I promised myself a few years back that I would never make another traditional corned beef and cabbage dinner.

Just not a fan of the boiled dinner.

Then I found a new method and it has become a family favourite.

Slow roasted corned brisket.

Brisket rubbed with a little garlic and coated with lots of coarse ground black pepper.

Although not smoked, it reminds me of my favourite - Pastrami

I triple wrap the meat in foil and then just to be sure I also cover the pan with foil.

Goes into a 250°F oven for approximately 6 hours.

Moist and tender.

Served with Colcannon.

I've tried the slow roasted thing and find it way WAAY too salty. As my mother soaked a Smithfield ham to dispell the salt used in curing and my mother soaked salt cod and finnan haddie to disperse some of the salt, I find a corned beef much better boiled...
Well not boiled as in bubbling in a pot....but very very gently simmered....and If you want to you can wrap in foil and finish off in the oven.
Not often that Ann and I disagree on how to cook something....but I come from a long line of New Englanders...not much Irish but for a great great grandmother...but they sure knew their baked beans, corned beef and cabbage and Yankee potroast.
I put the piece of meat....I prefer a point cut because while there is more fat, it is more easily removed and the remaining piece makes nice slices...put the meat in a Dutch oven, cover with water....add the seasoning packet, or 3 or 4 crumbled bay leaves and 1 tsp mustard seeds....bring to a bare simmer...bubbles should just break the surface now and then...
Then I add several peeled onions...the smaller the better. Cook at that very slow simmer or put into an oven set at just a tick over 200 once it comes to a simmer....and cook for an hour per pound of meat.....should be quite fork tender...not "butter' but cooked round steak tender.
Then add red potatoes....enough to serve those you want to serve....cut into about 2 by 2 pieces or whole little red potatoes. and carrots....as many as you need to serve your family. Bring to a simmer on the stove top and cover and place in the slow oven for about 40 minutes....then add quartered cabbage to the pot....and continue to cook for about 30 minutes.
The cabbage should be crisp tender, the potatoes and carrots done and the meat delicious.
Slice the meat and serve on a plate with sides or a coup soup plate with a big ladle of the pot liquor...some soda bread....and a good stout. When you have finished you should be able to sing Danny Boy and do a bit of Irish tap dancing....and if you bought enough meat, you will have enough left for hash the next day....baked with an egg for each serving.

Ann, what size brisket are you talking about? Ours are only about 3 pounds. Would that still work at 6 hours?

Corned beef and cabbage is a New England dish....and I guess, because so many people on parts of Massachusetts were Irish....well...you know. It was a cheap way of preserving meat....didn't need a smoke house.....just a barrel. My mother tells about fishing a cut of corned beef out of the barrel of corning likker.
If your corned beef gets "stringy"...wrap in foil and put into the oven until it firms up....and cut against the grain!!
Love soda bread.....might to toast me a slice as a bed time snack!

I also tried the oven method last year and we were not happy. As Linda said, way too salty for us. so this year it is going into the crock pot with some cabbage and carrots. Potatoes will be done separately and turned into a large pot of colcannon. Like last year, leftovers will go into the freezer. The colcannon goes very well with pork chops, and the CB will become Rubens over the weekend.

Annie, what is your hash recipe?

I do a combo method as i also do with smoked ham.

A reverse brine to draw out the some salt. I soak in cold water overnight or at least 6 hours, Drain and refresh water and bring up to simmer for 20min, drain and pat dry. Cover with spice mix...fresh garlic, dry rub-black pepper, green pepper, coriander, smoked pepper flake. Into heavy foil wrapped tight. (first i wrap in parchment)...into a roasting pan and low heat for a few hours like ann_t. If on the smoker grill i open the top of the foil for 1/2 hour. In the oven i will take it out and roast for a bit. Not salty at all.

The newYears ham was delicious and not at all salty. All the flavor without the salt.

I save the second simmer water for new potatoes, carrots and cabbage.

If you happen to have a pressure cooker, it really does make cooking corned beef and cabbage foolproof and quick. This recipe is based on one from Miss Vickie's cookbook. The suggested variations are mine.

