# ISO Help Buying Corned Beef



## cvanhorn (Apr 11, 2012)

I am looking for some advice on what to look for when buying corned beef, and how to prepare and cook it. 

I especially love rueben's but am always open to other recipe suggestions to spice up my corned beef consumption once it is made (considering I only cook for my girlfriend and myself).


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## Zhizara (Apr 11, 2012)

Corned beef and cabbage.  There's a good thread about how to cook it, as well as a thread about how to corn the beef itself.  

Try the Google search at the top of each screen.


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## Palladini (May 27, 2014)

All I can tell, make your own corned beef, it is not hard, it beats the flavour of anything you will get from a store.

Corned Beef Brine


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## Chief Longwind Of The North (May 27, 2014)

Whether purchasing it already corned, or making your own, select the brisket that has marbling throughout, and with as little fat on the sides as possible.  I have seen store-bought corned beef with such a thick slab of fat on one side that it comprised half of the total weight of the product.  Also, at some stores, you can find corned beef made from an eye of round.  It can be cooked and easily sliced for sandwiches or meals.

Corned beef, after it has cured, is usually boiled, or par-boiled to remove some of the salt.  After that, it can be coated with coarse-grind black pepper, and smoked to make pastrami, or grilled slowly with indirect heat to make it tender.  It is very good braised in a slow oven, or slow cooker for several hours.  It is just as good braised in a pressure cooker for an hour.

All of these techniques will give you tender meat.  If you try to cook it fat, because of the cuts it's made from, it can get tough, sometimes so tough that it's nearly inedible.

For your Reuben, braise in a slow oven, in the pressure cooker, or slow cooker, as described above.  The meat will break apart, and shred easily.  If you carefully remove the meat slab onto a platter, and let it cool for 15 minutes or so, you can slice it across the grain into either thin, or thicker slices.

Corned beef is great with any kind of potatoes.  You can also take some of the broth, dilute it with water to taste, and thicken it with cornstarch to make a very good gravy for rice, or spuds.

Be sure to dice some of that corned beef and cook up with diced potatoes to make you own corned beef hash.  I'ts an amazing thing.

Hope this helps.

Seeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North


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## Andy M. (May 27, 2014)

Palladini said:


> All I can tell, make your own corned beef, it is not hard, it beats the flavour of anything you will get from a store.
> 
> Corned Beef Brine




The difficulty is not in the process but in finding the blend of seasonings that results in the flavor you're looking for from corned beef.  It's an expensive and time-consuming process to keep trying different spice blends trying to find the perfect flavor.


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## Chief Longwind Of The North (May 27, 2014)

This site - Homemade Corned Beef Recipe | Simply Recipes - has a very good recipe that gives you all of the right herbs and spices, and in the correct amounts.  I've used the recipe and it works.

I've also simply picked up a bottle of McCormicks Pickling spice.  It too just works.

Typically, corned beef spices are the same spices used to make bread and butter pickles, but put into a brine of salt and pink salt.  The meat is placed into the brine, chilled to 40 degrees, and left in the brine for between a week and two weeks.  I brine mine for 2 weeks.  If I were using eye of round for my corned beef, I would brine for 3 weeks, to make sure that the brine completely saturated the entire roast.

Hope that helps.

Seeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North


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## CraigC (May 28, 2014)

This is our go to for home cured corned beef. Sub pink salt, cure #1 for the salt peter (potassium nitrate). 

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/jewish-style-corned-beef-recipe.html


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## Andy M. (May 28, 2014)

As a kid growing up, my family always had what we called grey corned beef.  It was cured without the curing (pink) salt so it didn't retain its red color.  Can't find that anywhere now.


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## Aunt Bea (May 28, 2014)

This recipe uses Morton's Tender Quick curing salt to give you that pink corned beef color. 

Don't substitute it in other recipes calling for pink salt unless you reduce the amount of salt called for in the recipe.  

Morton's TQ is available in my local grocery store with the other salts.  I use it when I make pate and meatloaf for sandwiches to eliminate the gray color.

Morton Salt | Deli Style Corned Beef


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## Palladini (May 28, 2014)

Andy M. said:


> The difficulty is not in the process but in finding the blend of seasonings that results in the flavor you're looking for from corned beef.  It's an expensive and time-consuming process to keep trying different spice blends trying to find the perfect flavor.



4# flat probably less than 20% fat.
 1/2 Gal of water (including ice)
 1/2 C Sugar
 1/3 C Canning Salt
 2t. #1 Cure
 2 Garlic toes, (don't worry I didn't use the good hard necks)
 1/3t. Ground Cloves
 2 large Bay Leaves
 1/2t. Mustard Seeds
 1/2t. Ground Coriander
 1t. Thyme
 1 1/2 T cracked pepper

the beef, ask a buthcher, the water?  the sugar?  cure #1 can be had at lots of places.  the rest, Bulk Barn has them all and you get the exact amount you need.  Most people know where to get bulk, only what you need spices.  If you do not know where to get this, ask around.


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## Andy M. (May 28, 2014)

Thanks Palladini.  When I said the problem was in finding the right blend of seasonings, I didn't mean finding where to buy them but that magical combination of the right amounts of each to yield the perfect flavor I was aiming for.

Until you find the right blend, you have made and eaten a lot of corned beef you didn't like all that much.


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## Mad Cook (May 28, 2014)

CraigC said:


> This is our go to for home cured corned beef. Sub pink salt, cure #1 for the salt peter (potassium nitrate).
> 
> Jewish Style Corned Beef Recipe : Food Network


Strangely, you can no longer buy saltpetre in the chemist's (pharmacy) because or the danger of it being used to make home-made bombs (with 1/2 an ounce of saltpetre?) but you can buy any amount of it on Amazon. Very odd and it makes things like corned beef very inconvenient.


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## CraigC (May 28, 2014)

Mad Cook said:


> Strangely, you can no longer buy saltpetre in the chemist's (pharmacy) because or the danger of it being used to make home-made bombs (with 1/2 an ounce of saltpetre?) but you can buy any amount of it on Amazon. Very odd and it makes things like corned beef very inconvenient.



I don't believe potassium nitrate is used in Charcuterie any more. Pink salt, both cure #1 and #2 are state of the art today. I used to use potassium nitrate.


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## Roll_Bones (May 29, 2014)

So. let me get this clear. 
Pastrami is corned beef except its coated with cracked black pepper and smoked instead of boiled?
I love both, but if I had to choose only one, it would be the pastrami.


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## Chief Longwind Of The North (May 29, 2014)

Roll_Bones said:


> So. let me get this clear.
> Pastrami is corned beef except its coated with cracked black pepper and smoked instead of boiled?
> I love both, but if I had to choose only one, it would be the pastrami.



Yup, that's about it. See this - Pastrami - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Seeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North


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## Mad Cook (May 30, 2014)

Your version of corned beef sounds so much more appetising than the stuff we get in cans over here, which is shredded up and mixed with fat and looks like something the cat would turn it's nose up at. 

I believe they do it like you do in Ireland. But I've only heard one person say that. Never come across anyone else who made it from scratch.


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