This recipe takes a ton of patience, but it’s not a lot of work for the outrageous reward. This is NOT your store bought corned beef that is injected with brine and shipped with a plastic packet that has approximately 1 Tbsp of pickling spices for cooking. This has the flavor I remember from eating in Jewish Delis in NYC.
Ingredients
Pickling Brine
- 2 quarts water (filtered or bottled)
- 1 cup kosher salt, table salt is not recommended.
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 3 teaspoons Prague Powder #1 (Curing Salt #1, pink salt #1) Do not use Prague Powder #2 it is not for wet curing meat.
Pickling Spices
- 1 cinnamon stick, broken into several pieces
- 1 teaspoon mustard seeds
- 1 teaspoon black peppercorns
- 8 whole cloves
- 8 whole allspice berries
- 12 whole juniper berries
- 2 bay leaves, crumbled
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 2 pounds ice
Cooking Ingredients
- 1 – 5 pound beef brisket flat, trimmed of most of the fat. (Don’t discard the fat!)
- 1 large sweet onion
- 4 stalks celery
- 1 bag of baby carrots
- 2 cups water
- Reserve two tablespoons of the pickling spices.
Curing Instructions
Place the 2 quarts of filtered water into a large 6 to 8 quart stockpot along with salt & brown sugar.
Cook over medium-high heat until the salt and sugar have dissolved. You do not need to boil it, just make sure that the salt and sugar have dissolved. Turn heat down to medium and add the Prague Powder #1, cinnamon stick, mustard seeds, peppercorns, cloves, allspice, juniper berries, bay leaves and ginger.
Let it simmer for two minutes. Remove from the heat and add the ice. Stir until the ice has melted. If necessary, place the brine into the refrigerator until it reaches a temperature of 45º F. Once it has cooled, place the brisket in a 2-gallon zip top bag or sealable plastic container and add the brine. Seal and lay bag flat inside a container, cover and place in the refrigerator for 7-10 days. I used a tall 2 gallon container like the Rubbermaid cereal containers and I used the big chunks of fat I trimmed off the brisket to hold the beef submerged in the brine. Check daily to make sure the beef is completely submerged and flip the bag of shake the container to stir the brine.
Cooking Instructions
After 7-10 days, remove from the brine and rinse well under cool water.
I prefer to oven braise it rather than boil it. I used a large roasting pan and heavy duty aluminum foil to cover it.
Adjust the racks in your oven so the roasting pan will be in the center of the oven.
Preheat the oven to 275ºF.
Into the roasting pan, put two 14 oz cans cans of Swanson low sodium beef broth, one large sweet onion (roughly chopped), 4 celery stalks (roughly chopped), 1 bag of baby carrots. Add the reserved two tablespoons of pickling spices and 2 cups of water. Place the rinsed brisket in the center of the pan. Cover pan with heavy foil.
Cook for 2 1/2 to 3 hours or until the meat is fork tender. Remove from the pot and thinly slice across the grain.