I begin by explaining why the home cook is wise to make corned beef rather than buy brisket in a brine solution already cured or in cans as cooked corned beef at the local supermarket.
Corning beef is one process I considered various times but I never took the steps to do it until now. Why? It used to be convenient to buy the beef already corned, in brine, and of decent quality. And the canned corned beef products from South America, while expensive, were essentially all good beef, and firm to the touch.
Well, times change, and in this instance not for the better. Ever since meat processors starting using water infusion to cheat us (enhance their profits), the quality and effective meat weight of various meat products (ham, bacon, ground beef, chicken, lunch meats, etc.) has gone substantially downhill. Even the corned beef sold in brine is fluid logged, and the fat to lean meat ratio is typically terrible ... much worse than, let's say, 30 or more years ago. To be blunt, the price and quality issues of the corned beef products sold in supermarkets, including the canned corned beef products, are enough to make me gag.
Basically, buying 3 pounds of so called premium flat thin cut corned beef in brine, for $4.50 per pound (in 2020), results in about 1.5 pounds of useful lean meat at serving time, if you are lucky. That price is a bit stiff for beef brisket! It is closer to the price per pound of whole beef filet. I do multiple experiments with the supermarket packages of corned beef and here are the latest results. A 4.25 pound package of corned beef, after cooking and separating out the large areas of fat, yielded only 1 pound 11 ounces of lean meat. That translates to a final yield of 40%, not even 50%. Thus, paying $4.99/lb. (the current price), the purchased package costs the consumer $21.21. Given the fat and liquid losses from cooking, and the final weight of lean meat of 1 pound 11 ounces, and you have just purchased corned beef for the real price of $12.57 per pound! For that price per pound you can literally buy whole beef filet!
I now find the canned corn beef products to be much softer than they used to be. Yes, the weight is the same, maybe, but the meat is no longer in compressed chunks where you could see the fat content. Instead, the meat is ground into a paste where you wind up getting less meat, more fat and added water. That is disgusting.
Thus, now you know my reasons for putting beef corning recipes in Food Nirvana. It is time to shun the meat processors and make our own corned beef. The recipes below are two of many, and as usual I've made significant changes to achieve what I think is the best. You can try these recipes and then perhaps experiment in terms of flavoring ingredients as you consider the taste of what you have made. You are the boss.
In any event, let's beat the greedy processors at their game by ignoring them and their products. You can save a lot of money and have much higher quality. Buy your own beef brisket or other less expensive cut of lean beef, like top round roast, and get busy. You can easily turn it into corned beef.
Recipes I've read for making corned beef from beef brisket sometimes note that other cuts of beef won't work as well as beef brisket because of it's unique flesh/collagen composition, leading to better tenderness. I tried using raw top round roast and it came out pretty good, and it was only one half the price per pound of raw beef brisket, which cost $6 per pound. It wasn't quite as tender so I decided to use a small amount of meat tenderizer (with bromolain [from pineapple] enzyme) when I'd cure future cuts of top round roast and I was betting that would produce excellent results. I figured I would change this recipe if/when my experimenting is completed/successful. Well, you can buy McCormick's® meat tenderizer at the supermarket or via the Internet. Okay ... I just did the deed! My experiment led to perfect success. Lucky you!
Here is another hint ... moistening the raw meat with Wright's Liquid Smoke® prior to applying the curing agent and spices mixture yields a most delicious corned beef. A cut above ordinary corned beef. But that step is optional. You will save a lot of money if you buy the Liquid Smoke via the Internet in the one gallon jug size.
Okay, let's start with a dry curing recipe from the Morton® Salt Company, modified to include meat tenderizer so you can use top round beef roast instead of beef brisket. They sell a simple product that contains salt, sodium nitrate and sodium nitrite, and the recipe I am providing here is one provided online at Morton's® web site for using my bag of Morton's® Tender Quick® curing agent. I recommend using latex or nitrile gloves when directly packing/rubbing in dry cure ingredients onto the raw beef brisket since the sodium nitrate and sodium nitrite in the curing mix can be absorbed through the skin of your hands. You do not want that to happen as direct absorption or ingestion of those chemicals is toxic and can be fatal.
Tender Quick® is a mixture of salt, sugar, 0.5% sodium nitrate, 0.5% sodium nitrite and propylene glycol. Note that Morton® used to make another curing/flavoring mixture, Sugar Cure®, that was used to cure hams and bacon. That product is no longer available from Morton®. But the Morton® website shows a recipe for adding sugar to Tender Quick® to turn pork into ham. Note that the best sugar to use is dextrose, which you can buy online cheaply via Amazon®. It is less sweet than sucrose, our common table sugar, so it avoids making cured meat too sweet.
