Most corned beef is cooked/boiled for 3 hours. When done, it’s dry and fatty. Other than making corned beef hash on day 2, or in a sandwich, it’s kind of gross.
There is a way to make corned beef that is tender and juicy. All you need is a sous vide machine and 24 hours. I guarantee it will be perfect.
In my pursuit of cooking gadgets, I bought a Sous Vide Supreme a few months ago. This is an expensive water cooker that holds the temperature of food steady. You could try to do the same thing on a stovetop water bath; good luck with that, you’ll need it.
Steps to reach the perfect corned beef:
* Buy whatever corned beef is on sale. I bought Cooks corned beef for $2/pound. I also bought a Vienna for twice that much and there was no noticeable difference in the finished product.
* Remove the corned beef from its package and threw out the spices. Then put the corned beef in a foodsaver bag and seal it. (Or you can just chuck the whole corned beef in its original packaging into the sous vide cooker, if the plastic looks durable).
*. Set the temperature to 176 degrees and cook for 24 hours. This, I got from Douglas Baldwin’s great Sous Vide work.
* When you take it out of the bag scrape off the fat, which will then be a gelatin-like substance. Slice it and serve.
I crammed 5 bags of corned beef into the Sous Vide Supreme or about 20 pounds total. Large flat cuts off over 4.5 pounds barely fit, so keep them under 4 pounds if possible.
Tags: corned beef
