Serves a Crowd

Just In Time For The Green Beer Holiday: Corned Beef — Charcutepalooza Challenge #3

by:
March 18, 2011
4.5
2 Ratings
Just In Time For The Green Beer Holiday: Corned Beef — Charcutepalooza Challenge #3
  • Serves Tons
Author Notes

Home made corned beef is surprisingly easy to make (though time consuming), and the perfect dish to serve for St. Patty's day. Read more on my blog Gastography at: http://cpluscdesign.com/gastography/2011/03/15/just-in-time-for-the-green-beer-holiday-corned-beef-charcutepalooza-challenge-3/

The full recipe for this method of corning can be found on page 67 of Michael Ruhlman's Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing.
—Gastography

What You'll Need
Ingredients
  • 5-6 pounds First Cut Beef Brisket
  • Pickling Spice
  • Pink Curing Salt
  • Kosher Salt
  • Sugar
  • Water
Directions
  1. The first thing I did was take my lovely hunk o' beef and broke it down into smaller packages. 1 big roughly 5-6 lb. slab to corn and 2 smaller roughly even portions to BBQ later. Note: This hunk of beef was so frickin big, it took not 1 but 2 cutting boards to hold it :) Now that's beefy love.
  2. The brine I used to cure the beef consisted of store-bought pickling spice (I couldn't for the life of me find the mace called for in Ruhlman's home made recipe), my new friend pink salt, my old friend kosher salt, sugar & garlic.
  3. Submerge beef & wait (patently if possible) 5 days and viola! A hunk of vaguely creepy-looking beef.
  4. Rinse, re-cover with water, add some more pickling spice & slow simmer for 2-3 hrs. until fork-tender and you've got some of the tastiest and tender corned beef I think I've ever had.
  5. I served the inaugural taste of this heavenly beef with a side of simple potatoes, green cabbage, onions and carrots roasted in some of the pot liquor left over from the beef and it was devine. Screw cryo-vac corned beef.
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1 Review

DLanthrum
DLanthrum March 4, 2012
I started making my own German Sauerbraten, which is a similar curing/brining process, a couple years ago. One time I found myself without commercial pickling spices, so I put together my own. I now do that all the time, and make my own "brew" for Corned beef. Mace should be easily found in any food mart's spice section. It is the outer shell of the nutmeg, and you could always substitute that for a similar flavor. I used Alton Brown's recipe as my guide, and tweaked it some. I agree-- once you go Do It Yourself, you'll NEVER go back to the Mass Produced stuff!