The corned beef can be brined about 2-3 days prior to cooking and serving. St. Patty's day is March 17. If, or when, you do make some, also try a small piece of meat coated with the ground coriander, mustard seed, and pepper. Which are some of the same spices used for cooking the corned beef in a big pot of water. Instead, bake the pastrami very slowly in a 170 degree oven for about 5-6 hours. Its flavor and tenderness can't be beat. Be sure to thoroughly inject the seasoned brine into the beef. When I want a lot of 'herby flavor' inside the meat, I boil, and simmer the spices in a small pot of water for about an hour or two, then strain out the spices, and allow it to cool, then add the necessary cure of salt, sugar, and maybe a bit of nitrates, and the every popular sodium phosphate to keep it moist inside. The corned beef spices also include some bay leaf, a bit of clove, allspice, and maybe even a few small hot peppers. I also add dried onion and garlic to my coating/rub when its being baked slowly (the pastrami). I allow it to cool thoroughly and then slice thin. This year, its a top of the round beef chunk of about 4 pounds. If you haven't the time to brine it, you could use a store bought, and cook that in the same spice mix in water. Penzeys like a few others offer a nice spice blend for the seasonings for corned beef when cooked in a pot of water.

Thanks Ken - I thoroughly enjoyed the one we had last year, and appreciate the "refresher" course - as I had forgotten a lot of those extra spices.

I still have some Morton's TQ, and hope that would come in handy for this project. I don't carry the nitrate/phosphates extras, that you recommended, but will go with what I have.

My favorite cut of meat for fine flavor is the brisket anyway, so long as it is cooked long and slow, it is a fine cut of meat.

Not sure if my cabbages will be "headed" for the middle of March yet, though they are trying. I happened to read in my old Organic Gardening encyclopedia book - that perhaps cabbages could get a header boost, my giving them an extra shot of nitrogen about now.

Today, I'll give that a whirl, along with a bit of Sul-po-mag - just to see if it might help. We are going into some pretty warm weather now, and perhaps I can hurry them a bit before they decide to bolt.

As usual, always a pleasure having your "words of wisdom" to help things along.

Bejay

The Morton TQ is fine to use. It already contains the necessary nitrates. The sodium phosphate works well for lean pork sausges as it helps to hold the meat together and also keeps in moisture when making sausages. They use the SP for some fish and scallops too, to help things retain some water during cooking. Brisket here is hard to find, so I choose a bigger sized piece of beef instead. As mentioned a while back I have also been in a rush some times and use store bought pre-brined corned beef and just simply coated it with all the spices mentioned, and baked it very slowly. For my oven to go way down to 170 degrees, I have to set its digital offset way down to 30 degrees lower, as at a dial setting of 170, its actually at about 230 degrees, which is just too high a temp for curing/cooking the beef. Did you get an electric slicer yet? If not, they do have some decent ones with 7.5" blades under $100. Mine has served me well for many years now and is great when I am slicing up 10 pounds of Canadian bacon. If youre freezing raw pork or beef, don't add any salt to it as that can cause damage to the cells within the meat, and the freezing will not work well. I freeze raw pork fat and beef for making salami and pepperoni, as well as the pastrami, and leave it in whole pieces with no seasonngs or alt added. NEVER use pork fat back or salt pork as a fat additive to sausges. It will simply melt and render out way too much, and will leave 'wet sawdust' textured meat. Several years ago, I made that mistake, never again! Lucky you, and your cabbage. I can't enjoy that anymore, even though one of my favorites is stuffed cabbage, made just like my Poilish grandmother used to do. Way too much uric acid for me to deal with as I got a very bad case of the gout (uric acid in my blood was too high some years ago). Sul-po-mag, isn't that sulfur, potash and magnesium? If you need nitrogen, blood meal or fish based fertilizers will give you plenty of nitrogen.

Brisket is a wonderful cut of beef, whether corned, fresh or pastrami.

Many years ago when I ate at Tujagues in New Orleans, their brisket was a revelation to me. After many attempts, I duplicated (I think) their brisket and it was the simplest method I tried. I just placed a brisket (nothing else) in a crockpot set on low and left it all day. Added salt and pepper near the end. That's it. You can make an approximation of their sauce by mixing ketchup, horseradish, worcestershite and whatever you think will make it good. You good cooks don't need a recipe.

Jim

Here is a link that might be useful: Tujague's

Ken -

I did buy a slicer, and it works fine for deli meats and slicing thick pieces of meat into manageable sizes to put through the grinder.

