Corned Beef And Cabbage is the tradition on St. Patrick's Day, an event that, to me, is more about our common immigrant stories that about being Irish. Irish Americans share their remarkable tale with Jews, Italians, Germans, Cubans, and Mexicans. So many of us can trace our heritage to fearful, ragged, tired, and poor arriving on our shores with not much more than the clothes on their back, life in hovels, hard labor, discrimination, acclimation, acculturation, and success. That's why we are all Irish in some way.
Surprisingly, Corned Beef And Cabbage is not a tradition in Ireland. It is an Irish-American-Jewish tradition. Corned pork and cabbage is more common in the Emerald Isles where beef was scarce and expensive. But Irish immigrants in the US found beef more plentiful in their lower Manhattan ghettos where the butchers were mostly kosher Jews and pork was verboten.
In diners, slang between waitress and cook, the dish is called jiggs. In some quarters the dish and variations is called New England Boiled Dinner. The concept is that corned meat, which is meat that has been pickled in a strong brine or salty rub with spices, needs to be desalinated before eating. But all that salt can be used to enhance potatoes, carrots, cabbage, turnips, etc.
Traditional on St. Patrick's Day, it is a shame the dish not served more often, and my guess is that is because people just take the meat out of the wrapper and throw it in a pot with water and veggies and potatoes and they feel they have met their obligation. But everything is soooooo salty, the meat is tough and fatty, and the veggies and potatoes are mushy.
Here's how to do the dish properly. If you have leftovers, make Rockin' Reuben Sandwiches, Corned Beef Hash, or throw it on your smoker and make my Close To Katz's Pastrami. But if you do it right, there won't be leftovers.
Corned Beef and Cabbage Recipe, (a.k.a. New England Boiled Dinner a.k.a Jiggs)
Corned Beef And Cabbage is the tradition on St. Patrick's Day. Here is how to do the dish properly.
Makes. 6 servings (the meat shrinks a lot)
Preparation time. 10 minutes
Cooking time. 3 to 4 hours
Ingredients
3 pounds of corned beef, preferably homemade
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
A good idea. While the meat is cooking, mix up some of my Secretariat Horseradish Sauce and refrigerate for at least two hours to let the flavors marry. Serve it on the side as a dipping sauce.
Optional. You can add an onion and garlic and in Eastern Europe, caraway seeds are popular.
Method
"If it was raining soup, the Irish would go out with forks."Brendan Behan
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