The following recipes describe how to cure (preserve via salt, sodium nitrite and sodium nitrate) a beef brisket or a top round roast and then how to process the cured meat to make either corned beef or pastrami. There are two different recipes shown for curing the beef brisket, a dry curing procedure and a brine procedure. Cooking instructions for making corned beef are shown after the curing procedures, each of which includes the cooking steps. The recipe for making pastrami from cured but still raw beef brisket or top round roast is shown last, along with two different ways to do the final cooking. I provide recipe variations in ingredients and in cooking methods along with recommendations and the reasons behind those recommendations.
I begin by explaining why the home cook is wise to make corned beef rather than buy brisket in a brine solution already cured or in cans as cooked corned beef at the local supermarket.
Corning beef is one process I considered various times but I never took the steps to do it until now. Why? It used to be convenient to buy the beef already corned, in brine, and of decent quality. And the canned corned beef products from South America, while expensive, were essentially all good beef, and firm to the touch.
Well, times change, and in this instance not for the better. Ever since meat processors starting using water infusion to cheat us (enhance their profits), the quality and effective meat weight of various meat products (ham, bacon, ground beef, chicken, lunch meats, etc.) has gone substantially downhill. Even the corned beef sold in brine is fluid logged, and the fat to lean meat ratio is typically terrible ... much worse than, let's say, 30 or more years ago. To be blunt, the price and quality issues of the corned beef products sold in supermarkets, including the canned corned beef products, are enough to make me gag.
Basically, buying 3 pounds of so called premium flat thin cut corned beef in brine, for $4.50 per pound (in 2020), results in about 1.5 pounds of useful lean meat at serving time, if you are lucky. That price is a bit stiff for beef brisket! It is closer to the price per pound of whole beef filet. I do multiple experiments with the supermarket packages of corned beef and here are the latest results. A 4.25 pound package of corned beef, after cooking and separating out the large areas of fat, yielded only 1 pound 11 ounces of lean meat. That translates to a final yield of 40%, not even 50%. Thus, paying $4.99/lb. (the current price), the purchased package costs the consumer $21.21. Given the fat and liquid losses from cooking, and the final weight of lean meat of 1 pound 11 ounces, and you have just purchased corned beef for the real price of $12.57 per pound! For that price per pound you can literally buy whole beef filet!
I now find the canned corn beef products to be much softer than they used to be. Yes, the weight is the same, maybe, but the meat is no longer in compressed chunks where you could see the fat content. Instead, the meat is ground into a paste where you wind up getting less meat, more fat and added water. That is disgusting.
Thus, now you know my reasons for putting beef corning recipes in Food Nirvana. It is time to shun the meat processors and make our own corned beef. The recipes below are two of many, and as usual I've made significant changes to achieve what I think is the best. You can try these recipes and then perhaps experiment in terms of flavoring ingredients as you consider the taste of what you have made. You are the boss.
In any event, let's beat the greedy processors at their game by ignoring them and their products. You can save a lot of money and have much higher quality. Buy your own beef brisket or other less expensive cut of lean beef, like top round roast, and get busy. You can easily turn it into either corned beef or pastrami.
Recipes I've read for making corned beef or pastrami from beef brisket sometimes note that other cuts of beef won't work as well as beef brisket because of it's unique flesh/collagen composition, leading to better tenderness. I tried using raw top round roast and it came out pretty good, and it was only one third the price per pound of raw beef brisket, which cost $6 per pound. It wasn't quite as tender so I decided to use a small amount of meat tenderizer (with bromolain [from pineapple] enzyme) when I'd cure future cuts of top round roast and I was betting that would produce excellent results. I figured I would change this recipe if/when my experimenting is completed/successful. Well, you can buy McCormick's® meat tenderizer at the supermarket or via the Internet. Okay ... I just did the deed! My experiment led to perfect success. Lucky you!
Here is another hint ... moistening the raw meat with Wright's Liquid Smoke® prior to applying the curing agent and spices mixture yields a most delicious corned beef. A cut above ordinary corned beef. But that step is optional. You will save a lot of money if you buy the Liquid Smoke via the Internet in the one gallon jug size.
