Corned Beef Sandwich

Easily one of my all time favourite things.

So, corned beef. An amazingly delicious thing. I've wanted to make thing for a very long time, and one day, I finally made some. Or more aptly, I finally started making some. The reason I say started is because it actually takes about 21 days to make. Now, after having made this I'd probably most definitely do at least one thing differently. After the pickling process, I steamed the corned beef in a pressure cooker for 90 minutes. The next time I make this, I'm going to steam it in a large stock pot and try to keep the steam as close to 71C as possible and cook the meat until tender.

Even though I made this in a pressure cooker, and it was slightly less juicy that I would like, the flavour and the texture was still absolutely amazing. The fat on the meat was delicious and melt in your mouth tender. I normally like my corned beef sandwiches to be pretty lean, but a mix of a small amount of the fattier pieces with mostly leaner pieces proved to make a delicious combination of flavour and texture. Both my girl and I, and everyone else that ended up tasting it told me how amazingly good it was, and personally, I'd be hard pressed to go to a deli again for a Corned Beef sandwich. I didn't have pickling spice on hand when I made this, so I put a few things together after reading a bit about pickling spice. I'm sure that if you used a pickling spice mix it would still be just as good. Also, since I made this three weeks ago, and didn't take any notes, I'm slightly hazy on the spices I used and proportion of each.

Ingredients


1 Beef Brisket
Cold Filtered Water (Enough to cover the meat)
Salt (70g (1/4 Cup) Per Litre of Water)
Pickling Spices (140g (1/2 Cup) Per Litre of Water) Cloves, Garlic Powder, Black Pepper, Cardamom, Bay Leaf, All Spice Berries, Cinnamon, Mustard Seeds, Coriander, Salt.

Directions


1. In a large clean bowl, add meat, cover with measured amount of clean filtered cold water. Add measured amounts of salt and pickling spices, use a dinner plate or something heavy to keep the meat weighed down. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 21 days.

2. Remove meat from brine and discard brine. Steam meat in a pressure cooker for 90 minutes. I will update this recipe again after I've tried the new method, but for those adventurous, here's what I'm going to do. Steam the meat at 71 degrees Celsius in a large stock pot using a tall round rack to keep the meat elevated and out of the water until tender.

3. Serve with standard yellow mustard on marble rye or pretty much anything you want. I ate it with some mustard and no bread and it was still delicious.