Corned Beef

Preparation

1. Bland

   Step 1

   Once it’s cooked, you’ll just have to add a sauce with a little zip, or serve it with a good mustard (we’re partial to stone-ground or perhaps a sweet and spicy). Next time, add any of the following four seasonings, alone or in concert, to the cooking water for corned beef or, indeed, for boiled beef: dill seed, a 1-inch stick of cinnamon, whole celery seed, or four or five whole allspice berries.

2. Tough

   Step 2

   You haven’t cooked it long enough. Just keep going. It takes a long, long while to get some corned beef tender, but it eventually does happen (unless you can detect the word “Firestone” stamped into the side of the beef).