Note that the quality of pastrami you can buy at the deli section of the supermarket is inferior (except for expensive brands like Boar's Head® that are delicious and of reasonably high quality) to what you used to buy, but you can now make it the right way at home. I find the supermarket pastrami to be water logged and to have a weird chemical taste. Try heating it to make a hot sandwich and you will see it shrink a lot as the water cooks out of the meat. See the included pastrami recipe that follows the corned beef recipes below if you want to make great, high quality pastrami at home. It puts the typical commercial stuff available in supermarket deli's to shame.
Okay, let's start with a dry curing recipe from the Morton® Salt Company, modified to include meat tenderizer so you can use top round beef roast instead of beef brisket. They sell a simple product that contains salt, sodium nitrate and sodium nitrite, and the recipe I am providing here is one provided online at Morton's® web site for using my bag of Morton's® Tender Quick® curing agent. I recommend using latex or nitrile gloves when directly packing/rubbing in dry cure ingredients onto the raw beef brisket since the sodium nitrate and sodium nitrite in the curing mix can be absorbed through the skin of your hands. You do not want that to happen as direct absorption or ingestion of those chemicals is toxic and can be fatal.
Tender Quick® is a mixture of salt, sugar, 0.5% sodium nitrate, 0.5% sodium nitrite and propylene glycol. Note that Morton® used to make another curing/flavoring mixture, Sugar Cure®, that was used to cure hams and bacon. That product is no longer available from Morton®. But the Morton® website shows a recipe for adding sugar to Tender Quick® to turn pork into ham. Note that the best sugar to use is dextrose, which you can buy online cheaply via Amazon®. It is less sweet than sucrose, our common table sugar, so it avoids making cured meat too sweet.
Ingredients:
One lean 5 lb. beef brisket (or, optionally, a defatted top round beef roast)
5 tablespoons of Morton® Tender Quick® curing mix
2 tablespoons of brown sugar
1 tablespoon of ground black pepper
1 teaspoon of ground paprika
1 teaspoon of ground bay leaves
1 teaspoon of ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder
1 teaspoon of McCormick's® Meat Tenderizer (if you are using top round beef roast)
1 or 2 tablespoons of Wright's Liquid Smoke® (optional)
Directions:
Trim the surface fat from the meat, especially any membrane that appears as a silvery shiny thin covering, tightly attached to the lean flesh. I slip the tip of a sharp boning knife under the edge of the silver skin, then pull up on the silver skin and gradually remove it by cutting across the meat with the boning knife flat, right at the surface where the lean flesh joins the silver skin.
Mix the Morton® Tender Quick® curing mix with the remaining seasoning and optional meat tenderizer ingredients in a small bowl. Then use a Magic Bullet® mixer to blend those ingredients and turn the mixture into a powder.
Put on latex or nitrile gloves.
If you use the Liquid Smoke then moisten the surfaces of the beef with it.
Rub the curing agent and spices mixture on to and into all brisket/top round surfaces.
Put the brisket or top round roast into a “food grade” plastic bag, minimizing the amount of air in the bag, and tie or close the open end securely. Or you can do what I do and use a vacuum seal bag and vacuum seal the meat.
Refrigerate the packaged curing agents and seasonings, etc. and meat and allow the meat to cure 5 days per inch of meat thickness. One way to shorten the curing time is to cut the meat so it doesn't exceed two inches thick. Another method is to cut slices into thick meat every two inches so the curing agent will be certain to penetrate completely in ten days.
Turn the bag over once per day to assure even curing.
When the curing time is complete, remove the brisket/top round roast from the bag and rinse it and rub it well to remove seasonings and curing chemicals.
You now have the choice of simmering the meat to make traditional corned beef, or, of jumping ahead in this recipe to the section that describes how to make pastrami.
To make traditional corned beef, put the meat into a Dutch oven or into a one gallon pot. Choose a Dutch oven or pot size that is close to the area (size when laid flat) of the meat so you don't wind up using too much water, which would weaken the final flavors of the corned beef.
Add water to cover the meat under 1" of water.
Add one tbsp. of mixed pickling spices (supermarkets and Internet vendors sell it, or simply use the pickling spices recipe below, which is what I recommend).
Bring the water in the pot to a boil, covered, then reduce the heat to very low.
