My Favorite Time of the Year - St. Patty's Day Corned Beef sale

[13spicerub]

corned beef is ridiculously overpriced the rest of the year, but a week or so before all the big grocery stores put it on sale. I'm stocking up big time again this year. Getting atleast 20-25 lbs. Gotta put my order in to penzy's for juniper berries so i can make pastrami. MMM can't wait.

 

[fire it up]

You know I just completely didn't even think that corned beef would go on sale soon. Glad you reminded. I tried to make pastrami once out of a pre-corned brisket and it was ok but very salty and very chewy...then I found out I needed to wrap and chill it and then steam it. After I did that it was amazing, so tender and juicy. Spices were a bit off because I was unable to get juniper berries and so went with some other slightly seasonings for pastrami. Needless to say, the key is to steam in after the meat sits, for me it turned out a smoked product that was just ok and turned it into something I could at least be somewhat proud of.

 

[bigtrain74]

Probably a stupid question but was it steamed in the foil itself?

 

[scubadoo97]

I picked up a corned beef brisket at my local megamart where they were $2.99/lb in anticipation of making pastrami. I noticed two brands one labled as Kosher style, not kosher. Since the last one I bought was still pretty salty after an overnight soak in water to leach out salt I looked at the sodium level. For serving size of 4 oz the kosher style had around 400 grams of sodium and the other had over 1000 grams of sodium. Big difference. I opted for the kosher style and hope for a better end product than the last one.

 

[cashew]

Can you tell us more about the Juniper berries making pastromi? Sounds like something worth trying.

Cashew

 

[fire it up]

@ BigTrain,
If you were asking me then...
When I steamed it the next day I placed a pot I had with holes in the bottom if it inside of a much larger pot and a little water in the bottom, placed the meat on top of the upside down "holed" pot (without a handle on it) not in foil or anything, covered it with a lid and steamed for an hour, maybe 2 I can't quite recall.