Corned Beef (and cabbage?)

[dls]

Any other ideas out there when you can't find corned beef worth smoking?

Fifi - Thanks for the tip and recipe. We were at our secondary residence in FL over the holidays and I was notified by my wife on 01/05 that we were elected to prepare a dinner for 6 neighbors on 01/06. Since we were closing down the FL house and returning to our primary residence in IL on 01/07 and I wanted to do something extremely simple with minimal ingredients and that did not require shopping for a lot of fresh items that would not be fully used and would have to be thrown away afterwards to avoid spoilage prior to our next return Also, needed to do something that was not labor intensive since we were going sailing the same day. Saw you post on 01/04 and said "That's it".

Got a somewhat fatty 6 lb. flat and the McCormick spices from the local German butcher and made a few alterations (naturally). Added the sliced onions to the bag with meat and spices and refrigerated overnight. Did not have red pepper flakes but did have dried Anchos and Chipotles. Tore 2 of each into large pieces and sprinkled over the onion slices in the bottom of the Le Cruset. Also, had a 3" piece of fresh ginger that I was about to throw away. Sliced into 1/4" coins and added. Then added meat, brown sugar, and 1/4" of dark beer instead of the water. Covered, cooked as you recommended and went sailing. When we returned, removed meat, strained liquid, and thickened a little with cornstarch. Sliced meat, added sauce, and served with very good prepared baked beans and cole slaw from the butcher. Beverage of choice was more dark beer. Net result was a very simple great meal with minimal little effort. Thanks again.

P.S. Thought that I would freeze any leftovers for sandwichs on our next return. No such luck. Not a scrap left.

[budrichard]

It is very easy to 'corn' your own brisket. It takes a whole brisket with the fat cap which now comes cryovac wrapped as a primal cut. Don't let the butcher take it out of the cryovac as thet invariably remove the fat cap. Obtain some saltpeter for color retension, kosher salt, your choice of spices, put into a 2 gallon freezer zip lock bag in a large pyrex dish and wait about 4 weeks. Then you can smoke it but I bet if you cook it, you will never smoke it! -Dick

[fifi]

Hey dls... Glad it worked for you. The addition of the chiles and ginger is sheer genius! I would have used Shiner Bock beer but I noticed that I drank it all!

[col klink]

Don't forget about Chef Fowke's Great Pastrami/Smoked Meat Experiment which has a three-day recipe for corning beef which works very well. About 1/2 way down the 5th page he has the recipe.

[mnebergall]

I can't seem to locate either McCormick's Seafood Boil Spices or the Zatarain's equivalent. Is Old Bay a reasonable substitute (made by McCormick's and has allspice and cloves in it? It comes in a one-ounce foil pouch.

[fifi]

Isn't Old Bay ground spices? I would say that if you like the flavor profile of Old Bay, go for it. I will say that if it is ground spices be aware that it may be stronger than the whole spices in the seafood boil mixes so take that into account.

[mnebergall]

Thanks, I washed off the ground stuff and replaced it with the whole spice version. When shopping I did run into Old Bay crab boil which is a whole spice model. I also found your McCormick's stuff at twice the price. The Old Bay was about a buck and a half and the McCormick's was 3 bucks. I also found a brand called Old Savannah.

[fifi]

That is interesting. I am wondering if we have the whole spice Old Bay available here. I don't remember seeing it but I haven't really looked since I just usually grab the Zatarain's and go. It would be nice to try something different. I may be forced to do this again for St. Paddy's day.

[Katherine]

When I made corned beef, I just used some sort of generic mixed pickling spices I got in a bulk pack at the local Vietnamese grocery. It worked great, the only thing it was missing was peppercorns.

Whoops, I'd better thaw a hunk now if I'm going to eat it this week.

[howard88]

I recently posted on the pressure cooker thread about a bad result cooking corned beef. It finished extremely salty and I thought the method of cooking may have been the culprit.

Yesterday I had a corned beef attack and didn't want to spend three hours simmering so I tried the pressure cooker again.

I had a three and a half pound thin cut piece of corned beef.

Four cups of water in the pressure cooker.

Let in rock slowly for exactly 75 minutes.

I think there was less shrinkage than simmering.

The corned beef was perfectly done.

Taste exquisite, time very little. It was just perfect.

[woodburner]

While not similar to brisket or corned beef, over the past few years I've been finding great chuck roasts, that cook up very nicely in your suggested cooking enviornment.

While they have no fatcap, the do have a high amount of intersprsed fat marbeling. When properly cooked, they shred up and make a pretty damn good beef taco. Or if you perfer sliced, just don't cook it as long. Like a brisket, determining doneness, requires a long tined fork, to pass thru the meat like a stick of butter.

woodburner

[fifi]

I will second the woodburner vote for chuck. That is my favorite thing to do to get some shredded beef for tacos or whatever. I am usually in the market and spy a particularly nicely marbeled chuck roast and it is calling my name. Then it fulfills its destiny in my crock pot or in a dutch oven in the oven. Seasoning is whatever I have around or what tickles my fancy. I have fed hoards of young folk on beef tortilla roll ups thusly made.

[budrichard]

About a month a go I took a whole brisket, salt, spices, garlic and a little saltpeter and started the corning process. Wednesday is the day! The process has never failed to yield a corned beef that everyone who has eaten it, says is the best they have ever eaten.

