The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Corned Beef Project: Day 9 - The Meal

Was it worth it?  Definitely.  I'll say that right off the bat. 

First off on Friday, I took a look at the packaged, pre-brined corned beef that I picked up for comparison purposes.  And then I looked up at the clock and realized I needed to get a move on.

"Simmer approximately 50 minutes per pound...." Um...okay, this brisket was 4.74 lbs, so that means...um...about 4 hours.  Okay, we'll put that one in first.  I cut open the package and took a look at the contents.

Very pink, and rather fatty on that side, huh?  Into the pot it went

covered with water, lid on, burner on high to bring it to a boil, and then down to a simmer.

Once I'd got that started, I took a look at the briskets I'd brined.

Not as bright pink as the other one, but that's okay.  They're not gray, at least.

Time to check in with the magazine article....

Remove brisket from brine.  Rinse with cold running water.  (Can be made 2 days ahead.  Wrap corned beef in plastic, cover with foil, and refrigerate.)

I just covered them with plastic wrap and put them back in the fridge, since I'd be cooking them in a few hours.

Time to get everything else ready.

You'll need the following:

4 bay leaves

1 T coriander seeds

2 whole allspice

1 dried chile de arbol, broken in half (I used a dried Thai bird chile - we have tons of them.)

cheesecloth (we have some, somewhere.  I used a plain piece of muslin instead.)

1  12-oz bottle Guinness stout or other other stout or porter (I used a porter my husband made.  And I used 2  8-oz bottles, so a pint instead of 3/4 of a pint.)

12 baby turnips, trimmed, or 3 medium turnips or rutabagas, peeled, quartered (no baby turnips to be found.  I bought the smallest I could find and halved them.  I used 8.)

8 unpeeled medium white-skinned or red-skinned potatoes (about 3 lbs)

6 medium carrots, peeled (I cut them in half as well)

2 medium parsnips, peeled, cut into 2-inch lengths (I used 4.  I like parsnips.)

4 medium onions, peeled, halved through root ends

1  2-lb head of cabbage, quartered (For some reason, I doubled the amount of cabbage.  Not sure what I was thinking at the time.  Probably wasn't thinking at all.)

And here's what you do:

Place corned beef in very large wide pot. 

Add stout (or porter)

and enough water to cover by 1 inch.

   

Wrap cheesecloth around bay leaves, coriander seeds, allspice, and shile, enclosing completely, and tie with kitchen string to secure.  Add spice bag to pot with beef;

bring to boil.  Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until beef is tender, about 2  1/4 hours.  Transfer beef to large baking sheet.

Okay - here's a picture of the pre-packaged corned beef when it came out of the pot...

And here's a picture of the ones I brined and cooked according to Bruce Aidell's recipes in Bon Appetit:

I covered both pans with foil and put them in a 200 degree oven to keep them warm.

Add turnips and all remaining vegetables to liquid in pot;

bring to boil.  Reduce heat to medium and boil gently until all vegetables are tender, about 25 minutes.  Using slotted spoon, transfer vegetables to baking sheet with beef.  Return beef to pot and rewarm 5 minutes.  (I didn't need to rewarm the beef, as it was already staying warm in the oven.)  Discard spice bag.

While the vegetables were cooking, I put out a few things for people to nosh on when they arrived.

Here we have an assortment of Carr's crackers, a piece of smoked Sockeye salmon, a wedge of Wensleydale cheese with cranberries, and a block of aged Irish cheddar. 

Bill also bought oysters - 2 dozen - but I was too busy chatting and then slurping down the oysters once he'd shucked them to take any pictures.  Sorry.

Cut beef against grain into 1/4-inch thick slices.  Arrange beef and vegetables on platter.  Serve with Horseradish Cream and Guinness Mustard.

Starting with the potato at twelve o'clock and going clockwise, we've got some of the cabbage, carrots, a half of a turnip, half an onion, the Guinness mustard, the corned beef (the one I brined), Horseradish cream, and parsnips.

