste

Recipe

Put the corned beef in a sauce pan with carrots, onions, mustard and the herbs. Add water just enough to cover the meat, and bring to a boil. Simmer, covered, for one hour.

Take the cabbage quarters and add to the pot. Cook another hour to hour and a half, or until all the vegetables are tender.