Simmer the meat until it is fork tender, about 3 to 3 1/2 hours.
At this point the corned beef is ready to eat. Remove it from the pot and put it on a wooden cutting board and, when somewhat cool, slice it across the grain (never along the grain) into 3/8" thick slices. Serve it hot.
Do not be dismayed if some corned beef slices fall apart, which will happen if the corned beef was cooked longer than necessary. The quality and taste of the meat are so good you won't care if you build a sandwich from a pile of cut meat or serve it mixed in with vegetables instead of having picture perfect slices.
You also have the choice of not cutting the hot corned beef. Instead, let it cool to room temperature, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it overnight. The next day, and for some days beyond, you can slice nice thin pieces of the corned beef for cold or hot sandwiches. They will be delicious.
This concludes the dry curing and cooking steps.
Now I provide a curing recipe where a brine is used instead of a dry curing process.
Ingredients:
Pickling spices:
1 tbsp. of whole allspice berries (or 2 tsp. of ground allspice)
1 tbsp. of whole mustard seeds (brown or yellow)
1 tbsp. of coriander seeds
1 tbsp. of red pepper flakes
1 tbsp. of whole black peppercorns
2 tsp. of whole cloves
9 whole cardamom pods (or 1 1/2 tsp. of ground cardamom)
6 large bay leaves, crumbled
2 tsp. of ground ginger
1/2 stick of cinnamon (optional - used only during brining)
Brine:
1 gallon of water
2 cups of Kosher Salt
5 tsp. of pink curing salt (optional)*
3 tbsp. of the pickling spices
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1 tsp. of McCormick's® Meat Tenderizer (optional)
*Pink curing salt, or 6.25% sodium nitrite plus 93.75% sodium chloride (table salt), goes by many names, such as Prague Powder #1 or DQ Curing Salt #1, and is easily available online and may be available at your local specialty market or butcher shop. If you don't have it, you can still make corned beef, but it is necessary to have sodium nitrite for that vibrant pink color we associate with corned beef. And it adds flavor too. Without it the final corned beef you serve will be a dull grey color.
Note that pink curing salt is NOT Himalayan pink salt. Pink curing salt is toxic and can be deadly if ingested directly, which is why it is colored pink, so consumers do not mistake it for table salt.
Brisket:
1, lean 5 pound beef brisket (or, optionally, defatted top round beef roast)
1 tbsp. of pickling spices
Directions:
Toast and crush the spices:
You can either use store-bought pickling spices or you can make your own. To make your own, toast the allspice berries, mustard seeds, coriander seeds, red pepper flakes, peppercorns, cloves, and cardamom pods lightly in a small frying pan on medium heat until fragrant. Note that it is pretty easy to burn the spices; you want enough heat to release their flavors, but not so much that they get burned. In other words, keep the heat low to medium low.
Remove the skillet from the heat and place the spices in a small bowl. You can use a mortar and pestle to crush the spices a little, or use the back of a spoon or the side of a knife on a flat surface. Even better, put them into a Magic Bullet® mixer and run it for no more than thirty seconds (my method, simple, easy and fast). Add the crushed spices to a small bowl and stir in the crumbled bay leaves and the ground ginger.
Make the curing brine with the spices, salts, optional meat tenderizer, sugar and water:
Add about 3 Tbsp. of the spice mix (reserve the rest for cooking the corned beef after it has cured), plus the half stick of cinnamon, to a gallon of water in a large pot, along with the Kosher salt, the pink curing salt, and the brown sugar.
Bring to a boil, then remove the pot from the heat and let the contents cool to room temperature. Then refrigerate the brine until it is well chilled.
Cover the brisket with the brine, then chill it:
Place the brisket in a large, flat container or pan, and cover it with the brine. The brine should cover the meat. If the meat floats, weigh it down with a plate or two to keep it submerged.
Alternatively, you can use a 2-gallon freezer or baking bag (placed in a high sided baking casserole so if it leaks it doesn't leak all over your refrigerator), place the brisket in the freezer/baking bag with about 3 quarts of the brine, squeezing out the air from the bag before sealing it.