People sampled both versions of the corned beef and based on verbal feedback and evidence when the table was cleared, everyone preferred the home-brined corned beef. 

 

It has a distinctive, more complex, spicier flavor than the pre-packaged one.  It was just more interesting to eat.  I'll definitely make this again.

To recap, here's a shot of everything I'd made for this meal:

Brining the Briskets

Irish Whiskey Soda Bread

Royal Hibernian Brown Loaf

Horseradish Cream, Guinness Mustard

Lemon Sponge Pie with Chocolate Pastry Crust

I heartily recommend making this corned beef some time.  Sure, it's too late to make it for this year's St. Patrick Day dinner, but so what?  It'll taste good any day of the week.

And the leftover beef (and you should plan on making enough so that you DO have leftovers) will be nice in sandwich form,

or, my family's favorite - as corned beef hash.

Come back later for that one!

Corned Beef Dinner - Briefly

It went really well. 

Just wanted to start off by saying that.  People really seemed to like the corned beef - the one I've been working on one way and another since last week and have been posting about just as long. 

I've got a bunch of pictures to go through so I can put these last few corned beef-themed posts together, and I thought I'd be able to do it this morning, but other things came up and I've barely made a dent.

I will say, just as an FYI, that if you have the inclination, brining your own brisket is the way to go.  The final product was so much more aromatic, so much more flavorful, than the pre-brined one I bought at the store.  I'm so glad I did this.  Sure, I had to start it over a week ahead of time, but for most of the time, the brisket just hung out in the fridge, brining away all by itself.  (Or themselves, since there were 4 briskets.) 

And the Horseradish Cream and the Guinness Mustard?  Dee-licious. 

I've got leftover corned beef also, and tomorrow morning I'll be serving hash.  Probably start putting that together tonight.

But for now?  I've still got some dishes to clean up from last night.  And Julia wants a snack.  And Alex has a friend coming over in a little over an hour.  And so on. 

Be back later.

Corned Beef Project: Day 5 - The Turning of the Briskets (and no, there was no Day 4)

Well, as I mentioned this morning, I didn't take any pictures of the briskets in their briney baths yesterday because there was too much else going on and I don't know about you, but I don't think it's all that exciting to see a picture of brisket soaking in brine.  Again and again.  Please let me know if I'm wrong.

Today, however, there is a smidgen of ACTION! going on with the little briskets - today I TURNED THEM OVER IN THE BRINE!  Yes.  I know.  It's hard to hold on to your hat when you read something like that.

So without further ado, here are the step by step photos of the process.  (Sort of.  I had to put the camera down during the actual turning-over part.  So it's more of a before and after photo shoot.  But whatever.)

First up:  Pan #1

Here's the pan, plastic wrap removed, right after I removed it from the fridge:

And here is how the top of the briskets looked, once I REMOVED THE SQUARE GREEN PLATE!

(You can see bits of pink here and there, but it doesn't seem to me that Insta Cure No. 1 is really doing a whole lot....)

As I was flipping these two briskets over, I noticed that the texture of the beef has definitely changed.  It feels...like the cells are swollen with liquid.  Like it's retaining water.  Bloated.  Something like that.  It's hard to describe. 

Here's a close up look at the end of one brisket:

See how puffy the meat looks?  (Doesn't it?  Or am I just imagining things?)

Oh, and I added a little bit more water to each pan - maybe a quarter cup - just to make sure the liquid was covering the meat. 

I put the green plate back on these two briskets, covered the pan in plastic, and put this one back in the fridge.

Next up:  Pan #2

Sans plastic wrap, but with green square plate still in place.

And then, voila!  Ze plate!  She is gone!

Again, you can see a bit of pink, but not a lot. 

I flipped these two briskets over, and added water...

And...put the plate back on top...covered with plastic...and put it back in the fridge.

Yep.

And that's about all there is to say about it.

