I was really excited when we made our first batch of bacon using celery to cure it. It comes out just the same as bacon made with saltpeter, but no chemicals. The color is bright pink. This gave me the notion that we could make our own corned beef for St. Patrick’s Day. I had been suffering from a crisis of conscience because we have completely removed chemicals from all our other food but the amount of corned beef we sell on St. Pat’s runs to over three hundred pounds each year and a lot of our regular customers look forward to it. I didn’t know how we were going to do it without chemicals.
Then we made the first batch of bacon with celery and my heart leaped because I had a way that I think will create excellent corned beef without chemicals. Our new chef Mauricio has made the last two batches of bacon so I decided to turn him loose on the corned beef. I bought the brisket from John at International Meat. John steered me towards medium sized choice briskets that he is going to personally pull for me and he supplied me with one that we are going to use to test our initial recipe. John advised that we should shoot the thicker part of the brisket with the cure to ensure that the pink color and flavor extends all the way through the muscle.
After picking up the “choice” brisket, about sixteen pounds in weight (we would only use choice or better briskets to ensure that there is enough fat in the meat to give it flavor) I stop at Northwest Cutlery to buy an injector. Then I turn it over to Cari Ann and Mauricio and you can see that on the video that is attached.
We are going to stage a corned beef tasting of this initial brisket next Tuesday. There will be additional information concerning this tasting somewhere else in this post. Yasmin is going to pair the corned beef tasting with some beers and wine that she thinks will work well with the corned beef. Tough work since she is a vegetarian. All you all have to do is come in on Tuesday evening and bring your taste buds with you. We want to know what you think.