How many of us have gone the corning route and what have been your methods and experiences? -Dick

[Emily Kaiser]

MMmm, scrumptious. So you corn yours for a month? Can you describe more of your corning process? What spices, what ratio of saltpeter to water, how do you cook it at the end? I've only done it once, and was frustrated at the saltiness, and was thinking of shortening my 5 days and/or using less salt.

Will you serve cabbage, too, for St. Pat's? And what goes on your corned beef sandwich?

[Emily Kaiser]

Erica Marcus has a nice article in last week's NY Newsday on the history of the not-so-very-Irish dish

here

"How the Irish in America came to eat corned beef is a question that scholars have thus far failed to answer with certainty ...

"Although they ate corned beef at one time," said James O'Donnell, president of the Irish Food Board, "by the time the Irish started coming to America, beef would have been a luxury that only the very well-off could afford." Most who emigrated never would have tasted corned beef; their celebratory meal would've been based on bacon ..."

[hannnah]

Thanks for that link, Emily. My husband (born in London, but both parents are Irish) has a yearly rant around this time about corned beef and the fact that almost no one in Ireland would even consider eating corned beef and cabbage. Nice to know someone went to the trouble to find out why!

[Emily Kaiser]

Yes, I think I came across a line somewhere, "corned beef and cabbage is about as Irish as spaghetti bolognese."

Tasty all the same, with apologies to your husband's family.

Anyone else out there 'corn' their own?

[scott123]

I've corned my beef a couple of times but was never satisfied with the result. I think I need a better recipe. The garlic in my recipe makes my corned beef taste like pastrami. Delicious pastrami but not corned beef.

[suzilightning]

i just did this for the first time this year using the recipe from my old paperback fanny farmer cookbook though i used a bit less salt than they did and no saltpeter.

after letting it sit for about a week i rinsed it off yesterday morning, coated it with a spice mix and oven cooked it a la fifi. http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=34453

this is one that will be added to the repitoire.

[NeroW]

I "corn" my own but it's not really corning per se. I just boil it for hours.

[budrichard]

MMmm, scrumptious. So you corn yours for a month? Can you describe more of your corning process? What spices, what ratio of saltpeter to water, how do you cook it at the end? I've only done it once, and was frustrated at the saltiness, and was thinking of shortening my 5 days and/or using less salt.

Will you serve cabbage, too, for St. Pat's? And what goes on your corned beef sandwich?

The test of salt is to add salt until an egg floats in the water. Saltpeter is about 1/4 teaspoon for each zip lock bag. The brisket is put into 2 gal zip lock bags with water. A whole brisket needs to be cut in two to fit in the two gal ziplocks. Spices include a LOT of fresh chopped garlic, coriander, mustard seed, fenugreek, bay leaves, ceyon cinnamin, cardamon and whatever else suits my fancy at the time.

When ready to cook, wash in cold water, into the pot with Guinness and cook for 4 hours. At the end add red potatoes and cabbage.

Serve with mustards and horseradish.

For sandwiches, use dark rye, swiss, cold pack kraut and a hearty mustard.

I'm hungry! -Dick

[Katherine]

MMmm, scrumptious.  So you corn yours for a month?  Can you describe more of your corning process?  What spices, what ratio of saltpeter to water, how do you cook it at the end?  I've only done it once, and was frustrated at the saltiness, and was thinking of shortening my 5 days and/or using less salt.

The test of salt is to add salt until an egg floats in the water. Saltpeter is about 1/4 teaspoon for each zip lock bag. The brisket is put into 2 gal zip lock bags with water. A whole brisket needs to be cut in two to fit in the two gal ziplocks. Spices include a LOT of fresh chopped garlic, coriander, mustard seed, fenugreek, bay leaves, ceyon cinnamin, cardamon and whatever else suits my fancy at the time.

When ready to cook, wash in cold water, into the pot with Guinness and cook for 4 hours. At the end add red potatoes and cabbage.

Before starting I searched on the Internet and came up with a wide variety of recipes, many including sugar and garlic. Knowing that I wanted a traditional corned beef, I settled on salt and simple spices.

I put about 3 gallons of water in a 5 gallon plastic bucket, added enough kosher salt to float an egg, a packer brisket cut in 3 pieces, and a handful of mixed pickling spices (supplemented with black peppercorns). I didn't refrigerate during the process, but my cellar is at about 40º this time of the year. I let it go for 2 weeks, then removed the chunks, cooked one, and froze the rest. This does make a rather salty corned beef, so I either boil in lots of water or refresh by soaking in the refrigerator for a day.

But that's what corned beef is, beef preserved with salt.

You can cut back the salt if you'd rather, but if you do, you'll be experimenting, producing some other sort of cured meat product, so let us know how it turns out.

The chunk I just finished thawing is boiling now, and the house smells wondrous.

[bloviatrix]

I'm making a corned beef for lunch tomorrow. As I pulled it out of the packaging from the butcher I noticed that it was in a vacuum packed bag so I decided to try something new (for me) and cook it sous vide.

Does anyone have any experience with this? Anything you want to warn me about?

I'm not going to kill my parents, will I?

[Adam Balic]

Does your butcher de-salt there corn beef for sale? Could be a wee salty if not.

[Suzanne F]

And can the plastic withstand 212 degrees without melting, or higher if you will be roasting it?