Shalom Farm's Homemade Corned Beef (from Scratch!)

This post is dedicated to my dear friend Andi.  I promised her to post this way back at Pesach (Passover) when I served it during their visit and here it is a couple days after Shavuot (Pentacost), some 50 days later and I am finally posting it!!!  I am SO thankful for and blessed with patient and merciful friends!

I love corned beef!  It is delicious over mashed potatoes or served with fried potatoes and eggs for a hardy farm breakfast.  Creamed chipped beef over toast is outstanding!  Small bits of left overs add a flavorful punch to rice casseroles and really helps stretch meals for a crowd because it offers so much flavor. If the roast is sliced thinly and used to make homemade Rueban sandwich with homemade raw sauerkraut and fresh Soaked Whole Wheat Anything Bread!  AHH MAN!!!  That's good eats.  There are corned beef dips and soups and cornedbeef and cabbage and Oh...I'm craving it as I type!

Since we started buying our meat directly from farmers about 12 years ago...my opportunity for corned beef quickly diminished.  I realized it was something I was going to have to learn to make from scratch if it was ever going to dawn our table again and every time I hunted for recipes to use, I came up with "prepared" corned-beef recipes.  In other words , recipes on what to do with beef that had already been corned by the "factory".  Well, a couple years ago, when I was pregnant with my last baby I craved it so bad, I caved in and bought Hormel canned corned beef hash!!!  Yikes!  I pledged on that dark day (tee hee) that after I had my baby (because I was too sick to do it then), I was going to figure this out!  And I did!  I now have two fabulous methods of corning beef, a dry method and a wet one.  Both are very good.  I have made several "comparison" batches to narrow it down to which one I might like better between my last to "finalists", and I simply can not choose.  However, the method is quite different, so I decided to record and keep both of my methods in our family cookbook, so I could always have an option to choose.  One requires a little more doing before curing and the other a little more doing after. One also takes a little longer to cure than the other.  So it is nice to use the methods that best fits my needs at the time.

I have not stored it this way long term without freezer/refrigeration...because I never had the nerve to "risk it", even though I have corned as much as 40lbs at once!  (You think I might be willing to spare a couple pounds!  But it was just too good and it's been so long!) :-)  Anyway, when that day comes (and it will!)  I will use my wet method for storing it without refrigeration.  This is the old fashioned way of preserving my meat without electricity.  In the old days (unless it was smoked, salted, dehydrated or submerged in a vat of animal fat) it would be submerged and weighted down in the salt corning brine in wooden barrels then covered and kept in a root cellar instead of a refrigerator and it would be kept for 6-9 month that way.  One day...I'll do it and tell you how it went!  I will likely use a 5 gallon bucket.  Right now, beef is scarce for us...so  it will have to wait.

Oh...and by the way speaking of dehydrating, we experimented with the corned beef and made Corned Beef Jerky out of it:  It was  a HIT!  So you might want to try that too!

Shalom Farm's Dry Rub Corned Beef


4-6 pound beef roast (I have used many different cuts, but Brisket is traditional)

THE RUB:
1/2C sea salt
1T black peppercorns, freshly cracked
3/4T ground all spice
1T dried thyme
1/2T paprika
2 bay leaves, crumbled or diced

1.  Mix the rub together in a small bowl.
2.  Spear the meat all over the roast about 30-40 times with a fork or skewer or pointy knife.
3.  Rub each side very generously with "the rub", covering thickly and completely.
4.  Put in a 2 gallon Ziplock bag.  Squeeze out as much air as possible.
5.  Lay it flat inside a pan and next another pan on top of that and weight it down with something heavy to press the roast.  Put in the fridge for 5-7 days.  Flip once a day (if you remember!  Sometimes I forget!)

** When ready to cook:  Rinse and soak the meat in cold water for a couple of hours changing the water to fresh cold water every 30 minutes or so.  You should rinse and soak the roast for 4-6 cycles.  This is very important.  I failed to do this well once and it was so very  very salty, that it ruined the meal.  :-(

You may cook your corned beef as usual ( you find lots of recipes for that part online if need be). If you want to prepared your corned beef ahead, you can also rinse it well then freeze it and pull it out and cook it usual when you ready.  This is ideal when you get a lot of meat all at once form the farm and you a lot a certain amount amount of it to be corned.  You do it all at once and pull it out of the freezer ready to go!  You can also dehydrate it like any other seasoned beef jerky.


Shalom Farms Corned Beef -Wet Method


4-6 pound beef roast (I have used many different cuts, but Brisket is traditional)

THE BRINE:

2 qrts of clean filtered water
1C sea salt
1/2 C Rapedura or Sucanut or sugar of choice
1 (2-3inch stick) of cinnamon, broken into pieces
1 tsp whole mustard seeds
1 tsp black peppercorns
8 whole cloves of garlic
8 whole all spice berries
12 juniper berries
2 bay leaves, crumbled or diced
1/2 tsp ginger powder

1.  Put all the ingredients for the brine together in a large soup pot and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.  Let cool COMPLETELY and chill in the fridge until it reaches "fridge cold" (about 45 degrees).  (You may also do by letting the brine cool and then putting the pot in a sink full of ice to chill it.)

2.  Once the brine is chilled, put the roast in a 2 gallon Ziplock bag* and pour the brine over.  Get as much as the air out as possible and seal well.  Lay it in a flat dish and refrigerate for at least 10 days.  Check daily to be sure the roast is still submerged under the brine.  You may add cold water if needed.

Take out of the brine and cook as usual.  (No rinsing needed.)

* You may also do this in a bowl or 1-2 gallon bucket, then put a clean plate on top (that will fit inside the bowl) and put a weight on the plate to submerge the plate and roast under the brine.  Then be sure to cover the bowl tightly with plastic rap or lid.