All my anxieties were put to rest after I actually corned my own beef, which proved to be easy, delicious, and more impressive than anything that comes from a can. To tackle this cooking project with confidence, I enlisted the help of Stephen Rodriguez, the executive chef of Tam O’Shanter in Los Angeles. On St. Patrick’s Day alone, Tam O’Shanter serves more than 600 pounds of corned beef. “[Making] corned beef is fun,” Rodriguez says. “There’s a lost art to some of the stuff we do in the cook, like pickling and brining, which is unfortunate, because it’s really easy.”
To start, I needed to make a brine. For Rodriguez, the brine represents a choose-your-own-adventure moment — just don’t forget the pink salt, or curing salt. “The curing salt really drives in that [pink] color,” Rodriguez says. “From there, you can do sugar, garlic cloves, peppercorns, and whatever pickling spice.”
I looked at a few different recipes online for inspiration and winged my brine, adding mustard seed, black peppercorn, bay leaves, garlic, sugar, fennel seeds, and of course, the pink curing salt. Each recipe had a different ratio for how much water to pickling spices was needed; I ensured I made enough to fit the Ziploc bag the beef was going to corn in, which was roughly two cups of boiled brine mixture added to six cups of ice water, eight cups total. I felt like a witch brewing a potion as the mixture came up to a boil. The steam from the cure smelled peppery and sweet; I just hoped it’d be enough to penetrate my two-and-a-half pound brisket. I opted for a flat cut of brisket: It’s leaner with a more compact shape, making it easier to slice once finished. But whole briskets or point cuts can be used as well if you prefer your corned beef shredded — and if you have the space to accommodate all that meat.
Lack of fridge space is often the biggest challenge for those corning beef at home. (At Tam’s, Rodriguez has a dedicated shelf in the restaurant’s walk-in for the task.) My fridge isn’t particularly big, either, but because I recently cleared it out following the fires in Los Angeles, I had enough room for this endeavor. If you have a particularly large brisket slab, Rodriguez suggests breaking it down into smaller pieces to save room. “You can also vacuum pack it and it will take less space,” he advises.
The brine finished steeping after 10 minutes at a boil. I combined the hot mixture with ice water to bring it down in temperature and also ensure the salty pickling liquid wasn’t too concentrated. I placed my brisket into a Ziploc bag and poured the liquid in. If you’re scared of leakage, place the Ziploc in a cake pan or brine your meat in a container with a lid: If you go with the latter option, ensure you completely submerge the brisket in the brine.
After setting the meat-and-brine bag in the fridge, the hard part is over. “Corned beef is really a set-it-and-forget-it project,” Rodriguez says. And forget it I did — aside from turning the bag over every other day to ensure it was curing evenly.
Rodriguez suggests curing for five to seven days. I’m impatient, so I pulled the beef out on the fifth day. I expected it to be pinker; it was a little grey and the meat felt tight, like it had shrunk in on itself. I rinsed the brine from the brisket with cold water and placed it in a Dutch oven with 10 cups of water and fresh peppercorns, bay leaves, and a sprinkling of allspice. From there, I turned the heat up on the stovetop to boil, skimming off any scummy, foamy bits. After 10 minutes, I put the entire Dutch oven in a 300 degree oven, where it was time for the second setting and forgetting. Thanks to the allspice, my house honestly smelled like a cozy pie shop as the corned beef cooked. Three-and-a-half hours later, it was ready.
Kat Thompson
The first thing I noticed was that the beef was pink! A welcome contrast to the raw beef’s unsettling grey shade, this was a good reminder to trust the process. As I tried to fish the meat slab out of the cooking juices, I also could see how tender the brisket had become. It shredded as I grasped it with a pair of tongs.
I set it on a cutting board and cut myself a slice; the meat fell apart so beautifully that a chef’s knife was only really necessary to get through the fat cap. It was everything you want corned beef to be: juicy, tender, and undoubtedly salty.
To serve, Rodriguez encourages going the traditional route by pairing corned beef with braised cabbage. “At the restaurant, we cook the cabbage in the brining liquid,” he explains. I’d already made a pickled cabbage slaw days prior; the acid in that cut through the fatty beef nicely. And, of course, it wouldn’t be a true corned beef plate without potatoes, which also function as a reprieve from the overwhelming salt.
When I do this again — this cooking project feels worth it, given that it’s surprisingly simple and hands off — I think I’ll trim off more fat from the brisket and use slightly less salt, as my corned beef tasted pretty salty. But I’m sold on the idea that everyone should try corning beef at home. Rodriguez agrees. “Once you make something like this from scratch, you have an appreciation for the artisan [nature] of it,” he says. “It takes you back to the origins of how and why we cook.”
