Recipe: Home Cured Corned Beef

Home-cured Corned Beef
Alt.cooking-chien/Connie G/2000

4 lb beef roast
4 tb curing salt
6 garlic cloves, peeled
3 bay leaves
1/8 tsp whole cloves (3)
2 tbsp whole coriander seeds
2 tbsp whole peppercorns
1 tbsp whole mustard seeds
1/4 cup brown sugar

Combine garlic, bay leaves, cloves, coriander seeds, peppercorns, and mustard seed in blender. Blend until coarsly chopped. Add brown sugar. Set aside.

Trim roast (venison, beef, etc.), weigh and measure 1 level Tablespoon of curing salt per pound. Add measured curing salt to spice
mixture you set aside.

Rub spice mixture into roast, pressing in well. Measure roast at thickest point. Place into heavy freezing bag and close securely. Place in shallow pan in refrigerator. Cure 5 days per inch of measured thickness, turning bag daily.

At end of curing time wrap and freeze

To cook: Drain juices, if desired rinse thoroughly under cold running water to remove extra salt and spice pieces, wrap in foil and bake sealed at 300 degrees 2 to 3 hours or until tender. Or use in any corned beef recipe.

Dorothy's comments: This recipe has been tested by my whole family on both beef and venison with the results that if I do not have one either in process or residing in the freezer ready for instant cooking I certainly hear about my oversight! It has become the most requested top of the list for both Birthday and Christmas giftlists. For ease in converting the ratio of meat to spices I have set my serving size to the most often used size of roast by my family. I have used this on several different cuts of meat, however, our favorite is bottom round. Recently I became lazy and instead of grinding the spices in my blender I left them whole. The result was exactly the same in flavor and since I hate to bite into a spice by mistake and rinse them off before I cook the corned beef, it made the rinsing task a whole lot easier! I haven't tried using brisket myself, however since that seems to be the only cut of meat that you can get as corned beef in the supermarkets around where I live, I imagine it would work fine. Actually, avoiding brisket was one reason I decided to corn all my own meat at home! IMHO briskets "might" make good doorstops! Seriously though, the main reason we don't care for brisket is only because mostly it has a high amount of fat. The corning process does such a good job of tenderizing that there is no problem with the toughness. Our favorite cut of meat to corn is the bottom round since it seems to be a leaner cut of meat. Usually I just cook the corned beef in the oven with a few potatoes, carrots and celery with it. Or my husband likes to wrap it in foil and cook it on the barbecue grill, unwrapping and browning it the last 15 to 20 minutes of the cooking time.