Ingredients:
One lean 5 lb. beef brisket (or, optionally, a defatted top round beef roast)
5 tablespoons of Morton® Tender Quick® curing mix
2 tablespoons of brown sugar
1 tablespoon of ground black pepper
1 teaspoon of ground paprika
1 teaspoon of ground bay leaves
1 teaspoon of ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder
1 tablespoon of McCormick's® Meat Tenderizer (if you are using top round beef roast)
1 or 2 tablespoons of Wright's Liquid Smoke® (optional)
Directions:
Trim the surface fat from the meat, especially any membrane that appears as a silvery shiny thin covering, tightly attached to the lean flesh. I slip the tip of a sharp boning knife under the edge of the silver skin, then pull up on the silver skin and gradually remove it by cutting across the meat with the boning knife flat, right at the surface where the lean flesh joins the silver skin.
Mix the Morton® Tender Quick® curing mix with the remaining seasoning and optional meat tenderizer ingredients in a small bowl. Then use a Magic Bullet® mixer to blend those ingredients and turn the mixture into a powder.
Put on latex or nitrile gloves.
If you use the Liquid Smoke then moisten the surfaces of the beef with it.
Rub the curing agent and spices mixture on to and into all brisket/top round surfaces.
Put the brisket or top round roast into a “food grade” plastic bag, minimizing the amount of air in the bag, and tie or close the open end securely. Or you can do what I do and use a vacuum seal bag and vacuum seal the meat.
Refrigerate the packaged curing agents and seasonings, etc. and meat and allow the meat to cure 5 days per inch of meat thickness. One way to shorten the curing time is to cut the meat so it doesn't exceed two inches thick. Another method is to cut slices into thick meat every two inches so the curing agent will be certain to penetrate completely in ten days.
Turn the bag over once per day to assure even curing.
When the curing time is complete, remove the brisket/top round roast from the bag and rinse it and rub it well to remove seasonings and curing chemicals.
To make traditional corned beef, put the meat into a Dutch oven or into a one gallon pot. Choose a Dutch oven or pot size that is close to the area (size when laid flat) of the meat so you don't wind up using too much water, which would weaken the final flavors of the corned beef.
Add water to cover the meat under 1" of water.
Add one tbsp. of mixed pickling spices (supermarkets and Internet vendors sell it, or simply use the pickling spices recipe below, which is what I recommend).
Bring the water in the pot to a boil, covered, then reduce the heat to very low.
Simmer the meat until it is fork tender, about 3 to 3 1/2 hours.
At this point the corned beef is ready to eat. Remove it from the pot and put it on a wooden cutting board and, when somewhat cool, slice it across the grain (never along the grain) into 3/8" thick slices. Serve it hot.
Do not be dismayed if some corned beef slices fall apart, which will happen if the corned beef was cooked longer than necessary. The quality and taste of the meat are so good you won't care if you build a sandwich from a pile of cut meat or serve it mixed in with vegetables instead of having picture perfect slices.
You also have the choice of not cutting the hot corned beef. Instead, let it cool to room temperature, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it overnight. The next day, and for some days beyond, you can slice nice thin pieces of the corned beef for cold or hot sandwiches. They will be delicious.
This concludes the dry curing and cooking steps.
Now I provide a curing recipe where a brine is used instead of a dry curing process.
Ingredients:
Pickling spices:
1 tbsp. of whole allspice berries (or 2 tsp. of ground allspice)
1 tbsp. of whole mustard seeds (brown or yellow)
1 tbsp. of coriander seeds
1 tbsp. of red pepper flakes
1 tbsp. of whole black peppercorns
2 tsp. of whole cloves
9 whole cardamom pods (or 1 1/2 tsp. of ground cardamom)
6 large bay leaves, crumbled
2 tsp. of ground ginger
1/2 stick of cinnamon (optional - used only during brining)
Brine:
1 gallon of water
2 cups of Kosher Salt
5 tsp. of pink curing salt (optional)*
3 tbsp. of the pickling spices
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1 tbsp. of McCormick's® Meat Tenderizer (optional)
*Pink curing salt, or 6.25% sodium nitrite plus 93.75% sodium chloride (table salt), goes by many names, such as Prague Powder #1 or DQ Curing Salt #1, and is easily available online and may be available at your local specialty market or butcher shop. If you don't have it, you can still make corned beef, but it is necessary to have sodium nitrite for that vibrant pink color we associate with corned beef. And it adds flavor too. Without it the final corned beef you serve will be a dull grey color.
Note that pink curing salt is NOT Himalayan pink salt. Pink curing salt is toxic and can be deadly if ingested directly, which is why it is colored pink, so consumers do not mistake it for table salt.
