Making your own corned beef is especially satisfying because it’s so easy—and so inexpensive compared to commercial corned beef. What is Corned Beef? Corning beef was a way of pickling or preserving beef in the days before refrigeration. As early as the mid 1600s recipes spoke of pickling or corning beef. Corn was another word for a small, hard, particle. The corn in corned beef refers to the coarse grains of salt used in the corning process.
Many companies produce corned beef now, but they use many different chemicals and preservatives. Sodium Nitrate,or salt peter, is one of the primary ingredients in even homemade corned beef, used to keep the meat a pink color. It is totally unnecessary to the taste or quality of the finished recipe. The nitrite in curing salts does a few special things to meat: It changes the flavor, preserves the corned beef’s red color, prevents fats from developing rancid flavors, and prevents many bacteria from growing.
Yield 6 – 8 servings
Cook Time: approximately 3 hours
Inactive Prep Time: 10 days
For the Brine
Ingredients
- 2 quarts water
- 1 cup kosher salt
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons saltpeter
- 1 cinnamon stick, broken into several pieces 1 teaspoon mustard seeds
- 1 teaspoon black peppercorns 8 whole cloves
- 8 whole allspice berries
- 12 whole juniper berries
- 2 bay leaves, crumbled
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 2 pounds ice
- One 4 to 5 pound well marbled beef brisket
Directions
- Place the water into a large 6 to 8 quart stockpot along with salt, sugar, saltpeter, cinnamon stick, mustard seeds, peppercorns, cloves, allspice, juniper berries, bay leaves and ginger.
- Cook over high heat until the salt and sugar have dissolved. Remove from the heat and add the ice. Stir until the ice has melted. If necessary, place the brine into the refrigerator until it reaches a temperature of 45 degrees F.
- Once it has cooled, place the brisket in a 2-gallon zip top bag and add the brine.
- Seal and lay flat inside a container, cover and place in the refrigerator for 10 days. Check daily to make sure the beef is completely submerged and stir the brine.
To cook the corned beef
Ingredients
- 1 small onion, quartered
- 1 large carrot, coarsely chopped
- 1 stalk celery, coarsely chopped
Directions
- After 10 days, remove from the brine and rinse well under cool water.
- Place the brisket into a pot just large enough to hold the meat, add the onion, carrot and celery and cover with water by 1-inch.
- Set over high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover and gently simmer for 2 1/2 to 3 hours or until the meat is fork tender.
- Remove from the pot and thinly slice across the grain.
Corned beef if excellent for sandwiches (on a toasted rye bread) or it can be served as a main course, served with sauteed blanched cabbage or brussels sprouts with a mustard vinaigrette and boiled potatoes, or as breakfast item corned beef and hash.
Recipe by Alton Brown