Place the brining meat in the refrigerator and keep it chilled from 5 to 7 days (or up to 10 days if the brisket is 2" thick). Flip the brisket over once each day, so that all sides get brined equally. Note that forcing the meat to stay submerged will accomplish that purpose so you don't have to flip the meat, but I suggest you do it anyway to equalize salt concentration.
To cook the cured meat:
At the end of the cure, remove the brisket from the brine and rinse off the brine with cold water. Place the brisket into a large pot that just fits around the brisket and cover it with one inch of water. If you want your brisket to be less salty, add another inch of water to the pot. I avoid the extra water but I do add water during cooking if/when necessary. I also flip the meat over about every 30 minutes to assure even cooking in the simmering water.
Add a tablespoon of the pickling spices to the pot. Bring the contents to a boil, then reduce the heat to a very low simmer (barely bubbling), and cook for 3 to 3 1/2 hours, covered, or until the corned beef is fork tender. (At this point you can, if you want, remove it from the pot, let it cool to room temperature, and package the meat tightly in plastic wrap, and store it in the refrigerator for up to a week.)
Cut the meat across the grain:
Remove the meat to a cutting board.
Notice the visible lines on the meat; this is the "grain" of the meat, or the direction of the muscle fibers.
To make the meat easier to cut, first cut it in half, along the grain of the meat. Then make thin crosswise cuts, across the grain to cut the meat into perfect size pieces to serve.
Corned beef is delicious served hot with horseradish cream sauce. The recipe for that sauce is in Food Nirvana under the Dips, Dressings and Sauces Menu.
Cold corned beef is great in a sandwich using soft white bread or snowflake rolls and mayonnaise. Or, you can make a superb sandwich with grilled seeded rye bread, a spicy deli brown mustard, some Swiss cheese melted over the hot corned beef, and a garlic pickle on the side with some potato chips.
Yet another variation is to make a Reuben sandwich, which includes sauerkraut and thousand island dressing instead of mustard. For a Reuben, place the meat, cheese and sauerkraut in a bowl and heat it in the microwave oven until the sauerkraut is hot and the cheese melting. Then, put that assembly onto plain or grilled rye bread (grilled in butter is the best) and cover it with the thousand island dressing and a top piece of rye bread. Cut it in half and ... Yummy!
Oh, some folks use cold coleslaw instead of sauerkraut after heating only the meat and cheese and they forego the thousand island dressing. That delight is called a Rachel sandwich. Thus, formally the Rachel sandwich is a variation on the standard Reuben sandwich, substituting pastrami for the corned beef, and coleslaw for the sauerkraut. You can, of course, put any combination together that pleases you!
Lest I forget, it is historically and ethnically proper to mention the original New York Hot Steamer corned beef sandwiches. They were simple in that they consisted of only rye bread, hot corned beef and deli mustard. But boy were they superb, for the tender and moist meat was piled high, so when you ate one it was a real taste pleasure followed by a pleasantly full feeling. What a great sandwich, done best and mostly only at Jewish delicatessens!
Be sure to serve these sandwich delights with a good cold beverage like beer or a soda, ergo something carbonated.
Pastrami Recipe
After curing a beef brisket or other cut of beef you can either boil it to make corned beef or coat it with spices, referred to as a rub, and oven cook it or sous vide cook it to make pastrami. Some recipes call for using a smoker grill to make pastrami but I opted to do and describe the more simple process. As I want to have additional hickory smoked flavor I simply wipe the cured meat with a small amount of Wright's Liquid Smoke®, which I bought cheaply online in a one gallon volume (far cheaper than buying the little bottles at the supermarket).
Note that the first time I made a pastrami rub I used only ground coriander, freshly ground pepper and paprika, per an Internet recipe that claimed it was the right mixture to get the flavor of pastrami like what was served at Katz's® restaurant in NYC. I was not at all satisfied as the rub lacked sweetness and the flavoring effect of a tiny amount of ground cloves and other spices, so I now provide the rub recipe you see below. Yes, it is perfect.
Note also that you could choose to buy pickling spices in a jar at the supermarket, avoid the spices cooking step in this recipe, and simply grind the purchased spices, then add the coarsely ground black pepper. My advice? Do it yourself for optimal results.
