From: Woodchuck
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 09:20:29 -0500 (EST)
On Wed, 20 Feb 2002, zen wrote:
>
> Ignore this. Checking my subscription.
Try posting a recipe.
New England Boiled Dinner
1 Corned Beef in the plastic wrap from the store
1 Onion
Potatoes (Reds are best)
Carrots
Cabbage
No quantities for the vegetables, proportion them to the number of people
eating. (Make them afresh if leftovers are planned).
Remove, drain and rinse the brisket. Place in deep pot, add some water,
about 2/3 way up the brisket.
These shrinkwrapped briskets come with a teensy packet of herbs and
spices. Sprinkle over brisket. These packets consist of (*=certain, no
mark=probable) mustard seed(*), bay leaf(*), cloves, chives, thyme,
fennel seed. Anyway, mustard seed and bay leaf are the biggies. Add more
of these. Cut onion in half, throw in water. Add some ground black
pepper and possibly a little dried red chile.
Bring to rolling boil, reduce heat to lowest simmer. Simmer about 2
hours.
Meanwhile, peel spuds and carrots, cut cabbage into wedges (about 1/8 of a
cabbage/wedge). Slightly tease open the wedges of cabbage and sprinkle a
few caraway seeks therein.
Put potatoes in water. About ten minutes later, add carrots. Another ten
minutes later, add cabbage wedges such that they rest atop the brisket,
not immersed, let them steam. Cover tightly, when cabbage is done, so is
everything else.
Discard the onion. If onions are desired, add fresh ones with the
cabbage. Little (1") whole onions with a clove stuck in them are nice.
Slice brisket thinly across its length. Serve with butter for the
vegetables and horseradish in vinegar for the meat. A small amount of the
cooking liquid should be ladelled over the sliced meat to moisten it and
convey some flavor.
The appropriate wine is a nice Pilsner beer. If you just have to
have grape wine, try a fruity red.
--- --- ---
Substitutions. Turnips substitute for part of the potatoes. Parsnips
substitute for part of the carrots.
Smoked sausage or Polish sausage substitute for the brisket, and require
almost no cooking. Put all ingredients in pot at once if using sausage,
use little water (do NOT let burn), cook until potatoes are done. "Chili
Sauce" (the stuff from Heinz that tastes like chunky ketchup) is
appropriate with Polish sausage. (Or horseradish). Dill butter is
appropriate on the potatoes. Dill butter is always appropriate on boiled
potatoes.
This dish is appropriate during the festive Groundhog's Day season, which
runs from 2/2 to 2/22.
Dave
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