How to Make the Best Corned Beef at Home

[Music] unlike supermarket corned beef home corned beef is not a Salt Lick when done well it has a season but balanced and complex flavor which starts with the corning process itself now there's two methods there's the dry method and the wet method so the dry method has salt and seasonings you rub it on the meat you put it in plastic and you put it in the fridge and then you go in there every day when you flip it and you flip it and you flip it I've done that mmm and it's good the wet method however is a lot easier you add all the seasonings and salt to water you soak the meat in that brine and you just let it sit there you don't have to mess with it at all now of course we did a side by side test to see which one tasted better and it was a tie they both tasted great so we're gonna go for the easy method here wet Corning all right and here I have four quarts of water to this I'm going to add a good amount of salt now this is three quarters of a cup of table salt we're also gonna add a little sugar this is half cup of brown sugar we're also gonna add a little bit of pink salt this is two teaspoons of pink preserving salt and this pink salt was a little controversial in all of our edit meetings because you're adding nitrites to the water but it does few things one it helps the meat stay a little bit more pink but two and more importantly to us the meat tasted better in fact we did blind tastings of meat corn even without the pink salt and they all unanimously picked the one that was Bryan with pink salt so just two teaspoons does the trick all right just a tiny bit of pink salt now pink salt is a blend of sodium chloride or table salt and sodium nitrite the specialty product sodium nitrite is dyed pink to distinguish it from table salt only small amount of it is needed for curing and achieving the trademark pink color of corned beef when the nitrite breaks down into nitric oxide it binds with the iron atom in myoglobin and that is the protein that makes meat red locking in the pink color all right so so a few more flavorings for our brine here we're gonna add four bay leaves some garlic this is three cloves of peeled garlic some black pepper this is a tablespoon of black peppercorns a tablespoon of coriander and five allspice berries I'm just gonna whisk this up make sure the salt met sugar is well dissolved before we have the meat all right so our brine is ready time to talk about beef so we're obviously using beef brisket because that's the traditional cut for corned beef and there's two kinds of beef brisket there's the point cut in the flat cut so if you want to pretend we're looking inside of a cow this is exactly how these pieces of meat would lay so this is the point cut and it lays sort of on top of the flat cut and when you separate them you can see there's quite a difference here you can see this flat cut is nice and even and has a great shape whereas this point cut who knows a little Lappe so we prefer the flat cut perfect and you can find this a lot easier at most supermarkets mhm now sometimes these cuts come with a really thick fat cap that you'd want to trim off but this looks pretty good it's really no thicker than 1/4 inch in any one place so it's ready to go in the brine oh no prep just right in right in now to help keep this piece of meat submerged so I'm just gonna put a plate on top there you go then we're gonna cover this and it goes into the refrigerator for at least 6 days but you can do it up to 8 days and again you don't have to do anything here you just have to let it sit no flipping no flipping no turning no dirt it's just waiting that's it alright so this beef has been corned for six days and I've taken it out of the brine and patted it dry but here I want to show you what happens if you don't wait the six days here's a piece of beef that's only been corned for three days and you can see that strip in the middle that is gray compared to the pink around it that pink salt has worked its way in only so far but that very center not yet corned so that's why it's really important to wait the entire six days all right so now it's time to cook the beef and really most recipes just put the corned beef right in water and boiled it that way but we're gonna add just a few flavorings that water to really pump up the flavor so here I'm gonna take two bay leaves three cloves of garlic and one tablespoon of black peppercorns and I'm just gonna put them in this square of cheesecloth I'm just gonna use a piece of kitchen twine and just wrap it around really well tie it up and there we go a little sachet for our corned beef I thought you were gonna put that under my pillow it does look sweet doesn't it all right so I'm gonna put this sachet in this nice big Dutch oven that's filled with two quarts of water and now we're gonna add our corned beef and I know what you're thinking that's not gonna fit in that pie but don't you worry this corned beef will really shrink as it cooks so that by the end it'll fit in the pot perfectly okay all right so we're gonna bring this up to a simmer then we're gonna put the lid on it and cook it in the oven so a low oven 275 degrees and again much like the Corning it wasn't a lot of work but you had to wait for it it's gonna spend two and a half to three hours in the oven to that corned beef is super tender all right so this guy's been in the oven for about three hours Rome is