Brine for Corn Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Make the brine
Boil the water, coarse sea salt, saltpetre, and brown sugar together.
Skim off any impurities.
Pour the brine into a barrel and let it cool.
Cure the beef
Rub the beef with saltpetre and coarse sea salt, then submerge it in the brine.
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
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the beef and seasons it, helping the cure penetrate.
- Saltpetre
- Acts as a curing agent that preserves the meat and gives it a pink cured color.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness that balances the salt and contributes to the flavor of the cured meat.
The step that matters
Let the brine cool before adding the beef. Hot brine would begin cooking the surface of the meat and cure it unevenly. Cooling it first keeps the beef raw while the salt and curing agents slowly penetrate.
“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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