I think that, unless the briskets start whispering "Zool" when I open the fridge, I'm not going to take pictures again until Friday, which is when I will be cooking them.  Not only these, but ALSO I'll be buying (I am insane) one of those we-already-did-all-the-brining-for-you packaged corned beef briskets to cook as well.  For comparison purposes.  For picture-taking purposes.  For something-more-to-write-about purposes.

Fortunately we have people coming over for dinner on Friday - it's not like Bill and I and the kids will be sitting down to 200 pounds of corned beef all by our selves. 

And while a part of me is knocking on my skull to see if anyone's home inside, the rest of me is looking forward to comparing one corned beef with another.   

Corned Beef Project: Day 3 - Another Peek

Above is a peek along the edge of the pan, where the beef is exposed - it's too thick to be fully immersed in the brine - at least this piece is.

Below, you can see the difference in color, between the exposed edge and the part under the plate:

See how the part on the left is pink, and the part on the right is grayish?  Hopefully that will balance itself out when the meat is flipped over. 

Not much else to report otherwise.  Pretty exciting stuff, no?

Corned Beef Project: Day 2 - Peeking at the Brisket

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I'll be taking a picture or two of the briskets as they soak in their brine and journey (passively) on their way to Corned Beef-hood. 

Here's today's quick peek:

You can see that the meat has begun to change, just by looking at the color.  It's got a "curing" look to it.  The same look raw seafood has when you mix it with citrus juice and let it sit a while.

Corned Beef Project: Day 1 - The Brine and the Briskets

As I mentioned earlier today, I'm going to corn my own beef.  I got the idea from an article in the March issue of Bon Appetit (which came out a month ago - I thought it arrived a couple of weeks ago - but no, because the April issue just came in the mail today.  Shows what I know.).

Anyway - the article not only tells you how to make the brine, but also gives a recipe for Corned Beef and Vegetables, and two sauces - a Horseradish Cream and a Guinness Mustard.  I'll be making those, too, but that will be next week some time.

For today - the first step - starting the brine process.

All the ingredients are pretty straightforward, with the exception of "Insta Cure No. 1" - which you can order at sausagemaker.com.  I ordered mine Sunday, I think, and it arrived yesterday.  You have to buy it in 1 lb packages, and you only need a little at a time, but it's not expensive, and who knows, maybe I'll go on some sort of meat curing frenzy for the next several months and use it right up.  Oh - the purpose of Insta Cure No. 1?  To prevent botulism, but mainly to give the corned beef its traditional pink hue. 

Here's what's needed for the brine (text from the magazine is in bold and my notes are in italics):

6 cups water

2 cups lager beer

1  1/2 cups kosher salt

1 cup (packed) golden brown sugar

1  1/2 tablespoons Insta Cure No. 1 (optional) (below - the Insta Cure is the pink stuff)

1/4 cup pickling spices

1  6-8 lb flat-cut beef brisket, trimmed, with some fat remaining  (I am actually using four 2-lb briskets.  So we'll see if that ends up being a bad thing.)

To Brine:

Pour 6 cups water

and two cups beer

into large deep roasting pan (I used a big bowl - my large roasting pan won't fit in the fridge unless I remove everything else). 

Add coarse salt;

stir until dissolved.

   

Add sugar;

stir until dissolved. 

If desired, stir in Insta Cure No. 1. 

Mix in pickling spices. 

Pierce brisket all over with tip of small sharp knife.  Submerge brisket in liquid,

then top with heavy platter to weigh down. 

Cover

and refrigerate 4 days.

~~~~~

And so that's where things are now.

I will give out one piece of advice - even if you think it's a good idea, don't put a few layers of paper towel under the pans of brisket.  Somehow, the absorbant properties of the paper towel will entice the brine to creep out from under the plastic wrap.  Trust me.

I'll be taking a peek at the brisket tomorrow to see how things are looking.  And I'll keep you posted.