Corned beef questions

"Dwayne" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

The wife and I went out for corned beef the other night. The meat was a
little tough and one of the other guests said that they thought it hadn't
been cooked long enough.

Can we do our own corned beef using a different cut of meat?

What are the ingredients in the spice bag that comes with the prepackaged
cuts of meat and can we put them together ourselves?

What other cuts of meat would make a good substitute?

What else do you do to prepare the meat other than add the spices and cook
it?

Thanks for the help in advance.

Dwayne

Corned beef is made by curing a chunk of beef - usually the brisket but
other cuts are used too. It is covered with a solution of salt, spices, and
other things and let sit, refrigerated, for three weeks or so. Then it's
ready to cook. You can buy prepared corned beef in most markets.

--
Peter Aitken

Remove the [censored] from my email address before using.

Dwayne said:

The wife and I went out for corned beef the other night. The meat was a
little tough and one of the other guests said that they thought it hadn't
been cooked long enough.

Can we do our own corned beef using a different cut of meat?

What are the ingredients in the spice bag that comes with the prepackaged
cuts of meat and can we put them together ourselves?

What other cuts of meat would make a good substitute?

What else do you do to prepare the meat other than add the spices and cook
it?

Thanks for the help in advance.

Dwayne

Beef round works OK if you want very lean corned beef. A good chuck
roast should also work well. The meat has to be salted and "cured".
The saltpeter or nitrites is what give it the bright pink color. If you
are curing the meat with plans to cook it right away, and you don't mind
if the meat is gray instead of pink, you can leave out the nitrates
and/or nitrites. Here's a recipe I copied from David Rosengarten's show
on Food TV a few years ago:

TASTE
SHOW#TS4838

JEWISH STYLE CORNED BEEF

1-12 pound whole brisket
4 quarts water
2 cups Kosher salt
1 teaspoon saltpeter [I would substitute Prague Powder #1]
5 bay leaves
7 cloves garlic, smashed
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
2 teaspoons whole peppercorns
1 teaspoon allspice berries
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup white sugar

Place all ingredients except garlic and brisket in a large pan and bring
to a boil and cool. Place garlic and brisket in non-reactive pot and
cover with brining liquid, cover with a plate and weight for 3 weeks,
turning after 1 1/2 weeks.

Add to a steamer pot:
1/4 teaspoon cloves
2 teaspoons peppercorns
1 teaspoon allspice berries
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
3 cloves garlic
1/4 cup salt

Remove meat from the brine and rinse. Add enough water to the steamer
pot to reach just below the bottom of the steamer. Place meat in
steamer.

Steam for 3 hours, until tender.

Suggested wine: 1988 Erdener Treppchen Riesling Kabinett, Elisabeth
Christoffel - Berres

Quoted message said:

one of the other guests said that they thought it hadn't
been cooked long enough.

Quoted message said:

Can we do our own corned beef using a different cut
of meat?

Indeed, but if the problem really is that it hadn't been cooked enough,
what's wrong with working with the usual old brisket, just simmered as
it should be?

I can't agree that leaving out the non-sodium salts is justifiable.
The main element of the flavor of New England Boiled Dinner is those
salts--not the spice bag ingredients.

I prepare a packaged brisket by putting an inch of cold water in a
12-inch-diameter stock pot, adding the contents of the spice bag, the
juices in the sack, and four cloves of chopped garlic, bringing it to a
boil, adding the brisket (fat side up), bring it to a boil again, and
piling on the vegetables, establishing a very low simmer, covering, and
ignoring for 2 hours (except to check on the vigor of the simmer . . .
let it boil hard and the brisket falls apart).

Toughness has not been a problem; unless I overcook it (which hasn't
happened in the last 20 years), it has a pleasantly firm grain but is
by no means tough. The leftover liquor is not so salty that it doesn't
make a pleasant broth for a winter evening, nitrates/nitrites
notwithstanding.

By the way, in this age of inflationary beef prices, it's odd that
corned beef is now relatively cheap--Safeway just had a $2.99/pound
sale PLUS "buy one, get one free." Shelf life must still be the issue
for meat.

Neil

In article <[email hidden]>,

Dwayne said:

The wife and I went out for corned beef the other night. The meat was a
little tough and one of the other guests said that they thought it hadn't
been cooked long enough.

My suspicion is that it was also cooked at too high a heat. Long, low,
slow is the way to cook corned beef. I am suiting action to the word at
the moment. Dinner will be quite late this evening, since I didn't get
it cooking until 4:30 this afternoon.

Quoted message said:

Can we do our own corned beef using a different cut of meat?

Corning the beef involves weeks. When one cooks corned beef, one is
cooking a cut of meat which has been already corned for one. You might
be able to find a few different cuts of beef at the market which have
already been corned for you.

Priscilla
--
"You can't welcome someone into a body of Christ and then say only
certain rooms are open." -- dancertm in alt.religion.christian.episcopal

zxcvbob <[email hidden]> wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

It is important to let the meat sit for a day outa the brine in the
fridge after brining...too equalize the spices and to drain/dry a bit.

Hag and I did a serries of cornbeef experiments (I think last year) and
settled on top round for the meat and 4 days in the brine.

--
No Bread Crumbs were hurt in the making of this Meal.
Type 2 Diabetic 1AC 5.6mmol or 101mg/dl
Continuing to be Manitoban

Priscilla Ballou said:

Corning the beef involves weeks. When one cooks corned beef, one is
cooking a cut of meat which has been already corned for one. You might
be able to find a few different cuts of beef at the market which have
already been corned for you.

Do you mean like tongue?