However, for cutting up multiple vegetables, I found it difficult to do more than one at a time. My real reason for buying was to slice cabbages for kraut and cukes for pickles, but it was too dangerous and unwieldy - back to the mandolin.

I haven't tried adding pork fat or sodium phosphate to my meat yet, as I like it on the lean side, but perhaps getting more into sausage making, I will take heed, and I don't add salt before freezing either, so OK there.

However, one question comes to mind - I froze a salted ham hock to use later for the bean pot - but am seriously wondering if it might be usable, it has been there several months, and I'm questioning whether it is still good.

About gout - you know that is the "rich man's disease" - too much rich, fine food - not enough "peasant" fare - (so they say). That's why a lot of food-lovin folks are eating whole grains, fruits and veggies, right?

About blood meal - I do use it for my nitrogen source. Because I grow my vegetables in cedar board boxes all year round, it is necessary to amend the soil from time to time. Unfortunately, I am still new to the game so diagnosing and curing my little plants is still a bit of a mystery. Reaping enough to keep us in fresh vegetables, canning some and feeding the rest to the chickens.

Yes - sul-po-mag is sulfur, potassium and magnesium. Most amending that I do is based on the assumption that sulfur is better to help acidify our alkaline soil. The potash or potassium in this product is better than wood ashes (which are alkaline), and magnesium does something - I forgot. I use compost and manure water-based teas for my fertilizing, and do it regularly when I water.

Jim - I agree - when I found out about long-slow cooking, of "boiling beef" as the English call it, it was a true "moment" in my life. Although "slow simmer" would be a better description. Really like that brisket - whether corned or plain.

Bejay

What I ment about a slicer, was the scaled down version for slicing things thinly like cold cuts. Similar to what you see at the deli counter. Mine has a vertical rotary blade (motor driven), that can cut nice even slices as thin as I want. As to a cutter like a mandolin, I much prefer the kind that are round disks that are inside a big round container, were you push the veggies in from the top and they get sliced up and fall onto the bottom of the inside. The 'Salad Shooter' seems a bit interesting too, but you would probably be limited to a single cut width. My Oster Kitchen Center is a rotary disk type cutter (three thicknesses) with top loading hopper, and a side shute. It gives me nice even cuts for cucumbers, and other things, as well as a disk for grating hard cheeses, and another for course dicing. For my grinder meats, I simply use a regular sharp knife and cut up 2 inch chunks of meat for grinding. I do have a very cheap mandoline (mostly cheap wood with a steel blade), and used it only a couple of times. I do have another very precision mandoline for cutting very narrow thin julienne strips for Japanese sushi (California rolls).

Gout is a form of arthritis and has also been linked to kidney problems. People who have kidney function issues and like to eat lots of red meats, peas, beans, grains, cabbage, broccoli, and some other high 'purine', and high protien foods, tend to get uric acid crysals to form in, and around, their joints, and this gives you severely painful joints. Some people only see this in the toes, but in some severe cases like mine, every single joint in my body was inflamed. Colchicine (a strong drug and quite poisonous) is used to treat the uric acid crystal buildup, and is also used along with steroids to reduce inflamation in the joints. Needless to say, I was stricken with this after consuming about a weeks worth of stuffed cabbage, which has two strikes, the cabbage and beef are both going to raise uric acid levels. It is an old wives tail that its a 'rich mans' disease and has even been linked to some forms of malnutrition. Interesingly, the gout only happened after the 'Depo' injection I used to get, every fall during ragweed season. The Depo is a form of steroids and usually lasts about a month during allergy season. Mine wore off in a month, and two days later I was not able to move anything without severe pain. I used to take a prescription called "allopurinol" that is also prescribed for people to help keep uric acid levels from building up in the body. "Uric", urine, yes, they are related, and thats why kidney issues are one of my many medical problems.

A very nice addition to a beef flavoring is the use of hydrolized soy protien. Its used in beef bullion and also as a dry rub for beef. The Ingredients Store sells it in quantity and its flavor is also one that is also used by the Texas Road House resturant chain as a dry meat rub on their steaks. Bottom of the round beef tends to have very litte flavor on its own, so when I grind it up as cheap hamburg, I usually add some of the soy protein, just as a flavor enhancer. Many store bought foods contain this same ingredient, but its not the same as textured soy protein, which is used as a high protien filler.

Ken

Momma says fresh cherries will help with the Gout. My neighbor swears by them.

I'll try making a corned beef using your guidance but I want to stay away from the nitrites and phosphates.

Being coonass I'll go overboard with the spices.

Do you think it is unsafe to reuse the remaining brine in a couple of weeks if I freeze it?

