Delicious homemade corned beef? Not so tough. Just boil and serve, right? Not so fast . . .
Done properly, that marriage of savory, sweet and salty succulence is an incomparable pleasure. On the face of it, cooking a corned-beef brisket is one of the simplest of culinary challenges. As the name of its classic alter-ego implies, the “boiled dinner” is little more than an amalgam of meat, root vegetables and a cannonball of cabbage, all bobbing in a boiling-water bath. Yet as anyone with a wit of sense recognizes, heaven is in the details. Here’s what several pros have to say about buying, cooking and slicing a perfect corned beef, be it for a St. Patrick’s Day feast or just a lavish yet homespun indulgence.
Places to buy corned beef and learn more about cooking it.
For great corned beef recipes, go here. Shopping for corned beef: My wife and I were perusing the meat counter of a deep-discount store a few years ago when we spotted nice-looking corned-beef briskets at a bargain price -- easily half of what we would have spent at a major supermarket nearby. We bit. And got bitten.
After a few hours of requisite simmering, we tasted our first bites of the succulent-looking meat -- and immediately spat them into our dinner napkins. In nearly 20 years of marriage, it was the only time I ever saw my wife cry over something she had cooked.
The meat was impossibly salty, so obnoxious that even a later attempt to salvage it in a hash of unsalted potatoes yielded another loss to the landfill.
Need we repeat? You get what you pay for. After all, how often do you enjoy a corned-beef dinner? Spend a few extra dollars, and buy from a reliable source. Three area butchers offered some perspective on selecting a top-quality corned beef.
Your first order of business is deciding on the cut you want. Corned beef is commonly sold in three forms:
The "flat," which is comparatively lean and features a more consistent thickness.
The "point," the thicker end of the brisket, which is typically fattier, especially with intermuscular fat or "marbling."
A whole brisket, which includes both the flat and the point. The pros agreed that a whole brisket is probably the best choice.
"You're getting the best of both worlds -- the leaner, meaty part and some of the fatty meat," says Mark Jaworski of Jaworski Meats in Middleburg Heights.
Sanford Herskovitz, better known as Cleveland Heights meat maven Mister Brisket, favors the point cut. So does Kris Kreiger of Chef's Choice Meats in Berea.
"The point is much fattier, and that's where the taste is," says Herskovitz. "You can trim the fat. Or I'll give you the number for my cardiologist."
What sets Herskovitz off is customers demanding, "I want a lean corned beef."
"What you want is a well-trimmed corned beef," Herskovitz says. "When you have a really lean corned beef, you might as well eat cardboard."
Besides, you can always trim away that exterior fat, Kreiger says.
"But in meat, you're paying for that marbling," he says. "A lot of that fat melts away, and it makes it nice and juicy. And if you're eating it cold, so much the yummier. I'd say enjoy that fat. It's only St. Paddy's day once a year."
As for the pad of fat that often lurks between the muscles of a point cut, much of it can be scooped away. Jaworski leaves it in during the cooking, because it imparts flavor throughout the meat, then trims it before serving.
"Or you can pull it apart into two pieces," says Kreiger.
That's easier done when the meat is cold, he says.
"Then it's superficial fat, and you can remove it," Kreiger says. "Or buy deli-trim, meaning that at least they've scooped out the pocket."
If you avoid a whole brisket because it appears far too large for your household, think again. Depending on the brand you buy, expect anywhere from 25 percent to 40 percent shrinkage -- or more.
"That's because in the modern processing, the producers pump the briskets full of brine, to speed up curing," says Herskovitz. "When you cook the meat, that brine just oozes out."
Mister Brisket and Jaworski Meats both feature whole briskets from Sy Ginsberg Meat Products of United Meat & Deli in Detroit.
"He's basically got the best corned beef in the country," Herskovitz says. "They're like Fords coming off the line, and the trim is excellent."
For shoppers who want a smaller cut, Jaworski Meats also sells Grobbel's-brand flats.
Kreiger is one of the few local butchers who still "corns" his own beef at the shop. Whole briskets soak in a massive barrel in a back cooler at Kreiger's shop. The result is corned beef with an Old World flavor and firm, even texture rarely experienced these days.
Cooking a corned beef: A quick lesson in meat science is in order. Beef brisket, from which corned beef is made, is a cut from the steer's underbelly, behind the front legs (foreshanks). The series of somewhat long, thin, grainy muscles from the working end of cattle is strong and tough. Such a cut requires long, slow cooking for the connective tissues to break down and grow tender. Braising is the effective way to tenderize such meat.
But even though it's commonly called a "boiled dinner," boiling, per se, is ineffective.
"That basically cooks the outside but not the inside," says Kreiger.
Hard boiling can result in an even tougher corned-beef brisket.
"Certain things, like corned beef or spare ribs, you just don't boil if you want texture and flavor," says Jaworski.
He cooks his corned beef in a roasting pan to which he has added water to a depth of about one-fourth the thickness of the meat, then covers the pan tightly with foil and bakes it in a 325-degree oven for 2 to 31/2 hours, depending on the size and thickness of the brisket.
"You're steaming it that way, not boiling out the flavor," Jaworski says.
Herskovitz favors the popular oven cooking bags, which trap the brisket's large amount of brine as it's released, thus allowing the meat to simmer in those flavorful juices. Kreiger prefers submerging the corned beef in a bath of simmering water, which may be seasoned. The usual onions, potatoes, carrots and cabbage can be added midway through cooking.
Testing for doneness: Many a recipe urges the cook to boil a corned beef until it's "fall-apart" or "fork" tender. Problem is, an overcooked corned beef borders on mushiness. Herskovitz recommends the same mandate for safely testing the proper doneness of any cut of meat: Use a quick-read meat thermometer. Pierce the flesh with the probe in the thickest part of the meat; when it registers 165, your brisket is done.
Kreiger uses the fork test.
"The key to knowing when it's done, is to take a cook's fork, stick it in the thickest part of the meat, and when you tug it out there should be a little resistance, but it shouldn't cling to the fork," Kreiger says. "If it falls right off, you've overcooked it."
Which leads us to Kreiger's No. 1 rule: Once the meat is done, pull it out of the hot liquid.
"Do not let it sit there, Kreiger says. "That just lets it continue to cook."
If you're serving the meat shortly, simply let it stand on a warmed platter, and loosely tent it with foil until the other dishes are ready to serve.
If you're planning to serve it chilled for corned beef sandwiches, immediately plunge the meat into a large quantity of ice water. That bath should quickly chill the meat, promptly stopping the cooking action.
Carving a corned beef brisket: Remember those long, stringy grains of muscle we mentioned? Here's where they challenge most cooks. First, place the cooked brisket on a cutting board, fat side down. Assuming you're working with a flat, you'll quickly see the grain pattern.
"Then slice it across the grain," says Herskovitz.
Jaworski recommends slicing straight down.
"If you go across the grain you'll get nice, even slices," he says.
Do not cut with the grain.
"You'll end up with shreds," says Jaworski.
And if you've cooked a whole brisket, Kreiger offers this easy trick: "Slice from the flat to the point," he says. "Even though the grain pattern shifts, continue cutting across the grain. If you start at the one end [the flat] and move to the other [the point], you'll be slicing against the grain all the way through and get nicely grained slices."
And as for how to serve it? As Louis Armstrong once said of trying to describe jazz: Man, if you gotta ask, you’ll never know.
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