Jenn's Beef Brisket a la N.E Boiled Dinner

New England Boiled Dinner.  Take an extra salty, briny piece of meat, toss it in a pot of water, boil the life out of it, toss in potatoes, root veggies and cabbage.  Serve.  With mustard and/or vinegar.  A meal that was foreign to me until I met my husband's family some odd years ago now.  The first time this was served to me, I naturally proceeded with caution.  It all looked like the same gray matter sitting on a plate in front of me.  But those around me couldn't shovel it into their mouths quickly enough, so I proceeded.  And yeah, well, the rest is history.  It wasn't long until I was making my own boiled dinner at home.  But this isn't an entry about New England Boiled dinner.... well, not quite.

Last year, I was in the mood for boiled dinner, but it was the wrong time of year to find corned beef brisket at the store.  At least, MB and S&S weren't carrying it and I wasn't going to S's.  So, I asked the butcher if he had brisket.  Stupid question Jenn.  I wasn't paying attention to what I was asking.  I had simply said "brisket" and not "corned beef brisket."  The butcher replied kindly and disappeared into the back room, returning with this enormous 5lb hunk of beef, which I HAD to take home, he had special cut it for me.  Thankfully, beef at the time wasn't outrageously priced so I didn't go bankrupt at checkout.  Went home with my potato, cabbage, parsnips, carrots and set to work boiling the water.  Only to realize that "the package" of spices was missing.  It was then that it finally dawned on me... this was not corned beef brisket... this was just simply beef brisket.  What the HECK do I do with this!?

A quick search on the internet produced several brines and methods to make your own pickling spice to produced the "corned" part of beef brisket... but that took 2-3 days to complete properly.  I wanted boiled dinner now, not three days from now.  Further searches produced results about others who had run into a similar scenario, no not where someone mistakenly got just beef and forgot the corned... but where the spice packet had been left out of their package of corned beef.  Reading several question and answer sites I finally came up with the spices I wanted to use.  Tossed them all into the pot, boiled this plain old beef brisket up for about 3 hours, tossed in the veggies and served.  It was "OK."  It was certainly edible.  Both Rob and Kass at it, and since the butcher had given me enough to feed a family of 8, I had plenty of leftovers and lived off this for more than a week for lunch.

Fast forward to last night.  I've improved my recipe and it was AMAZING.  So, why not share it with you? 

First thing we need to do here though is finally establish my measuring techniques, because you will surely need it this time.  I palm measure.  Here's what I mean.

Hold your hand out in front of you.  Cup it.
You'll notice that you've now created a small divot in the palm of your hand.  The lowest point, the orange circle in the picture is #1, typically about a teaspoon.  The next higher point, pour to the red line, and that can be a teaspoon to one tablespoon, depending on how cupped your hand is.  The next higher point over that is the green circle, easily 2 tablespoons, but again, depends on how cupped your hand is.  Imagine an orange just sitting in there nicely with your hand cupped around it.  That's about right.

Now that you know the approximate measurements, here are the ingredients to Jenn's Beef Brisket.

• 1 Beef Brisket, not too fatty, but not without fat
• Bay Leaves
• Coriander
• Whole cloves
• Whole all spice
• Mustard Powder
• 3 cloves garlic
• Onion powder
• Salt
• Whole Pepper
• Water
• Root Vegetables (Russet Potatoes, Carrots, Turnip, Parsnip - all or some, depends on how many people you're feeding)
• Head of Cabbage

Grab a pot big enough to hold the brisket and all your vegetables.  This is a one pot dish, everything is eventually going in, so make sure you have plenty of room!  Put the brisket in the bottom and fill with water to 2 inches from the top of the pot.  Get the pot on the stove and set to High to get it boiling. 

Add your spices. 
In the "Green Measurement" add the following: 

• Coriander
• Whole cloves
• Mustard Powder
• Salt
• Whole Pepper

In the "Red Measurement" add the following:

• Whole All spice
• Onion powder

Drop in 2 Bay leaves
Drop in 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped in half

1. Bring everything to a boil, turn back heat to Medium and let simmer/boil for 1.5 hours.
• Now... this is for a beef brisket that shreds but does not fall apart on its own.  If you want the brisket to fall apart on it's own, boil for 2.5 hours.  Otherwise, this makes a nice beef that's tender but may still want a knife to cut the shreds.  It WILL still shred, just not fall apart on its own.  Adjust to your taste.
2. Meanwhile, cut your root vegetables into big chunks.  Carrots should just be cut in half, potatoes quartered, parsnip sliced and quartered.
3. After 1.5 hours, you'll want to start progressively adding the vegetables for the last 30 minutes, the denser veggies first.  
• Add another "Red Measurement" of salt at this point
• Carrots, Parsnips, Turnips, Potatoes, Cabbage last.  Let the one veggie boil up for 5-10 minutes before adding the next.

Your house is going to smell AMAZING while this is happening.  :-)

After the 2 hours have completed, your meal is done.  Grab some serving trays to display it all in, or just serve right from the pot.  Minus the beef of course, you'll need to shred/cut that.

You will also be left with a super flavorful beef broth.  Make soup, or freeze for later.

Enjoy!!