Al

Bejay,

I don't know if it was clear from my post that my method of cooking fresh brisket uses no liquid at all. So I don't know what to call it. Probably not a simmer. Could it be called roasting when done in a crock pot? I don't know. All I know is that, strangely, the brisket comes out more tender and juicy than when done the same way but with water.

Jim

Any red berries, such as raspberry, blueberry , cranberries, and such contain too much pigment (or whatever term the Nephrologist uses). Not recommended for people with kidney problems. Some fruits like plums, peaches, oranges, and such are also high in potassium, and I must avoid that too. That includes my favorites like bananas and potatoes. My back yard has 30 blueberry bushes and I can't even enjoy them anymore. If I were to follow all the 'do withouts', I would only be able to drink water, and live on iceberg lettuce. Not much left to enjoy..

Brines are quick and easy to make, and its not going to freeze well if it has salt in it. Also, you have to consider if any meat juices leeched into the brine from the meat, thats not good to mix into more meat. The brines tend to expel some of the natural water in meats, and replace them with salt and sugars. I must assume that you have an injection device? Morton makes a really good metal syringe, and I use the side holes needle on most meats, except when injecting under poultry skin, where I use the sharper slanted tip needle. When I make a brine from, say, a 5 pound bag of dry brine mix, that can cure up to 25 pounds of meat, I usually weigh out half, and make only half a recipe for up to about 12 pounds of meat brine cure. In this way, I am not throwing out as much excess as waste.

Jimster,
I think that would be called a dry braising. A very slow, low oven baking would probably do almost the same thing, provided you could set the oven way down to lower than 170 degrees for several hours, as well as cover the meat. I don't own a crockpot here, but my pastrami comes out very nice when its done in the oven.

Here is a link that might be useful: Morton Brine Injector

Jimster -

I agree with the idea - as the meat retains all of its juices. Putting meats on to cook early, at slow temps has always worked well for me.

Yesterday, I went shopping for my brisket, but my favorite store had none, so came home with pork shoulder. Guess this year, I will have to buy a ready-prepared corned beef for my St. Patrick's day. I will spend some time today, grinding my pork for sausage meat, we ate all that I froze about 2 months ago. Great meals!

Ken - about stuffed cabbage - how is it prepared. I assume you used ham and wrapped cabbage around it, then cooked - but stove top or oven? The recipe I'm thinking, would probably use similar spices as would be used in corned beef - garlic, peppercorns, bayleaf, lemon salt/pepper, mustard seeds - anything else? Is it boiled or perhaps crock potted.

Think I may like that - I happen to have a smoked ham for use.

Bejay

Bejay, I don't know whether you have a food processor, but mine has the slicing discs and they are fantastic for cole slaw. Last week on Sunday I shredded a whole head of cabbage on the slicer disc and did some carrots on the shredding disc. Those were stored in the fridge in one bowl, and in another bowl I stored sliced peppers and cucumbers, and hand-sliced scallions. Throughout the week we would mix the carrots & cabbage with Duke's mayonnaise and red wine vinegar for southern cole slaw, and make separate batches with a honey-lime dressing and with the other vegetables mixed in. Since I didn't dress the whole head on Sunday, we could have fresh crunchy cole slaw every day. It was great. I have really enjoyed having this food processor and I am going to start making bread dough in it sometimes too.

Gardenweb is rejecting my URL for the cole slaw recipe as invalid, but you can search at foodnetwork.com for "Grilled Honey Lime Chicken Sandwiches" and the recipe is included there as "Five Vegetable Slaw Salad".

Melissa

Melva,
You can copy and paste the URL into the text of the post as well. Unless the forum is blocking the site, which they sometimes do. My chopper attachment for the Oster is great and can fling out a whole head of shredded cabbage in about a minute. Cole slaw with added apple slices and a few raisins is great (now is almost a Waldorf salad).

As to stuffed cabbage (Polish 'golumpki'), is made with ground beef only and you add some chopped onion and partially cooked rice to it. You partially cook the cabbage head to soften the outer leaves. Cut off each at the stem, and roll a big spoonful of the raw meat filling at the thicker end of the leaf and turn in the sides while rolling it out to the thinner end leaf tips. Its done kind of like what they do when wrapping meat in paper at the butcher shop. Place each cabbage roll in a big casserole dish and add some whole tomatoes and sauce over the filled casserole and bake for about 2 hours at 325 degrees. After a removing a couple of layers of cabbage leaves, you need to return the head back into the boiling water to soften more of the leaves as you go deeper into the head. I usually remove the hard stem and part of the core before its partially cooked and softened. The smaller, less flat leaves can be used as a liner in the dish, as well as a covering over the rolls, prior to topping with the tomatoes.

