Homemade Corned Beef

One of the things I remember from my childhood is that once a year we would eat corned beef (I called it string meat) and cabbage for Saint Patrick's Day. I decided to cook some up this year, but took it a step further and decided to make my own corned beef from scratch. This supposedly makes for a better flavor, and also doesn't have any of the nitrites (or is it nitrates?) that make the store-bought ones bright red even after cooking.

I used a recipe from our Best Recipe book from America's Test Kitchen. There is some debate about which part of the brisket is better to use. Point cut is fattier and more flavorful, while the flat cut is leaner but more bland. I decided to do it Texas style and just cook up a whole brisket, so that I wouldn't have to bother making the choice.

You can see the brisket in the picture just after I finished putting the rub on it. My hand is there for scale, and keep in mind that it is completely filling a 2-gallon Ziploc bag.

After five days in the refrigerator we cooked it up and had ourselves a huge corned beef dinner, along with an accompaniment of potatoes, rutabagas, turnips, parsnips, carrots, and cabbage. It was actually a very easy meal to make, and I wouldn't hesitate to do it myself again. For any of you who like corned beef (or even for those of you who don't like store-bought corned beef), you should give this a try.