[wtm442]

Homemade Corned Beef Dinner

Ingredients
• Thin End Brisket - if you ask the butcher for corned beef, it will probably already be corned (gray color), and nowhere near as good as you can do it yourself. Make sure you ask for a good "thin end brisket", which has very little fat as compared to the thick end. They will usually trim off most of the fat. The THICK end brisket is cheaper, but there is way too much fat and the taste is nowhere as good as the thin end. Please remember that a 5 lb brisket will only weigh 2.5 lbs after it is cooked, so get a big piece!
• Common Table Salt (¾ to 2 boxes – depends on the size of pot you use to “corn” the beef)

3 or 4 days later ……..
• Potatoes (peeled)
• Onions (skinned)
• Carrots (I prefer the peeled baby carrots in the bag)
• Cabbage (quartered - cut in 4 pieces)

Corning the Beef
About 3 to 5 days before cooking, fill a big pot about ½ to ¾ full with cold tap water and add one unpeeled potato. Add a lot of salt and stir for at least 10 seconds until the salt dissolves. Stop the water rotating in the pot. See if the potato just slowly starts to float up from the bottom of the pot. You want to keep adding salt and stirring until the potato just floats on the surface. Remove the potato. Add the beef and cover the pot. Store pot in a very cool place for two, preferably 3 days. If you do not have a cool place to store it – make some very big ice cubes using some plastic storage containers or a zip lock bag. Occasionally you can throw in a BIG block of ice which will keep the brine cool. After 2 or 3 days, throw out the brine. Wash beef under faucet with cold water. Refill pot with fresh tap water and let the beef sit in the water for another day in a very cool place. Add ice if necessary

Cooking the Dinner
Discard water and rinse beef under faucet on more time. Rinse pot. Put the beef back in the pot and fill approximately ½ to ¾ full of water, leaving room for the veggies. Bring water to a boil and turn down the heat to a very slow boil when pot is covered. Let the beef cook for about two or three hours and then start adding the onions, potatoes, carrots and cabbage.

If you do not have a big enough pot, cook the beef in one pot and all of the veggies in a second pot.

Cooking Time (covered)
Beef – 3 hrs (but don’t forget it will probably take 30 minutes to get the water to boil!)
Onions – 1 hr
Potatoes and Carrots – approximately 45 minutes
Cabbage – 30 to 45 minutes


Remove everything from pot and cut the beef across the face using an extremely sharp knife (better yet, use an electric knife). If you use a dull knife and the beef will crumble because it’s so tender! Refrigerate any leftover corned beef in one piece and then cut it into thin strips when it’s cold for grilled corned beef and cheese sandwiches! Umm good. Or chop up all the cold leftovers for corned beef hash! No matter what, please remember to call me when supper is served!