Unless I see fresh pork shoulder on sale for less than a buck a pound, I usually buy the whole, boneless pork butt (big package of two) at Costco for $1.19 a pound instead. The pork butt has slightly less fat and none of the skin, but has no waste (bone) compared to the pork shoulder. Grind up the pork skin using an 1/8 inch plate or smaller.

St. Pattys day is a month away in March, so you will be able to find some decent deals on corned beef briskets, and some places have the gray cure which has no added nitrites, along with lower salt versions. The flat cut and point cut are different prices, the flat is a but more fatty, while the point cut is a bit thicker. If you can find a corned beef eye of the round, that's the leanest cut there is and also makes a really great pastrami. Because it is very lean, it also needs plenty of moisture while cooking very slowly.

I should slip in here, the two subjects of pork shoulder / butt and corned beef brings to mind the excellent results of treating these pork cuts the same as one would a beef brisket; same brining and same spices, with perhaps an addition of ground dill seed. We then just roast the meat, uncovered, at 325F for a couple of hours depending on the size.

Its very good, nothing like beef brisket.

Where we are, this time of year is perfect for a few day brining process, because the store room on the north side of the house is a consistent 42º. I might do a couple of pork loins.

A few of the spices I also use, are celery seed, as well as mustard seeds, both yellow and brown. For pastrami, some dried onion and dried garlic as part of the rub on the outside surfaces are good, as is some ground sweet red pepper. The commercially produced red type pastrami has lots of the red pepper in the rub. If the meat is a bit 'gamey' tasting, a few juniper berries can help to reduce the gamey flavor. Its quite useful when dealing with venison. Also, don't forget the bay leaves

Melva - that cabbage/veggie slaw sounds wonderful - especially adding some wine vinegar to the mayo - and of course lemon or lime/honey dressing is also a favorite. I especially use the latter for fruit dressings as it is quite refreshing in summer.

Yes, I have a food processor - and it works OK. But some time ago, I worked as a salad chef (making oodles of cut up stuff for a resort restaurant), and making sliced cucumbers - was a breeze using the commercial tilt-type deli-meat slicers. So I purchased a home size deli slicer - but unfortunately, it doesn't have the capability that the commercial one does. I use it for thin sliced meat and for cutting larger steaks for freezing or strips for putting through a meat grinder.

So, that leaves me with the food processor - works OK, or the mandolin for slicing cukes or making french fries - in smaller amounts.

David - I must get back into brining meat again - I did a pork butt last year - and it was great. So many interesting things to do - make marmalade, sour dough bread, canning, meat brining, food drying - my cup runneth over - and we are truly enjoying every minute of it - especially the eating part.

Just my 2 c's.

Bejay

My pastrami (whole top of the round) will be curing tonight. Just ground up the spices for the brine, and for coating the meat as a rub before its baked. Ran out of mustard seeds, so I have to run out and get more. My source, The Ingredients Store has been extremely slow in sending my order that was placed on 1/2/07. Don't know why its such a long delay, but now, must look elsewhere for my sausage making supplies. The sourdough bread will be used to make the sandwiches.

Hello Bejay. I just thought I'd mention that for cabbage rolls there's a Croatian version called Sarma that does use ham in the meat filling. There are all kinds of variations of stuffed cabbage throughout eastern and northeastern Europe.

Carol

Hi Carol:

That Croatian recipe is pretty interesting. Isn't it amazing how many different ethnic folks prepare the same vegetables and foods?

My favorite recipe for stuffed cabbages is basically similar, using rice, pork, spices, rolled in cabbage leaves. But I give it a distinct Italian flare - by using left over sauce from Italian spaghetti, and left over rice from Basmati - topped with melting cheeze - usually Mozarella or Jack type, and a sprinkle of Roman.

You could call it American melting pot cabbage rolls - or something like that. I love them tho - and like a touch of dillweed mixed with the meat/rice combo.

That tomato soup idea in the Croatian Sarma is probably similar - but I think I prefer the Spaghetti sauce - with lots of garlic, oregano, basil ??

Just my 2 c's.

Bejay

Dill weed also goes well in tomatoes. I usually can a few jars that way too.

Hi Bejay, like you I prefer a sauce with a little "oomph" so I don't use tomato soup, though I did try KatieC's Roasted Tomato Soup with the cabbage rolls once and that was pretty good.