The following recipe uses a cured beef brisket (or cured top round beef) before it has been cooked, to make pastrami. You first make the "rub" of spices and then coat the meat and low temperature cook it in one of the two ways described below, per the directions, until the meat temperature is 165 degrees F.
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons of Wright's Liquid Smoke® Hickory flavoring (optional but very nice)
2 tablespoons of coriander seeds
2 tablespoons of yellow mustard seeds
2 tablespoons of lightly packed dark (or light) brown sugar
1 tablespoon of smoked paprika
1 teaspoon of kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon of granulated garlic
1/8 teaspoon of ground cloves
2 tablespoons of coarsely ground black pepper
1, 5 pound cured beef brisket (or cured top round beef), surface fat removed
Directions:
Toast the coriander and mustard seeds in a medium skillet over low to medium heat, stirring occasionally, until they are fragrant and lightly browned, about 3 to 5 minutes. Transfer the seeds to a small bowl to cool.
Add the cooled seeds, sugar, paprika, salt, garlic and cloves (but not the pepper or Liquid Smoke) to a spice grinder (or, far better, to a Magic Bullet®) and grind to the texture of dry sand. That takes about one minute. Transfer the mixture to a small bowl and stir in the pepper. Note that if you want to use some of this mixture later you can store it in an airtight container at room temperature in a dry place away from sunlight for up to 3 months.
Take the cured meat and rinse it carefully to remove all of the dry cure coating or curing solution. Then drain the wet meat on a wire rack for a few minutes, and/or pat it mostly dry with paper towels. If you want hickory smoked flavoring (you do) then use 2 tbsp. of Wright's Liquid Smoke® and sprinkle it or brush it on to the surface of the meat at various places and then rub it into the meat. Put the meat onto a wooden cutting board.
Coat all meat surfaces generously with the rub, rubbing it into the surface of the meat, using less rub in thinner meat areas. Let the meat rest for a few minutes while you prepare the cooking medium and the other materials for cooking the coated beef brisket.
Set the oven temperature to 180 degrees F, using a pure convection oven setting, if you have a convection oven.
Vacuum seal the meat in a "boil in bag" vacuum sealing bag or use a baking bag.
If you use the "boil-in" bag approach you can either cook the pastrami in the oven or in a sous vide water bath. Both methods are easy but the sous vide method is faster. You can read about sous vide cooking in the Sous Vide Cooking primer in the Technology section of Food Nirvana.
If you don't have a vacuum sealer or lack the right type of "boil in" vacuum sealing bags then simply use a baking bag such as the ones used for roasting turkeys.
Cook for 2 to 4 hours, or until the internal temperature of the meat is 165 degrees F. If you cook using the oven then check the temperature after 2 hours and periodically after that. Use an instant read thermometer and check the temperature at the center of the thickest part of the meat by simply puncturing the top of the vacuum sealed or baking bag with the tip of the instant read thermometer.
Stop the cooking when the meat temperature is 165 degrees F. Remove the baking sheet and contents from the oven, or the sous vide bath, and let the pastrami cool to room temperature in the bag, retaining all liquid, and keeping the liquid touching the meat.
Drain off any excess liquid and wrap the cooled and moist/wet pastrami tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate it. At this point, the uncut pastrami, or remaining uncut portion of it, will keep for 10 to 12 days in the refrigerator. Once chilled you can easily slice it into pieces about 1/8" thick, across the grain, and eat it in cold or hot sandwiches. Actually, you can slice some and vacuum seal it and it will last in the refrigerator for weeks.
You might heat some of the cold slices briefly in a microwave oven or grill them in a lightly buttered skillet or steam them over simmering hot water, on a rack in a covered saucepan or skillet or steaming basket, for about ten minutes, to make them extra moist and tender. I find that the steaming method is the best and I use it to the exclusion of the other methods. Whatever method you choose, I suggest that you use the warmed slices in the traditional hot sandwich of pastrami, Swiss cheese and Deli mustard on grilled seeded rye bread.
Remember to serve a Kosher garlic dill pickle on the side, and for some people a few potato chips. And remember to serve the cold beer!
Whatever way you make it and serve it you are bound to love it! And best of all, you actually made it!
Enjoy!