It's always interesting to serve a cut of meat that resembles some
recognizable part of the original animal! ;-)

At one time tongue was a somewhat common type of corned beef, though I
haven't seen it in any markets for years. Haven't seen an uncorned tongue
either for that matter. I don't know if it has just fallen out of favor
generally, or it is only sold in certain (regional?) markets.

When my Mom used to serve it to us kids, we told here it was almost as big
as her tongue.

wff_ng_6 said:

At one time tongue was a somewhat common type of corned beef,
though I haven't seen it in any markets for years. Haven't seen
an uncorned tongue either for that matter. I don't know if it
has just fallen out of favor generally, or it is only sold in
certain (regional?) markets.

It's still on the menu at Jewish delis in New York and
Los Angeles.

If it was ever more sidspread than that, I am unawares. 😉

Steve

On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 14:40:19 -0600, zxcvbob <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

TASTE
SHOW#TS4838

JEWISH STYLE CORNED BEEF

[snip recipe]

I recall that David Rosengarten did another Taste episode on corned
beef on which he prepared the brisket the way his father recommended
which included placing the corned beef in cold water, slowly bringing
it to a boil, pouring off the water and repeating at least two more
times before adding the spices and the actual cooking.

I followed that recipe and got some of the tenderest corned beef I
ever had but have since lost it.

Did anyone save that recipe/procedure?

"Steve Pope" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

wff_ng_6 said:

At one time tongue was a somewhat common type of corned beef,
though I haven't seen it in any markets for years. Haven't seen
an uncorned tongue either for that matter. I don't know if it
has just fallen out of favor generally, or it is only sold in
certain (regional?) markets.

It's still on the menu at Jewish delis in New York and
Los Angeles.

If it was ever more sidspread than that, I am unawares. 😉

That may be the reason I thought it was more common. We were living on Long
Island and in a heavily Jewish neighborhood in Philadelphia when my Mom used
to serve it (late 1950s through mid 1960s).

By the way, the recipe for corned beef in the older 1970s edition of the Joy
of Cooking lists either brisket or tongue as the cut of meat to be used.

wff_ng_6 said:

"Steve Pope" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

wff_ng_6 said:

At one time tongue was a somewhat common type of corned beef,
though I haven't seen it in any markets for years. Haven't seen
an uncorned tongue either for that matter. I don't know if it
has just fallen out of favor generally, or it is only sold in
certain (regional?) markets.

It's still on the menu at Jewish delis in New York and
Los Angeles.

If it was ever more sidspread than that, I am unawares. 😉

That may be the reason I thought it was more common. We were living

on Long

Quoted message said:

Island and in a heavily Jewish neighborhood in Philadelphia when my

Mom used

Quoted message said:

to serve it (late 1950s through mid 1960s).

By the way, the recipe for corned beef in the older 1970s edition of

the Joy

Quoted message said:

of Cooking lists either brisket or tongue as the cut of meat to be

used.

Every kosher deli sells pickled/corned tongue... on Lung Guyland go to
"Ben's Kosher Deli". I enjoy a kosher pickled tongue sandwich, the
center portion, not the lean tip nor the very fat back part (the
chalse), the central portion, on Club. My mother would make her own,
she liked the 'chalse' (the 'throat' part).. the "ch" is pronounced
like a throat clearing sound as in CHallah.

I don't make my own, tongue really stinks up a house.

PICKLED TONGUE OR BEEF
The Corned Beef I recipe in the archives from Joan Nathan's Jewish
Cooking in America is also for pickled tongue (and listed as such in
the book).

Yield: 8 to 10 Servings

1 4-pound tongue brisket of beef
1/4 cup large-grained kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
2 bay leaves, crumbled
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon paprika
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon saltpeter (optiona) can be found in pharmacies
1/2 cup warm water
1. Wash and remove most of the fat from the tongue or brisket. Mix
together all the spices and the garlic and rub well into the brisket.

2. Dissolve the salt peter in the warm water and pour over the meat.
Place in a large, nonmetal container. Weight the meat down with a stone
or brick and cover it with plastic wrap. (You can also place the
ingredients in a plastic bag and weight it down.) Refrigerate for 10
days to 2 weeks. Turn the meat every 2 to 3 days.

3. Place the meat in a large pot of cold water. Bring to a boil and
throw away the water. Repeat 3 times.

4. Cover with cold again, bring to a boil, and cook over low heat,
covered, for about 2 hours or until tender. If cooking tongue, peel ff
the skin while still warm. Cool, slice thin, and place on a platter.
Serve with mustard or horseradish.
---

Sheldon

Neil said:

By the way, in this age of inflationary beef prices, it's odd that
corned beef is now relatively cheap--Safeway just had a $2.99/pound
sale PLUS "buy one, get one free."

It's called St. Patrick's day. Here in St. Louis, the major chains
settled on $1.17 a pound for point-cut brisket these past weeks, not
all that great of a price but certainly better than normal.

Quoted message said:

Shelf life must still be the issue for meat.

I don't know what the legal requirements are for corned beef, but in
practicality refrigerated packaged corned beef keeps a long time.

Brian

Jed said:

On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 14:40:19 -0600, zxcvbob <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

TASTE
SHOW#TS4838

JEWISH STYLE CORNED BEEF

[snip recipe]

I recall that David Rosengarten did another Taste episode on corned
beef on which he prepared the brisket the way his father recommended
which included placing the corned beef in cold water, slowly bringing
it to a boil, pouring off the water and repeating at least two more
times before adding the spices and the actual cooking.

I followed that recipe and got some of the tenderest corned beef I
ever had but have since lost it.

Did anyone save that recipe/procedure?

That sounds exactly like the way Sheldon does it. He's posted the
procedure here a few times; I think recently.

Best regards,
Bob