Easy Irish Boil
As I tried to find a way to describe this Easy Irish Boil dish to a friend I came up the perfect explanation “It’s kinda like a low country boil, only with corned beef and cabbage instead of crawdads…” So rather than call it a New England Boil, because I’ve never been to New England, I’m calling it an Irish Boil, because I’m making it for St Patrick’s Day – and because I can :).
A lot of families like to have special meals for St Patrick’s Day. Me, I like a good Reuben for lunch. Well, that is any day though. I’m pretty sure I could eat a Reuben every day of the week and not get tired of it. I could also eat an entire skillet of fried cabbage by myself if given half the chance. But I digress…Today I am bringing you a simple recipe for a complete St Patrick’s Day dinner which you can make on your stovetop or slow cooker (crock pot). A meal in one where you dump the ingredients and turn the heat on – how easy is that?
Stay tuned because tomorrow Mama is bringing you a fun and delicious cake with a bit of green to go along with this.
You’ll need: Carrots, Onion, Cabbage, New Potatoes, Pickling Spice, and a Brisket.
A word about sizes: It doesn’t matter how much of each vegetable you use or even how large your brisket is in this recipe, as long as you can fit it all into your pot. I try to get small new potatoes for that very reason. In case you’d like to know, my corned beef is just a little over 3 pounds.
The takeaway here: Make sure you start out with a pot big enough to hold everything. Mine is six quarts and it just barely does the job.
Place your corned beef in the bottom of a large pot and sprinkle the seasoning packet that comes with it on top. Add another tablespoon or so of pickling spice.
Why are we adding pickling spice? Well, basically that’s what that seasoning packet that comes with corned beef is. All we are doing is adding a bit more to amp up that flavor and get the cooking water infused enough so that it flavors the vegetables as well.
Now, cover this with water and bring just to a boil. Once it comes to a boil reduce heat slightly (there should still be light bubbling) and cook for 2-3 hours.
If you are cooking this in a crock pot: Place corned beef, seasoning packet, and pickling spice in slow cooker. Complete steps below for vegetables and THEN add enough water to cover. Place lid on slow cooker and cook on low, 7-8 hours or high, 3-4.
Quarter your onion (okay, I cut a few more times than four but you get the point), and cut your cabbage into big old wedges. This is the part where I get all nibbly because I love raw cabbage almost as much as I love cooked cabbage!
Place all of your veggies in the pot with the cooked corned beef. Hopefully, you have a big enough pot for them to go in at this point. If not, don’t say I didn’t warn ya :).
Bring this back up to a boil and then reduce heat and simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring every now and then, or until the potatoes are tender when pierced by a fork.
Carefully remove corned beef from pot and slice it as thinly as you can. An electric knife works wonderfully for this. My corned beef is not sliced anywhere near thin enough in these pictures but I don’t have the patience for that so I just put steak knives at everyone’s place setting and tell them I wanted to give them more interaction with their food :).
Add veggies around the beef to serve. Enjoy!
Ingredients
- Corned Beef 3-4 pounds
- New Potatoes
- Baby Carrots Or whole carrots, peeled and coarsely chopped
- Onion
- Cabbage
- Pickling spice
Instructions
- Place corned beef in large pot. Pour seasoning packet over top (they usually come with one). Add an additional 1 tablespoon of pickling spice over this. Cover completely with water and bring just to a boil over medium high heat. Once it reaches a boil, reduce heat slightly (You want it to still bubble) and allow it to cook for 2-3 hours, adding more water if necessary to keep beef covered.
- After beef is fully cooked and tender (at least two hours) peel and quarter onion and cabbage. Place both in pot with beef along with potatoes and carrots. Continue cooking for another 30 minutes or until potatoes are fork tender.
- To serve, slice corned beef very thin and place on platter alongside veggies.
Notes
Nutrition
Re: Sweetie: post a “lost dog” ad on craigslist.org. It’s free. I found a cat and returned it when the owner saw my CL ad. Also, don’t forget newspapers, both print and online versions. Many papers don’t charge for lost and found ads. I have had success with those, too. Best wishes for her safe and swift return, and prayers are being said.
Thank you so much Philippa!!
Hope Sweetie finds her way home soon! Thanks for the recipe idea. My husband doesn’t care for corned beef so I’m tring brats (his favorite) instead.
Thank you Debora!!
I do hope and will pray that your lovely dog will return soon. It is many years since our beloved dog died and I still miss him.
Thank you Deirdre, I appreciate your prayers!!! I know some people don’t understand…but I am not sure we ever get over the loss of our best friends.
I am so sorry that your Sweetie is missing. I am sending prayers that she will be found soon and returned to her loving family.
Thank you so much Carole!!
Well Christy, after a few months of enjoying all that you give us, I must now disagree. Sorry. Boiling Corned Beef should be at least a venial sin. When finished boiling just look at all that great flavor in the water that is being throw out. Roasting corned beef is my suggestion for preparing a great Corned Beef. There are many recipes out there, so I won’t bore you with mine. I just suggest trying an alternate method next time to compare results. Being as close to 100% Irish as anybody, I must tell you that that finding Corned Beef at a pub in Ireland is hit or miss, mostly miss. It is not a staple as you have been led to believe over these many years. It is popular in England. Since I’m being ethnically profane this morning; St. Patrick was a French priest. Now, where is that hair shirt of mine.
