Corned Beef

In honor of St Patrick, I converted a plain old beef brisket into a something that tasted exactly like Corned Beef. I used the recipe from Michael Ruhlman's book Charcuterie, and cut the recipe in half.

• 2.8 pound beef brisket
• 2 liters water
• 1 cup kosher salt
• 1/4 cup sugar (I used raw sugar)
• 1/2 oz pink salt (6.25% sodium nitrite)
• 2 tablespoon pickling spices

Bring the water, sugar, salts and 1/2 the pickling spices to a simmer in a pot to dissolve the salts and sugar. Let cool to room temperature, chill. Place brisket and brine into a 2 gallon zippy bag and leave in the fridge for 5 days.

Cook in a slow cooker all day with water, a beer, the remaining pickling spices and some potatoes and carrots. The plan was to eat the potatoes and carrots, but they were too salty. They had sacrificed themselves for our pleasure.

Looks like Corned beef, tasted like corned beef, no one died.

 

So 2 Passes and one Fail, Corned beef, roasted Cabbage with fennel and supremely salty root veg.

 

Another Success - Paella #2, just as good as the first. This time there were 5 diners and we still had lots of leftovers.