Corned Beef

In honor of Saint Patrick’s Day, here’s a method to prepare corned beef. Rather than just boiling the corned beef on the stove with water, add a bottle (or more) of beer and braise it all in the oven. In this case I used a corned beef round rather than brisket, but either works.

Since this is the day before St. Patrick’s Day, it also happens to be the birthday of one of my friends from high school. He asked that I cook something today and call it Tyrone! Well, Tyrone, here’s your dish.

Enjoy!

Corned Beef Ingredients

4-5 lbs. packaged Corned Beef with spice packet

1 12-oz bottle of beer

2-3 whole Garlic cloves, lightly crushed

Water to boil corned beef

Boil Instructions

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350⁰F.
2. Open the corned beef package and put the contents into a Dutch oven or other oven-proof pot with a cover.
3. Trim any excess fat and/or silver skin from the corned beef. You don’t want to remove all the fat from the corned beef, in fact you want a layer of fat on top of the corned beef.
4. Open the spice packet and rub the spices onto the corned beef.
5. Lightly crush the garlic cloves and add them whole to the Dutch oven.
6. Open one bottle of beer and pour the beer into the Dutch oven.  Add enough cold water (or use more beer!) to cover the corned beef in the Dutch oven.
7. Bring the contents of the Dutch oven to a boil over high heat on the stove for 2-3 minutes, and then turn off the heat.
8. Put the Dutch oven into the pre-heated oven and braise for 3 hours.      
9. Turn the oven off after 3 hours and remove the corned beef from the Dutch oven.
10. The remaining liquid in the Dutch oven can be used to cook cabbage. Cut the cabbage through the root into quarters or eights (depending upon the size of the cabbage), keeping the leaves attached to the root, and place the cabbage into the remaining liquid in the Dutch oven. Cover and put the Dutch oven back into the oven and cook for 20-30 minutes (enough time to allow the corned beef to cool and then be sliced).
11. Allow the corned beef to cool for 15 minutes before slicing. You can also choose to refrigerate the corned beef whole and slice it the next day. Slice the corned beef into thin slices using a sharp knife.
12. Remove the Dutch oven from the oven and place the cabbage into a serving dish.
13. Serve the corned beef with cabbage and mustard.

Notes

1. Since this is an involved process, I sometimes cook more than one corned beef at a time. You’re limited by the size of your Dutch oven (i.e. can you cram all the corned beef into the pot).