Homemade Corned Beef (A recipe and directions)

Corned Beef

When we got our last steer butchered my husband asked, as usual, what I wanted done with it. Since he used to be a butcher I usually just tell him to decide. Then he gets the brisket ground into hamburger because he doesn't like the brisket. In the store that is usually the cheaper cut and is not tender like the rest of the cuts, which is why it usually goes into hamburger or corned beef. Ever buy corned beef? I love corned beef; him, not so much. Too bad this time. I told him I wanted the brisket saved. It came in two very large slabs, so I had to cut them into smaller, more manageable pieces. I finally had the time to make it this past weekend so I went to work and thawed them out, and wouldn’t you know it, when he got a look at the smaller slabs, he decided he wanted to make bacon out of a couple of them. He said if it was raining, he’d smoke it and if not he’d be planting corn or plowing fields. It isn’t raining and I do not mess with his smoker. At any rate, after he tasted my corned beef, even he had to admit it wasn’t bad. Below is my process and recipe for corned beef.

Cut brisket into small slabs if they are cut very large. Otherwise they won’t fit into any freezer bags for marinating and I don’t have a pan or a large enough oven for them full sized.

You Will Need:

Gallon Sized Zip-Type Freezer Bags

Morton Tender Quick (gives the meat its red color and salty taste- also used to make bacon and ham)

Cooking Oil or Light Olive Oil

Water

Vinegar (Cider is best but white works just fine too)

Pickling Spice

Whole Dried Cayenne Pepper or Crushed Red Pepper (hot)

Whole Pepper Corns

Whole Bay Leaves

Whole Mustard Seed

Onion Slices

Course Canning Salt or Non-Iodized Salt

Directions:

 Rub each slab of brisket with 1/3 cup of the Tender Quick on all sides and ends/edges. Place one slab of brisket (two if they are really small) into each gallon sized zip-type freezer bag. Place one whole dried cayenne pepper or 1 teaspoon of the crushed pepper, 1 whole bay leaf, 1 teaspoon each of whole pepper corns and whole mustard seed and 1 tablespoon of the pickling spice and several large slices of onion to each bag. Add ¼ cup oil, 1 cup vinegar and 2 cups water and getting as much air as possible out of the bag, zip it shut so that nothing can leak out. Refrigerate overnight.

The next day, drain the bags and remove the slabs of meat – do not rinse the slabs- and place them into a large roasting pan along with the onion slices. Pour in just enough water to barely cover the meat (it makes its own juice as it cooks). Add 1/8 cup canning salt or non-iodized salt, cover the pan and bake at 325° F. oven for about five hours. Remove from oven and drain well. Place the cooked meat (without the onions) into a smaller pan and cover with foil, sealing well, and cool in refrigerator several hours or overnight until well cooled. Any remaining broth will congeal. Place each cooled slab (getting as much of the congealed broth as possible off the meat) into vacuum seal bags and seal. If you don’t have a vacuum sealer, then use regular freezer bags but remove as much air as possible. Freeze until ready to use or keep some in the fridge for immediate eating.

                                                        Cooked and ready to cool down

                                                       Vacuum sealed for the freezer

Please be aware that corned beef is traditionally high is sodium. You can reduce it in the cooking time if you wish, but it won’t taste quite the same.

For corned beef like you find in a can, run some of the corned beef through a food processor and freeze or refrigerate until set in a well packed freezer bowl. Just dip the bowl in some hot water and it should slide right out of the container. If frozen, thaw in refrigerator before slicing. 

Deciding to Keep the Smaller Tractor

I did some serious thinking about that tractor that tried to turn over with me. It occurred to me that it is actually mine, as in no payments, and I have quite a few implements that will not fit on anything else that is bigger (bucket, plow, disc harrow, brush cutter –commonly known by the name brand Brush Hog, a lot like a tissue is called a Kleenex- and a sprayer). The sprayer is actually made for a 4-wheeler (which we do not have) but we attached it to a pallet and stick on the rear hay forks (another implement along with the bale spear for the front). We hook the sprayer to the battery and spray away the weeds and grass from the fence rows. Bigger tractors won’t clear the stumps or trees that are next to the fence in places. I suppose I’ll have to keep it and bale smaller bales. Hopefully we won’t have to deal with the knee deep mud again, but this is Wisconsin and mud is a part of the farm, especially in the rainy season.  

                                      Lots of uses for my little tractor - guess I'll keep it after all.

I decided to make my garden bigger this year to accommodate planting potatoes since I used part of it for asparagus last year and you don’t plow that up if you want to keep it growing. I needed that disc. After several trips lengthwise, I went the short way (that was fun dodging trees at the ends of the rows!) several more times just to break it up and then this weekend (a week later) I used the tiller on it. I have a Craftsman rear-tined tiller that has worked without fail for more than ten years. I love it. It will, however, work you half to death if your garden is very large, like mine is. Most people use the implements I have for deer forage plots- nothing like attracting the deer so all you have to do is sit and wait during hunting season. I don’t do that, by the way; they go after our corn and soybeans planted either for cash crops or to feed the cows so I don’t need forage plots. I could get a garden type tiller made to fit that tractor, but once the plants are up, the tractor won’t be able to go down the rows anyway.

I do have future plans for this equipment, and that includes the eventual purchasing of a tiller for it and a planter. This is way off of course, but when we lived in Florida we had what is called a truck crop farming operation. That is when you grow an acre or so of different vegetables and sell them either at farmers markets or vegetable auctions (we sold to an auction when we were in Florida). Some of our bell peppers and butternut squash and yellow squash went to grocery stores all over the country. We sold zipper peas (a variety of field peas) locally by the bushel basket. My only problem with this plan of course is that all of our land is currently allocated either to pasture or feed crops/cash crops for the animals. Hmmm, I’m going to have some figuring to do!