Corned Beef At Home: Recipes, Tips, etc.

[robirdstx]

8 minutes ago, Tri2Cook said:

Just realized St. Patrick's Day is on a Friday this year. I'm probably going to have to settle for a St. Patrick's weekend corned beef.

 

Perhaps this will happen again this year.

 

As Luck Would Have It, Bishops Allow Meat on St. Patrick's Day

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/15/AR2006031502340.html

[Tri2Cook]

32 minutes ago, robirdstx said:

 

Perhaps this will happen again this year.

 

As Luck Would Have It, Bishops Allow Meat on St. Patrick's Day

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/15/AR2006031502340.html

I actually hadn't thought about that aspect, doesn't apply to me. I was just thinking I'm not likely to do it by the time I get home from work that day.

[rotuts]

@Porthos  

 

pay attention to the meat , not the fat.  don't like the fat , deal with it with an EP'd knife.

 

rendering fat is not what SV's about :  using SV for that  will just ruin the meat.

 

its about the meat.    and the fat/collagen that's intramuscular.    not the other fat.

[rotuts]

@Tri2Cook  

 

Wow  !   1/3 d of Bishops Know more than God !

 

makes one wonder , and under the above circumstances Id be pretty uneasy fostering  that line of thinking.

 

Bad for Job Security.

 

both for God and the Bishops.

[HungryChris]

Time for an update on my bottom round roast CB (for a little history, see the second post in this thread).

After 2 weeks in the brine, I put the beef in the IP on manual for 70 minutes, let it cool in the fridge overnight. Today I put it on the slicer and here is what I got.

Encouraged, I proceeded to make a sandwich, a Reuben, in fact.

 

I liked it. I liked it a lot!!

HC

Edited February 16, 2017 by HungryChris (log)

[rotuts]

@HungryChris  

 

congratulations

 

was that iP  :  70 min steam above water ?  in water ?  HP  LP ?

 

if you do this again , Im interested in the water  i.e. was it salty ?

 

Im trying to get a high quality CB  ( commercial preps OK once I solve the papain issues ) w has less salt in it

 

do you plan to try SV  and compare ?

[rotuts]

@HungryChris  

 

P.S.:  like the DDP

 

I keep several of those 12 packs around for Medical De-hydration  

 

I use the at 50 % straight  after i can't stunt the sight of water

 

well well enough.

 

they come around  , like Free Krack :  Try it You Never Go back  for about 1.99 or even $ 1  / pack

 

Must Buy 6 !

[HungryChris]

I covered it with water (with a splash of vinegar and Crystal hot sauce), because I was hoping to leach out some of the salt. It was a bit salty. Next time, I might soak it overnight in fresh water. It took almost a half hour for the natural release, probably because of all the water, but very little shrinkage. Ultimately I will try SV.

HC

 

[Porthos]

On 2/14/2017 at 10:36 AM, Porthos said:

 

I pulled the bag out of the bath after it's 18 hour cook, chilled it, and now it is in the fridge waiting to be dinner tomorrow night.

 

One thing is certain. I can tell just looking through the bag that very little fat was rendered out of the meat.  I have one more CB in the freezer and I will pull it out in a couple of weeks and try a higher temp/shorter time to see if it comes closer to what I am looking for.

 

I chilled and refrigerated this CB Tuesday morning thinking it would be dinner Wednesday night. Life got in the way.

 

I decided last night to set the SV rig to 165 F and re-run it, still in the unopened bag, for 10 hours. It will be dinner tonight.

[Porthos]

On 2/14/2017 at 10:36 AM, Porthos said:

 

I pulled the bag out of the bath after it's 18 hour cook, chilled it, and now it is in the fridge waiting to be dinner tomorrow night.

 

One thing is certain. I can tell just looking through the bag that very little fat was rendered out of the meat.  I have one more CB in the freezer and I will pull it out in a couple of weeks and try a higher temp/shorter time to see if it comes closer to what I am looking for.

 

Since I chilled and refrigerated the CB without breaking the seal, as noted above, I did the 10 hours at 165 F, and served it for dinner tonight.