wafting out at me it is isn't it all right no way to tell if it's done cooking or not is you want to hold it up you want to take a dinner fork you just want to stab it in and that dinner fork you can see it just comes right off oh you can see starting to come apart that's a good sign that it's fork-tender so this guy is ready to come out here I'm gonna lift him out in one piece put him onto a platter of course he's gonna rest for a little bit while we finish cooking the vegetables but I'm gonna keep them nice and moist so I'm gonna take about a cup of this broth I'm gonna pour it over the top yeah so that as he rests he won't dry out of course I'm gonna cover it with foil to help keep it warm so if you wouldn't mind turning the oven off we're gonna keep this guy warm in the oven as we finished cooking the vegetables all right what's with that beef staying nice and warm in the oven it's time to turn our attention to the vegetables and now these are the classic vegetables that you serve with corned beef we have potatoes carrots and cabbage the thing is the cabbage cooks much more quickly than the carrots for the potato so we're gonna add these to the pot first before adding the cabbage six carrots and one and a half pounds of little red potatoes so we're gonna bring this up to a simmer then turn the heat down to medium-low put the cover on and let it cook for about seven minutes all right so it's been about seven minutes whew smelling good now it's time to add the cabbage and this is one head of cabbage but we cut it into eight pieces but each piece has a little bit of that core that's gonna help the cabbage hold together as it cooks this is another thing a lot of people add the cabbage at the very start of the recipe to be oh you got some stinky corned beef in that case all right so I have this cranked over high heat to get that liquid to come back to a quick simmer looks like it's there so I'm gonna put the lid on I'm gonna turn the heat down to medium-low I'm gonna let this cook for about 15 minutes longer until all the vegetables are tender all right so these vegetables have been cooking for about 15 minutes so let's go in and see if they're tender oh that cabbage looks pretty perfect it stayed together - mm-hmm it's falling apart on the edges but it has a little bit of texture in the middle that's just how I like it all right so I'm gonna turn this heat off lid on I'm gonna keep these warm while we slice into that corned beef and here we go of course I'm cutting it across the grain although this corned beef is gonna be so tender it's not gonna even really matter look at that Rosie Rosie so good and you're slicing it paper-thin which is really really nice something like corned beef yeah we're just gonna put these vegetables on the side of the platter now I'm just gonna put the meat on the platter why you do that I've got a surprise for you I'll meet you at the other all right no no I'm curious what you got store all right oh there we go I think this is enough for two of us is centerpiece is that what I think it is so you made the food yes I made the beer cream you know this beer this is your favorite beer a cream ale I'm from upstate New York that's it and you'd love it I've chosen an Irish red mmm perfect all right let me serve you up some of this wonderful corned beef air potato and a carrot and of course a wedge of cabbage I've got a little bit of oh I love having whole-grain mustard with my corned beef this meat is so tender you don't even need a knife just flakes right apart it does absolutely incredibly tender mmm-hmm you know you just can't buy corned beef that's good no especially since the corned beef that you buy at the supermarket most of it tastes like you open up the salt shaker and import it in your mouth mm-hmm and you know brisket is a hard cut of beef to get really nice and tender I hope you did it with that cooking method nice and oh this is outstanding and I got the whole night to finish this off yeah making home corned beef that's balanced in flavor and an incredibly tender is a relatively hands-off procedure soak a flat cut brisket for six days in a brine made with both table and pink curing salt as well as sugar both spices and garlic then to tenderize tough brisket gently simmer the meat in a low oven now while the meat rests simmer carrots potatoes and cabbage in that season cooking liquid serve with whole-grain mustard maybe even a glass of beer that your friend brewed for you and there you have it from our Test Kitchen to your kitchen the easiest yet best-tasting home corned beef with vegetables that you'll ever have there's no cheers Cheers thanks for watching America's Test Kitchen what you think we'll leave a comment and let us know which recipes you're excited to make or you can just say hello you can find links to today's recipes and reviews in the video description and don't forget to subscribe to our Channel see you later I'll see you later

Channel: America's Test Kitchen

Views: 462,317

Rating: 4.9022756 out of 5

Keywords: corned beef, corned beef at home, how to make corned beef, how to make corned beef and cabbage, new england food, new england cooking, recipes, cooking show, cooking tv show, learn to cook, americas test kitchen, america's test kitchen

Id: ZRcBmNYTpNY

Length: 9min 50sec (590 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 27 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/craftymania]

Great 👍👌