One week ago I embarked on a cooking experiment. I decided to make my own corned beef. There is a recipe in The New Best Recipe cookbook for a dry-cure method that I thought looked good, so we went for it. It took 7 days in the fridge hiding in a ziplock bag underneath a big weighted tray and daily turning to prepare the meat. Then, yesterday afternoon we rinsed it off and threw it in the dutch oven for a 3 hour simmer in water only. After its long simmer I removed it from the water and popped it in the oven in some of its juices at 200 degrees. Bring on the veggies! I added rutabagas, carrots, cabbage, onions, brussel sprouts, and potatoes. Oh. my. God. It was so good. We had Dave, Aubree, Michael, and Kristin over and there is really nothing left of an 8 pound roast and about 7 pounds of veggies. I guess everyone liked it. I don't have any pictures of the finished product (dumb, I know), but here is a photo of the meat in a bag and the contraption we used to smash it down in the fridge. Dave said he's ready for corned beef again next weekend. Anyone else want to join us?
