I understand a lot of people really love corned beef. My husband does. My mother did. Lots of our friends do. I just never did. Until…
We’ve worked with Snake River Farms for a number of years creating recipes and related content using their Wagyu/Angus beef and Kurobuta pork. Their wagyu beef is really incredible. But when they asked us to create something using their corned beef brisket a couple of years ago, my first reaction was, “What a waste.” I just couldn’t see using such deeply flavorful, rich meat to make corned beef– I thought the quality of the better-than-prime meat would be obscured by long, slow cooking in pickling spices.
After David braised the corned beef in hard cider for several hours, I learned just how wrong I was. So, so wrong. It has a cleaner, richer flavor than the corned beef I’d always known, and none of the chewy, splintered texture. The meat was salty and pickley and rich and moist and tender. I not only scarfed it down for dinner, but continued to snack on it (far more than I should have) for days.
While we are not being called on to create a corned beef recipe for Snake River Farms this year (sad face) I look forward to St Patrick’s Day solely as an excuse to feast (for several days) on one.
Here is a link to the Snake River Farms product. (It is worth mentioning that we in no way benefit if you order from them– this link is provided only as a courtesy to you.)
Here is the wonderful recipe David created. If you want to stick with ordinary corned beef, I would still urge you to cook it this way. But if you can splurge on the good stuff this year, by all means prepare an American Wagyu corned beef brisket this way.
| Servings | |
- 2 1/2 to 3 pound corned beef brisket
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 medium onion sliced, about 1 cup
- 2 medium carrots cut into 1/2-inch thick slices
- 2 bay leaves
- 6 whole garlic cloves, peeled
- 4 12-ounce bottles hard apple cider, divided
- 1 cup low sodium chicken broth
- 3 tablespoons whole grain Dijon mustard, divided
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
|
- Scrape off pickling spice from corned beef and reserve.
- Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the corned beef, fat side down, and sear until the fat is lightly browned, 3-4 minutes. Turn the meat over, sear one minute, and remove from the pan. Add the onion, carrots, bay leaves and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until just starting to soften, about 2-3 minutes. Return the corned beef and reserved pickling spice to the pan, fat side up, and add 3 bottles of the cider and enough cold water to just cover. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low; cover and gently simmer until tender, 3-3 1/2 hours.
- While the corned beef cooks, combine the remaining bottle of hard cider, chicken stock, 2 tablespoons of the mustard and the sugar in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and cook until slightly thickened and reduced to 1 cup, 23-25 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the remaining 1 tablespoon mustard, salt and pepper.
- Transfer the corned beef to a cutting board and allow to rest 5-10 minutes before thinly slicing against the grain. Serve with the mustard-cider reduction.
Leave a Reply