 

The meat was tender and more of the fat had rendered, but the flavor wasn't that of my normal recipe. Since this was an experiment I have determined that I will continue with my normal recipe.

 

FWIW: I see  SV as another technique for cooking and am not at all committed to find ways to use it just because I own it. YMMV.

[Lisa Shock]

As an experiment for one of the senior citizens I occasionally volunteer to cook for, last year, as I brined the usual huge full-sized brisket, I also 'corned' a pork shoulder that I cut in half to fit in a 6" half-hotel pan and some boneless skinless chicken breasts. (the fellow had found a reference to corning pork in an old book on Google)  The breasts were only brined for 4 days, the other items were brined for 2.5 weeks.

 

Consensus was that the pork tasted almost identical to the beef. The chicken was 'not bad', 'hearty', and 'beef like'. One person said, "If I hadn't been told I was eating chicken, I'm not sure I'd know what it was. It's like what I expected the corned pork to taste like."

 

I had wanted to try this partly because of some odd ways of cooking chicken mentioned in an old New Mexico cookbook I have. (like boiling a whole bird for 3 hours in water with allspice, cinnamon, and cloves) And, I had heard of corning other meats.

 

Might try some corned fish this year.

[chromedome]

My father's family were fishermen in Newfoundland for generations, and made traditional sated and dried cod. One of my uncles later started selling what he described as "corned" fish...salted for just a few hours, long enough to taste well-seasoned but not to alter the texture of the fillets. He used to sell it from the back of his truck across a route spanning several hours' drive. 

 

He still makes it, though none has made its way to my freezer for the last few years. 

 

I have a vague recollection of seeing something similar in one of Thomas Keller's books and thinking it was much like my uncle's technique, but I no longer recall which of his books that might have been. Bouchon, perhaps. 

[ElsieD]

16 minutes ago, chromedome said:

My father's family were fishermen in Newfoundland for generations, and made traditional sated and dried cod. One of my uncles later started selling what he described as "corned" fish...salted for just a few hours, long enough to taste well-seasoned but not to alter the texture of the fillets. He used to sell it from the back of his truck across a route spanning several hours' drive. 

 

He still makes it, though none has made its way to my freezer for the last few years. 

 

I have a vague recollection of seeing something similar in one of Thomas Keller's books and thinking it was much like my uncle's technique, but I no longer recall which of his books that might have been. Bouchon, perhaps. 

 

I'm curious.  Did he use a lot of salt, let it sit for a few (2, 3) hours, then rinse the salt off?  Or was the amount of salt just enough to season the fish and left on?

[chromedome]

Option 1. Lots of salt, then a rinse. 

[Tri2Cook]

Brisket's not going to be an option this time and there's a sale going on at the local store with top sirloin and top round at the same price and bottom round $1/lb cheaper. Somebody give me a firm shove towards a choice so I'll stop second-guessing it.

[gfweb]

I'd say top sirloin if done SV

[Tri2Cook]

1 hour ago, gfweb said:

I'd say top sirloin if done SV

SV is the plan, so top sirloin it shall be. Thanks!

[HungryChris]

I would choose whatever cut you could get with a decent marble. My experience with top round tells me that it is usually too lean for this.

HC

 

[Martin Fisher]

11 minutes ago, HungryChris said:

 

I would choose whatever cut you could get with a decent marble.

 

 

Yeah!

I'm thinking I'll just grab a small well marbled chuck-eye roast.

It's relatively inexpensive and I'm the only one who'll be eating it...SO is effing ridiculously finicky.

[Tri2Cook]

7 hours ago, HungryChris said:

I would choose whatever cut you could get with a decent marble. My experience with top round tells me that it is usually too lean for this.