Corned Beef with Cabbage and Potatoes

A pressure cooker makes
this traditional St. Paddy’s day meal much
easier. Ordinarily, a corned beef
brisket would take 3 or 4 hours to cook.
Here it’s about a third of that, and most of that time you’re not doing anything. –From a meal-planning standpoint, this is a
very convenient dish. A packaged corned
beef brisket stays good in the fridge for several weeks, and a cabbage has a long
storage life as well—so you can have those items available in your fridge for
cooking at the last minute. You can make it with just cabbage, or throw in
some root vegetables like potatoes and carrots.
Either way, it’s ridiculously easy and good. The leftovers (if there are any) make
excellent sandwiches or hash.

4 cups water or
other liquid (see Variations below)

2 large bay
leaves

3 to 5 lb
corned beef brisket

4 lbs potatoes,
scrubbed

1 small (2 ½
lb) green cabbage

Put the water
in a 6 qt or larger pressure cooker. Add
the bay leaves. Put corned beef in
pressure cooker, fatty side up, along with any juices from the package and the
contents of any spice pack that may have been packed with the beef. Don’t
worry if the brisket doesn’t fit on the bottom;
just let one side point upwards along the side of the cooker. (It’s
going to shrink a huge amount,
probably 50%.) Arrange the potatoes on top of the beef.

Lock the lid in
place. Over high heat, bring the
pressure cooker up to high pressure and adjust the burner to keep it just at
high pressure. Pressure cook it on high
for about 55-60 minutes for a 3 pound brisket, 65 minutes for a 4 pound
brisket, or 70-75 minutes for a 5 pound
brisket. Then allow the pressure to go
down naturally (that is, don’t vent the cooker or put it under cold water)—that
might take as long as 15 minutes. During
that time, trim the cabbage: remove the
outer layer or two of leaves, cut the cabbage in half (pole to pole, not
through the equator). Cut the dense core
out of the stem end of each half and discard.
Cut the halves in thirds lengthwise (along meridians, not across the
equator). Once the pressure is down,
open the cooker and remove the potatoes to a platter, covering with aluminum
foil to keep warm. Put the brisket on a
platter, fatty side up. If there is less
than 1 cup of liquid in the cooker, add sufficient water to make 1 cup. Put the
cabbage in the cooker, put the top on, and return the cooker to high—once on
high, cook for 3 minutes. You can bring
the pressure down quickly now, either by venting the pressure cooker or by
putting the cooker in the sink and running cold water over it. Open the cooker and scoop out the cabbage,
allowing it to drain, and place it on the platter.

Don’t try to
carve the corned beef until it has rested for a while—it’ll shred to bits. Remove a lot of the surface fat from the beef
by scraping it with a blunt instrument like a teaspoon. Carve by starting at one corner, carving the
corned beef across the grain—otherwise
it’ll be stringy.

Guinness stout
goes very well with this.

Variations:
instead of water, use stout or beer or any combination of those three
liquids.

If you are happy with the typical boiled corned beef and cabbage dinner no need to try something else. For me slow roasted is the only way I want my corned beef.

Over the last few years, I've had feed back from many that have tried this method and are now converts. No one has ever mentioned it being salty. So I assume it must depend on where you get your corned brisket from. Never had a problem with mine being salty. I buy from local butchers so that probably makes a difference.

Angelaid, that is a five pounder in that photo. You wouldn't need 6 hours for a 3 pounder. Check after 3 to 4 hours.

~Ann

ann_t, I tried your method of cooking corned beef and it's the only way I cook it now, although, I do use coriander that you mentioned in one of your posts or perhaps your blog. I've never noticed a pronounced saltiness.

Ann-T, I tried your method last year and thought it was gorgeous and moist, but terribly salty,too. I wonder if the different companies who corn the beef use differing amounts of salt. And I'm like Lindac92 in that everything else I've tried of yours is a keeper! I think I'll try sleevendog's method this year.

Last year I did sous vide and was very happy with it. My wife, who typically turns her nose at both sous vide and corned beef, also enjoyed it. Can't remember what temp I used, but probably at the high end of someone's recommended range. I think I posted about it so I'll have to look.

