SO, Whole Foods had a lot of corned beef the other day (it being that time of year). I have cooked corned beef before, but I've never tried the traditional "corned beef and cabbage", and I thought it would be a good candidate for the Instant Pot. So I pulled up some recipes on the smartphone and bought the ingredients, and tried it out last night. The recipes on the Internet were all over the board in terms of amounts and cooking times so I had to cobble bits and pieces together. I didn't trust the cooking times for the vegetables so I increased them and as a result they came out a little overcooked; the cabbage in particular was a little mushy. Regardless, it was delicious mush and the entire meal was incredible.
Corned beef is usually sold in packages with a "spice packet", and all the recipes I found said to rinse off the beef and put it in a pot with the spices. However, the corned beef Whole Foods was selling had the spices directly on the brisket and so I couldn't rinse off the brisket without losing the spices. So I just dumped the entire bag into the pot. The corned beef was "Wellshire FIrst Cut Brisket Uncured Corned Beef, No nitrate or nitrite". $6.99 / lb . Whole Foods sells a lot of Wellshire meats and they're always very good; the corned beef had a very strong "corned beef" flavor, which I like, and it was outstanding.
Here's the general method I used, the vegetable amounts are approximate. One additional note: I used my "large" Instant Pot for this. For some reason it takes a much longer time to vent the pressure than the smaller one, maybe 10 minutes. That might contribute to overcooking.
Ingredients
1 corned beef brisket, 4 lbs
1 onion, quartered
6 cloves garlic, smashed
1 lb tiny potatoes or cut into 1-1/2 inch pieces
1 lb baby carrots or 6 carrots cut into chunks
1 head cabbage, quartered and cored
5 cups water
Instructions
1. Dump water into Instant Pot and add the onion and garlic cloves, and then put the rack into the Instant Pot.
2. If using a brisket with the spices in a separate packet, open the packet and dump it into the water, and rinse off the brisket. If using a brisket with the spices on it, empty the liquid from the bag into the Instant Pot but don't rinse off the brisket. Either way, place the brisket on the rack.
3. Cook for 90 minutes on the Instant Pot "Meat / Stew" setting, or 90 minutes on high pressure. Allow to naturally release for about 20 minutes and then do a manual release (move the vent valve to "vent"). NOTE: This results in a very tender "fall-apart" brisket, if you prefer it more solid then try 75 or 80 minutes - the recipes I found on the Internet varied greatly in cooking times.
4. Remove the brisket and keep warm somehow. Strain the liquid and return about 2 - 3 cups to the Instant Pot. Put the rack back into the pot and layer the potatoes, then carrots, then cabbage. Cook on HIGH pressure for 7 minutes (first time I did this for 10 which was overdone, so I'm trying 7 minutes next time). Do a quick release.
5. Slice the corned beef against the grain and serve with vegetables.