Technical and Scientific Corned Beef From Head Meat
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the meat
Trim the cheek meat from the bullock's head into large pieces.
Soak the meat in a large vat of clean, cold water for 24 hours, changing the water at least once.
Stir the meat occasionally to ensure all pieces are soaked.
Pickle
After soaking, drain the meat and place it in a pickling solution at 75°F for 15 days.
Add 2 lbs. of boric acid or 3 lbs. of borax per 1,000 lbs. of meat to the pickle for preservation.
For improved flavor, mix in one-fourth of the weight of beef shank meat, cured the same way.
Finish for canning
When ready for canning, blanch the meat in boiling water for one hour.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Cheek meat from cattle heads
- Forms the main body of the corned beef and sets its texture after pickling.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during the pickling and curing process.
- Borax or boracic acid
- Acts as a preservative that slows spoilage during the long pickling period.
- Beef shank meat
- Adds richer beef flavor and extra body to the cured meat.
The step that matters
Keeping the pickle preservative amounts correct. Preservatives must be measured against the weight of meat in the pickle. Too little leaves the meat open to spoilage over the 15-day cure, while excess preservative is unsafe to eat, so the ratio should be checked carefully.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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