This is Christy’s version of the recipe. If you don’t like it who cares. If you don’t have something nice to say then don’t comment at all. Better yet start your own blog for all the “ethnically profane” weirdos out there.
I believe I will wait on Christy’s reply. You may be surprised at her response to my attempt at humor and she may also welcome a different opinion. I have been boiling CB for years and just discovered a better version, IMHO. And who knows Kim H., others may also find roasting a reasonable option comparison. Ethnically profane weirdo? Where in the world did that come from?
I apologize if I misinterpreted your comment. I didn’t read it in the context of humor. I re-read it with that in mind and it seemed totally different. I felt the need to take up for Christy and did so on the spur of the moment and that was my mistake.
Thank you. That was unnecessary but appreciated.
First of all, Thank you Kim for coming to my defense when you felt I needed it. I truly appreciate that. There have been times when folks like you coming to my defense has been the one thing that kept me going! I understand how you can read something and “read” a completely different tone than what was intended. That is one of the struggles of the internet and I’ve been working on figuring it out for almost a decade now. More times than I can count, I have read something in one manner only to find it was meant in an opposite one. But it is so hard to know without tone of voice, facial expressions, etc!
I *really* got to know Baltis when he stepped in and put a very unkind (and a few other adjectives) person in her place with a single sentence. We chat in the comments and he sometimes gives me a hard time in that what that would I laugh back at him and reply “yeah yeah yeah, I hear ya!”. But of course you have no way of knowing this and you, out of kindness towards me, stepped in and stood up for me. I appreciate the both of you very, very much.
Now about that roasted corned beef Baltis… 🙂 I saved all that flavor in the water for my veggies to absorb! 🙂 It was good. But would you believe that NO ONE in my house will touch corned beef but me? So I did that whole thing when My mother was here. She and I had some for lunch and then I sent the rest of it home for my dad. Being a Southerner, especially in today’s renewed climate of everyone thinking we are full on segregated again down here, I can fully understand the frustration of folks going on what they *decide* your culture entails. Just promise me one thing, if all the women in Ireland don’t have waist length red curly hair and walk around in flowing emerald green dresses, don’t tell me. At least let me keep some of the dream alive!
Think I will stick around. If for nothing else, to keep you sharp!
Getting ready for our Easter celebration. Spiral sliced ham with a apricot/orange preserve glaze. This will be the first time I use a blow torch in the kitchen, wish me luck. My wife vowed to remain on the patio for this portion of the cooking process.
LOL!!! Okay, my favorite line (and delivery thereof) so far this year is
“This will be the first time I use a blow torch in the kitchen, wish me luck.”
😉
Wow! By seeing all these cnetmoms it seems as though your words hit a cord with many bloggers! It feels so good to not be alone in needing this reminder. The words you say about how people will read what you have to say or they won’t really hit me. For over a year I blogged and obsessed about numbers and cnetmoms. Now that I am at my new blog home, I let that go. I feel free to be me and it has sparked my blogging passion again. Thanks for this post, it is really what I needed right now 🙂 God Bless!
Baltisraul posted a light-hearted comment about different cooking methods and St. Patrick.
You posted a hateful comment with a personal attack.
I know which person *I* don’t want to see any more comments from. (Hint: It’s not Baltisraul.)
Thanks for having my back!
Is minic a bhris beal duine a shorn, my grandfather used to say.
Many a time a man’s mouth broke his own nose.
Kim felt that I was being attacked and acted swiftly in my defense. Now that we all see good was intended on all sides, we can put this to rest.
Thank you!
While I love (and very much appreciate) all of Christy’s recipes, like Baltisraul, I have become a convert to the roasting method for corned beef. I used to cook the corned beef, cabbage, and onions with red potatoes and baby carrots the same way, but in my slow cooker. Then, a few years ago, I tried a recipe where you mix stone ground mustard and honey, slather that on the corned beef, coat with brown sugar, and then cover it with foil, and roast in the oven. It’s amazingly delicious! I also roast my red potatoes and baby carrots. And, I sauté shredded cabbage with onions. That’s what I’ll be doing tomorrow; can’t wait. (No offense meant at all here, just mentioning that I personally love the roasting method. It’s an entirely different meal that way).
No offense taken at all! Sounds delicious!
Oh Honey, I am so sorry about your baby, Sweetie. I know I would be so heartbroken if I llost one of my babies. Keep the faith, you’ll find your Sweetie. He is adorable. Looks like one of those Heniz 57s as Mother used to call mixed breeds. Their the best ones to have. I have chihuahuas 7 of them, but love each and every one. All of them have their own personalities and man do they know my weakest points to get just what they want. I always call them Babies in fur coats that God forget to put a zipper in.
I will be praying for Sweetie to find his/her way back home and I feel she/he will. Like I said “keep the faith, hon.”
By the way, I just love love your recipes. I am from Alabama also so your newsletteR MEANS A LITTLE BIT OF HOME TO ME. i LIVE IN fLORIDA NOW AND MISS HOME SO MUCH.
aLICE
Thank you so much Alice, that means more to me that you can ever imagine!!
So sorry to hear about your missing Sweety and hope you get good news soon! I helped a woman last week to try to find her dog and the dog DID get found about six days later, so hopefully Sweety will be found soon too! You might want to alert the area police as well and if you’re on Facebook, post it there. Best wishes and good luck and thanks for all of your great recipes! I grew up in GA. but have lived in MA. for years now and reading/trying your recipes is a great joy!
Thank you so much Sharon. I am trying to hold out hope!