I made it today, (I thought today was the day) and I slow roasted it with some beer and beef broth in the bottom of the pan, I put the outer leaves of the cabbage on the bottom to raise the brisket up some. Later I added the potatoes, carrots and cabbage. Since LindaC mentioned about the saltiness, I rinsed it well before I cooked it. I put the spices in the little bag on top and added more ground pepper and garlic. I didn't wrap it in foil, but I covered it. It was very good and tender and I made enough for tomorrow, too.

Lizbeth, I'm sure that is the case. That is why I won't buy one of the cryo-bagged corned beef, they sell in most grocery stores. One of our grocery stores carries a corned beef from a local organic farm and the butcher that I like corns their own briskets. Never had a problem with corned beef from either of these two businesses being over salted.

Yes, it will have a much different outcome where it is purchased. I've used two different butchers the past few years...they never have the spice bag or shrink wrapped. But the simmer water is still a bit salty.

When i get the CSA i'll have much better quality.

Mine doesn't seem to be overly salty either, but I do rinse it, then sprinkle the spices over top and most of the time I add a bit of water to the bottom of the dutch oven, more water if it's the crockpot.

Peppi, it's one of those "5 ingredient" recipes and I didn't even mean it to be. (grin) I chop up the corned beef, dice some potatoes and onions. Throw some fat into a frying pan, add the onions and potatoes and stir until nicely browned. Add the chopped corn beef and some beef broth, I use my home canned stuff and use maybe a cup. Put a lid on and cook until the potatoes are tender. At this point it's ready to serve with some nice over easy eggs, but the girls liked a crunchy bottom layer. So I dumped out the hash, added butter to the hot pan, put the hash back in, made wells for eggs and put the lid back on. By the time the eggs were done the bottom was starting to crisp up and it was perfect.

I've never used any measurements and the corned beef is salty and spicy enough that I only occasionally add a grind of black pepper when serving it. I use as many potatoes as I want servings, I can stretch just a little bit of corned beef this way or add a lot if I have some that I need to use up. I've added cabbage or parsnips at various times, I really like the added sweetness from the parsnips but Elery likes the original potato and onion version.

It's really simple, just fried potatoes and onions and some leftover corned beef, but it's just the way we like it.

We just got the cooktop installed, but no electricity yet for the ignitors, so it's probably going to be the crockpot...

Annie

Oh boy. I'd planned to bake mine for the first time, sauté the cabbage with a little tomato and onion, not quite in the mood for a boiled dinner - and my afternoon looks busy to be tending something on the stove.

But, I have one of the cryo-pac from Costco, a 5# corned beef. Am I going to be in trouble here with the salt? Do I need to go into the kitchen now and rinse, begin to soak or something this morning?

It says Premium Shenson Butchers Cut Round on the package if that matters.

I would soak it. In your pasta type pot and into the fridge. Before baking, drain, add fresh water and bring to a simmer, then bake. Probably adding 15 total min to your prep. I've had that one before. But we are pretty salt sensitive.

Thanks, I'll open and start soaking now ;) I have about 4 hours before I was going to begin to cook.

I have cooked mine in a reynolds bake-in bag for a few years, but my memory is that it was too salty last year (a delicious TJ's corned beef chunk), so I decided to try the method mentioned here and soaked it overnight in plain water, then put it in parchment and triple wrapped in foil and covered the pan with more foil. I baked it at 250 for about 4.5 hours - it was almost 3lbs. It was perfect! great flavor, not too salty. I didn't have time to add any extra seasonings, because I barely remembered to get it in the oven before I had to leave, but it was still wonderfully seasoned, even after the soaking.

Thanks, ann_t and sleevendog.

Could I add my thanks too. My Costco 5#er turned out very nice. I wouldn't have wanted it saltier, but it was not overly so. I rinsed well, soaked in the refrigerator, took it out about the 4 hours mark and plunged it into a sink of cold water, rinsing again. I double wrapped in foil, putting some minced garlic, pepper, and added a little wine to the foil packet, sealed it up. I put it in at 350 for 15 minutes, then reduced the heat to 245 and it cooked 5 1/2 hours more. Thanks everyone, this is the first time I had cooked one in the oven and I think that will be my go-to method from now on. Not at all stringy, and fork tender.