I don't use the recipe I posted. It was just a "for instance." It actually had been years since I made cabbage rolls then this season I decided to make and freeze a big batch. I used a seasoned mixture of ground beef, ground pork and ham with the usual rice, eggs, garlic, parsley, onion. The rolls were good but I need to fine-tune the filling mixture. Ironically I was trying to keep the fat down and ended up just a little too lean for optimal moistness and flavor. Sometimes we forget a measure of fat can be a good thing!

Carol

Fat (especially pork or chicken) is always important when making a ground meat dish. The plain and simple stuffed cabbage I originally mentioned is typically 'peasant food' in Poland, so there is no other meat used other than beef, and only minimal spices like a little onion, pepper and salt are used.

My pastrami goes in the oven today. The oven temp offset is now down 30 degrees lower, so they will not see a temp higher tan 180 degrees during the 6 hour baking. If it were not adjusted, the beef would cook too quickly and not cure properly. The same also holds true for when I make Canadian bacon which should be in a few weeks. I slice the bacon and freeze in FS bags with about 10-20 slices each) It thaws in minutes.

With my oven set way dow to 170 degrees and the brine cured pastrami in there for over 5 hours and not getting past 110 inside, I pushed up the temp to 180, then 190, then 200 then 220, and after 11 hours I finally got the internal temp to reach 140 while the oven temp was at 250 degrees. I must say these two beef chunks took quite a lot longer to cook compared to the previous ones. Maybe because they were bigger in diameter. If anyone wants some of my left over dry spice rub, let me know and I'll send it out. It contains, allspice, clove, cinnamon, garlic, onion, bay leaf, mustard seed, celery seed, red pepper, black pepper, coriander, dill seed, ginger, and even some ground juniper berries. Needless to say its a really tasty spice blend and sticks to the outside of the beef once its been cooked. They now get refrigerated for at least 24 hours prior to slicing thin. I estimate I have about 8-9 pounds of pastrami, of which I will probably freeze some after its been sliced. Maybe in FS bags as individual servings that get vac sealed and then when I want a serving, I just put it in the microwave or drop into boiling water a couple of minutes, then open the bag and serve.. It should be good with the sourdough french bread I will also be making tomorrow, along with some spicy brown mustard I also made using some Grey Poupon, mixed with some finely ground brown mustard seeds and wine vinegar. The mustard needed a few weeks to 'mellow out' to a decent flavor. If it were served right after grinding amd mixing it tastes terrible. The same holds true for the chinese hot mustard powder when you mix it with water to make some hot mustard. It needs to 'bloom' a few hours before its served, also the same for Wasabi.

If you going to be doing a corned beef for St. Patricks day, then it should be prepped now.

Today, I am planning on making a big batch of Canadian bacon, as the price of a whole pork loin is down under $2 per pound. I have a couple of big bags of the brine mix, so I could even do more than one whole loin.

My pastrami was a big hit and is almost gone.

The batch of Canadian bacon has finished last night. It came out as being one of the best tasting so far. I added a small amount of ground pepper to the soaking brine, along with more liquid hickory smoke flavor than previous batches, and even some maple syrup. It now needs refrigeration before its sliced to about 1/8 inch thick slices. I will use the Food Saver and freeze about 70% of it for later. The liquid hickory flavor was the 'Colgin' brand. I found out that I need to use twice as much of this compared to the brands sold by sausage making suppliers. With no smoker in winter, its the next best thing.

I was also considering getting a smoker and placing it in my basement, and have the chimney tapped into my oil burner furnace chimney, or better yet, the dryer vent. I would need some kind of shutoff for the other items that are attached. Nothing worst than smoky clothes.

.... or lint all over the bacon.

YUK! Worst yet, the flavor of fuel oil in the bacon....Double YUK!!

I could live with the smoky clothes (love that smell)!
But fuzzy bacon is BAD!
Great idea though. How come you can't use your smoker in the winter? Is it just because stuff takes so much longer?

Deanna

My smoker right now is two huge clay type flower pots, with an electric hot plate inside and a grill. The idea was taken from an Alton Brown, Good Eats show When I tried smoking things in cold weather outdoors, the temps would only reach about 90 degrees at best, near the meat. Wrapping with a big wad of fiberglass may have helped, but because I needed to get inside every couple of hours, it was not easy to deal with. This kind of smoker works best outdoors in the heat of summer, but thats usually when I don't make much in the way of meats that need smoking. At only about 90 degrees at the meat level and the 1000 watt hot plate pushed to its maximum, the meat would take several days to finish, and by that time it would probably be very dry too.