Boiled Corned Beef Dinner in a Pressure Cooker

It’s getting to be “the season” to make corned beef and/or reuben sandwiches.  I make both of these at home as it’s so much better than going out.  Often, a reuben sandwich is made with “corned beef” lunchmeat.  Gross!  Easy, but you get what you play for.  Not very tasty.  Corned beef becomes readily available and pretty inexpensive before St. Patrick’s Day.  Buy a couple of roasts when they are on sale and put a couple of them in the freezer.  No need to pay $10/lb., just because you want corned beef another time during the year.  I will make a boiled dinner.  I will add another post for reuben sandwiches.  

The biggest challenge in making a corned beef roast, that has been mass-produced, is that it is really salty.  As a result, use lots of water!  After cooking the meat in water and the spices it comes with, dispose of that water and use fresh water.  Return the cooked corned beef roast and the veggies to the fresh water.  This will help.  This is not the healthiest dinner, but once in a while, it’s pretty delicious!  This recipe will easily serve 2 or 3.  

Ingredients:

• 1 corned beef roast.  Size depends on the number of people you’re cooking for.  I usually make about a 2 pounder.  
• Several quarts of water
• 9-12 Red Potatoes.
• 1/2 to whole head of green cabbage.
• 1/2 to whole ruttabega.  (Optional).  This is a veg that has a hard, waxy shell.  One you peel that off and cook it, yummy.  If you’ve not used it, try it.  I had to really fish around for the spelling and Apple Pages still does not like this one.  :-)

Process:

1.)  As noted above, use several quarts of water to completely cover the roast in a large pressure cooker.  Seal and cook for 30-35 minutes.  This is a very tough piece of meat, so don’t worry.  After reducing the pressure, dispose of the salty water.

2.)  Add 1 couple of quarts of fresh water, the roast, and the veggies, chopped course or whole.  Large chunks are part of the rustic charm of this recipe.  Seal and cook for additional 5 minutes.

3.)  Remove from heat, allow pressure to escape, and serve!!  You can slice the meat and serve this “family style”.  

That’s it!  Serve it hot.  Microwave, if needed.  It’s important to serve this really hot and it cools off quickly.  Put out some butter for the potatoes and salt and pepper.  I may need to make this before St. Patty’s day, as writing this makes me really hungry for it.  

I make this in the pressure cooker, only because it’s super fast.  I had made it in a slow cooker for years.  If you do that, it might be saltier, and you’ll need to cook the veggies a little while before serving.  It’s also a much smaller vessel, so it might not all fit in there.  However, you could remove the roast and put the veggies in.  Not as many, but you could make reuben sandwiches or freeze the rest of the meat.