HC

 

I'm not going to start rethinking it yet again but in the interest of knowledge and for future reference, can it be too lean if you're going to cook it sous vide? The reason I'm asking is, I'm not a fatty meat person. I'm one of those finicky pains in the arse that will waste some of the meat to avoid a hunk of fat. Even high quality, nicely seasoned and cooked fat. When I buy deli pastrami or corned beef or even just roast beef at the grocery store, I've been known to trim out some of the slices before making a sandwich if I consider it too fatty. Yes, I am that bad. So is there a downside to a really lean cut for this purpose if it's going to be cooked in a manner that eliminates the risk of overcooking and drying it out?

[HungryChris]

22 minutes ago, Tri2Cook said:

I'm not going to start rethinking it yet again but in the interest of knowledge and for future reference, can it be too lean if you're going to cook it sous vide? The reason I'm asking is, I'm not a fatty meat person. I'm one of those finicky pains in the arse that will waste some of the meat to avoid a hunk of fat. Even high quality, nicely seasoned and cooked fat. When I buy deli pastrami or corned beef or even just roast beef at the grocery store, I've been known to trim out some of the slices before making a sandwich if I consider it too fatty. Yes, I am that bad. So is there a downside to a really lean cut for this purpose if it's going to be cooked in a manner that eliminates the risk of overcooking and drying it out?

I too, trim excess fat off of corned beef and avoid the point cut because I think it is just too fatty. I tried to corn an eye round one time and it was a complete failure and I think it was because it was just too lean. It fell apart instead of slicing. I did not SV it, and your results may be fine. I'll be interested to read about the outcome.

HC

Edited February 25, 2017 by HungryChris (log)

[rotuts]

I dint think lean / fat is a criteria for SV, initially

 

think of SV  as done-ness   ( rare , med , well ) as the temp setting

 

and tenderness  as the time in the bath.

 

if something fell apart after cooking SV   both time and temp relate themselves to the result.  but not in a conventional cooking manner

 

the round fell apart because the connective tissue had turned to gelatin  .     this happens faster at a higher temp , but will happen at a lower temp but take

 

longer.

 

consider a SV for slicing purposes 140 - 145.      in the mid 150's you start to get  ' braise ' effects where the fibers contract and  you get a lot of jus in the bag

 

that you might have wended to keep in the meat        165 - ++  very similar to an oven braise       180   braise for sure.

[ElsieD]

4 hours ago, Tri2Cook said:

I'm not going to start rethinking it yet again but in the interest of knowledge and for future reference, can it be too lean if you're going to cook it sous vide? The reason I'm asking is, I'm not a fatty meat person. I'm one of those finicky pains in the arse that will waste some of the meat to avoid a hunk of fat. Even high quality, nicely seasoned and cooked fat. When I buy deli pastrami or corned beef or even just roast beef at the grocery store, I've been known to trim out some of the slices before making a sandwich if I consider it too fatty. Yes, I am that bad. So is there a downside to a really lean cut for this purpose if it's going to be cooked in a manner that eliminates the risk of overcooking and drying it out?

 

I have done eye of round sous vide and thought it was great.  The temperature would have been about 134F.  It did not fall apart and sliced very well.  It made great sandwiches.

[HungryChris]

@rotuts, Did you notice the $1.67 pp point cut corned beef in the most recent Stop&Shop flyer? I might get a few to use for smoking pastrami, but the real question in my mind is how much are the flat cuts? 

HC

 

ETA I just noticed the $1.97 pp flat cuts up above the points.

Edited March 3, 2017 by HungryChris (log)

[rotuts]

@HungryChris 

 

not in my area yet   in the past the S&S on sale CB had the papain in it.   id decrease the cooking times because of that , but not on sale in my area yet

 

MarketBasket has two brands , they do not have their own brand , for $ 1.69 point , $ 2.99 flat  :  " Old Neighborhood "  and " freirich flavor " starting Sunday

 

these rio not have papain as Ive looked into that.    I think Ill do a trial of the point in my traditional times and temps   its  $ 1.30 cheaper.   

 

wonder how much fat Ill trim off ?

 

in the past the best Ive ever made    140 - 145   I then smokes on the weber at 130 weber temp w wood chips  for 1 - 2 hours then rebated and froze

 

best summertime sandwiches ever.