Boiled Dinner with Dumplings
Submitted by thomas105
Irish boiled dinner with feather dumplings: corned beef simmered low with potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips, onions, and cabbage. Fluffy steamed dumplings cook right in the briny pot likker for the ultimate one-pot St. Patrick’s Day spread.
YIELD
12 servingsPREP
20 minCOOK
4 minREADY
4½ hrsIrish boiled dinner is the New England-Irish answer to feeding a hungry crowd: one pot, one chunk of corned beef, and every root vegetable in the cellar simmered together until everything tastes like the brine and the brine tastes like everything. Add Aroostook County feather dumplings to that pot likker at the end, and you have dinner that earns its place at every St. Patrick’s Day table.
Timing is the trick. The corned beef gets a long, low simmer for almost four hours so the brisket turns fork-tender. Vegetables go in only at the end, in stages, so they cook through without turning to mush. Beets cook separately because their pigment bleeds into everything else and stains the broth purple.
The dumplings are the star, and they earn their name. Aroostook feather dumplings come from Maine’s potato country and rise into pillowy clouds when steamed in the boiling pot likker. The cardinal rule: do not lift the lid for the full twenty minutes. Every peek collapses them into rubber pucks.
Mix the dumpling batter to a stiff, moist consistency. Too wet and they fall apart in the broth; too dry and they bake into hockey pucks instead of feathers.
Pro Tips
- Trim the heavy fat cap off the corned beef before simmering to avoid greasy broth, but leave a thin layer for flavor.
- Save the leftover pot likker for split pea or cabbage soup the next day. It is liquid gold.
- Quarter the potatoes instead of leaving them whole if you want them done in 25 minutes alongside the other vegetables.
Variations
- Substitute pickled pork or smoked ham for the corned beef.
- Add a bay leaf and a tablespoon of pickling spices to the simmering water for deeper flavor.
- Serve with grainy mustard, prepared horseradish, or Irish soda bread on the side.
Ingredients
Directions
You will need a large kettle.
Cover corned beef with cold water; bring to simmering; cook at this temperature for 3½ to 4 hours or until the meat is tender.
At the end of 3½ hours, add pared potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips and peeled whole onions to meat in the kettle.
Lay cabbage wedges over top of vegetables and meat.
Cover; cook for about 25 minutes or until vegetables are tender.
Cook beets separately, if fresh, until tender.
Depending on size of beets, beets take longer to cook than some vegetables.
If canned, reheat to boiling. When all is cooked, remove meat and vegetables to a large platter; keep warm while the dumplings cook in the kettle juices.
FOR THE DUMPLINGS: This needs to be a stiff moist batter. Mix together and sift the flour, salt, baking powder and pepper.
Combine egg and milk with melted butter; add to sifted dry ingredients.
Have “pot likker” (liquid in which dinner was cooked) boiling.
Spoon batter by tablespoonfuls into boiling liquid.
Cook, uncovered, until liquid boils again; cover kettle tightly and cook for 20 minutes.
Do not lift cover during cooking.
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