Brisket:
1, lean 5 pound beef brisket (or, optionally, defatted top round beef roast)
2 tbsp. of pickling spices
Directions:
Toast and crush the spices:
You can either use store-bought pickling spices or you can make your own. To make your own, toast the allspice berries, mustard seeds, coriander seeds, red pepper flakes, peppercorns, cloves, and cardamom pods lightly in a small frying pan on medium heat until fragrant. Note that it is pretty easy to burn the spices; you want enough heat to release their flavors, but not so much that they get burned. In other words, keep the heat low to medium low.
Remove the skillet from the heat and place the spices in a small bowl. You can use a mortar and pestle to crush the spices a little, or use the back of a spoon or the side of a knife on a flat surface. Even better, put them into a Magic Bullet® mixer and run it for no more than thirty seconds (my method, simple, easy and fast). Add the crushed spices to a small bowl and stir in the crumbled bay leaves and the ground ginger.
Make the curing brine with the spices, salts, optional meat tenderizer, sugar and water:
Add about 3 Tbsp. of the spice mix (reserve the rest for cooking the corned beef after it has cured), plus the half stick of cinnamon, to a gallon of water in a large pot, along with the Kosher salt, the pink curing salt, and the brown sugar.
Bring to a boil, then remove the pot from the heat and let the contents cool to room temperature. Then refrigerate the brine until it is well chilled.
Cover the brisket with the brine, then chill it:
Place the brisket in a large, flat container or pan, and cover it with the brine. The brine should cover the meat. If the meat floats, weigh it down with a plate or two to keep it submerged.
Alternatively, you can use a 2-gallon freezer or baking bag (placed in a high sided baking casserole so if it leaks it doesn't leak all over your refrigerator), place the brisket in the freezer/baking bag with about 3 quarts of the brine, squeezing out the air from the bag before sealing it.
Place the brining meat in the refrigerator and keep it chilled from 5 to 7 days (or up to 10 days if the brisket is 2" thick). Flip the brisket over once each day, so that all sides get brined equally. Note that forcing the meat to stay submerged will accomplish that purpose so you don't have to flip the meat, but I suggest you do it anyway to equalize salt concentration.
To cook the cured meat:
At the end of the cure, remove the brisket from the brine and rinse off the brine with cold water. Place the brisket into a large pot that just fits around the brisket and cover it with one inch of water. If you want your brisket to be less salty, add another inch of water to the pot. I avoid the extra water but I do add water during cooking if/when necessary. I also flip the meat over about every 30 minutes to assure even cooking in the simmering water.
Add a tablespoon of the pickling spices to the pot. Bring the contents to a boil, then reduce the heat to a very low simmer (barely bubbling), and cook for 3 to 3 1/2 hours, covered, or until the corned beef is fork tender. (At this point you can, if you want, remove it from the pot, let it cool to room temperature, and package the meat tightly in plastic wrap, and store it in the refrigerator for up to a week.)
Cut the meat across the grain:
Remove the meat to a cutting board.
Notice the visible lines on the meat; this is the "grain" of the meat, or the direction of the muscle fibers.
To make the meat easier to cut, first cut it in half, along the grain of the meat. Then make thin crosswise cuts, across the grain to cut the meat into perfect size pieces to serve.
Corned beef is delicious served hot with horseradish cream sauce. The recipe for that sauce is in Food Nirvana under the Dips, Dressings and Sauces Menu.
Cold corned beef is great in a sandwich using soft white bread or snowflake rolls and mayonnaise. Or, you can make a superb sandwich with grilled seeded rye bread, a spicy deli style brown mustard, some Swiss cheese melted over the hot corned beef, and a garlic pickle on the side with some potato chips.
Yet another variation is to make a Reuben sandwich, which includes sauerkraut and thousand island dressing instead of mustard. For a Reuben, place the meat, cheese and sauerkraut (that has been squeezed to eliminate excess liquid) in a bowl and heat it in the microwave oven until the sauerkraut is hot and the cheese melting. Then, put that assembly onto plain or grilled rye bread (grilled in butter is the best) and cover it with the thousand island dressing and a top piece of rye bread. Cut it in half and ... Yummy!
Oh, some folks use cold coleslaw instead of sauerkraut after heating only the meat and cheese and they either keep or forego the thousand island dressing. That delight is called a Rachel sandwich. Thus, formally the Rachel sandwich is a variation on the standard Reuben sandwich, substituting coleslaw for the sauerkraut. Indeed, some recipes call for using turkey instead of corned beef. You can, of course, put any combination together that pleases you!
Lest I forget, it is historically and ethnically proper to mention the original New York Hot Steamer corned beef sandwiches. They were simple in that they consisted of only rye bread, hot corned beef and deli mustard. But boy were they superb, for the tender and moist meat was piled high, so when you ate one it was a real taste pleasure followed by a pleasantly full feeling. What a great sandwich, done best and mostly only at Jewish delicatessens!
Be sure to serve these sandwich delights with a good cold beverage like beer or a soda, ergo something carbonated.
Enjoy!