Corned Beef From Scratch

After tasting some awesome home made corned beef at Cafe Juanita, it pretty much inspired me and challenged me to create some of my own corned beef, from scratch of course!

Looking through recipes online, at first it seemed rather complicated, but after reading up some more, it really wasn't. It would just take a long time to do. Which is perfectly OK.

I ended up buying half a kilo of kalitiran, which is actually Blade Chuck if we're going by cow terms. I'm not sure if it's the best cut of beef for Corned Beef (it isn't, it's actually Brisket).

BRINING

Brining pretty much means submerging meat in water with a variety of spices. For this stage, these are the ingredients I used:

A container to brine the meat in.
Half a kilo blade chuck
2/3 cup rock salt
1 teaspoon pink curing salt
1 tablespoon pickling spices*
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 liter water

*Pickling spice is a combination of equal parts the following spices:

all spice
mustard seeds
coriander seeds
cardamom (crushed)
a bit of cinammon stick (crushed)
bay leaf
ground ginger
whole black pepper corns
whole cloves
pepper flakes

You would need at least 2 tablespoons of pickling spice. You will use one now for brining, and one for later.

I sealed the container well and placed it inside the refrigerator.

SIMMERING

After 7 days I removed the beef from the brine and discarded the liquid. I washed the beef a little bit to remove remaining brine and spices that stuck to it.

I placed the beef  in a deep pot or dutch oven with around 2 liters of water. Turn the heat to high and bring it to a boil. Remove any scum that rises to the top. Once the scum is removed, I added 1 tablespoon of the remaining pickling spice. I brought the heat down as low as it goes, until the liquid is almost barely bubbling. I covered it and let it simmer like that for 3 and a half hours, or until beef is fork tender, but not disintegrating.

I then cut the beef and half, reserving one half for Corned Beef Sinigang (for tomorrow!) and the other half for Corned Beef Hash (for tonight!).

CORNED BEEF HASH

I sauteed some chopped garlic and onion and oil for a few minutes, added one finely chopped small potato.  and fried it for several minutes until the potato was just about soft and sticking to the pan. I then added half the beef and pulled the beef apart in the pan itself with a couple of forks which was easily accomplished since the beef was extremely tender. I added 1 large pinch of salt, some ground black pepper, and sauteed everything for a few more minutes.

I garnished the dish with a few sliced onions.

What's the verdict?

Well, it could have put more curing salt (I only used one teaspoon) to make the meat more red. The camera somewhat enhanced the color of the meat in the photo above. But I was wary of using too much of it.

I was also kind of puzzled that the meat didn't come out salty from the brining that I had to add additional salt in the cooking. Perhaps I should have just left the beef in the refrigerator after simmering it and used it a few days later to allow the taste to develop? I don't know.

Also, I probably used too much cardamom or some other spice.... because it seemed to be too noticeable in the finished dish.

As an experiment, I would say this was around 60% successful. I will try again!

Tomorrow the Corned Beef Sinigang!