Brad Makes Corned Beef

(throat clearing)

Check, check, me me me me me.

All right, today guys, gonna be makin' a little corned beef.

Right now, we just got the brisket,

and I've got some pickling spices.

I like to make my own.

I got a couple little things that aren't

traditionally in there, but I like it.

We're gonna set up a little curing brine.

That takes about five days, and then from there,

you can cook it, and that's where you get your,

so we're gonna make the corned beef.

(upbeat music)

So we've got our brisket.

This is about a five, six-pound piece

is what you're lookin' for,

2 1/2 cups of salt, five teaspoons

of the pink curing salt and 1/2 a cup of

light brown sugar and one Guinness

for good measure.

That's for the brine.

Then our pickling spices, some chopped-up ginger.

We got some coriander seed, some allspice,

mixed black and yellow mustard seeds,

juniper berries, some cardamom pods,

mixed peppercorns, a couple chiles de arbol,

cinnamon stick and some fresh bay leaves.

I got a little skillet goin' over there on medium heat.

Look at that, that's a beautiful thing already.

We didn't even do nothin'.

You just wanna keep it movin'.

You don't really want to go walkin' away

and gettin' distracted.

♫ La la la la la la la la ♫

Just get a little toasty, you start gettin'

a little fragrant, and that's pretty much it.

We're not really lookin' to put much color

or burn anything here.

You can start to really smell the individual spices.

Right off the bat, you can smell the clove.

You can smell...

You can smell the clove, we didn't add the clove, Vinny.

Stand by.

The recipe calls for one teaspoon of cloves,

which I happened to forget!

You don't want to go too high.

You'll start to hear things startin' to crackle.

I'm startin' to hear it now a little bit.

(spices popping)

And that's a good indicator that you're

gettin' pretty close.

Right from there, right from the pot,

if you don't have a mortar and pestle,

I highly recommend it.

Still cracklin'.

Come on, Vinny, stick your camera in there.

Just give everything a nice little crush.

I just like to crack and open up the spices.

Oh, it smells wonderful.

You know, we really gotta work on a way

to get those smells into the camera.

(fireball roaring)

Alex Delany, how are ya?

Pretty good.

You wanna go ahead and take a smell?

Hoo!

(thumping music)

Hoo!

Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo.

Pretty nice, right?

All right, we'll see ya later, Delany.

So from here, I have my vessel.

This is what we're gonna put the brisket in to cure.

So I've got 2 1/2 cups of kosher salt,

1/2 cup brown sugar, like so, and this is

the pink curing salt.

Then just, you know, a little Guinness, you know,

St. Patrick's Day.

And then from there, this is very important,

you wanna make sure that everything gets

dissolved in the liquid.

From there, we're just gonna add the spice

mixture in there, mix it up nice.

Add the beef, cover it, five days,

and then we'll see what happens.

That smell, this is somethin' else.

Ooh!

I want to take a 1/2 a cup of this and reserve it,

and that'll be our cookin' spice for when we

cook the corned beef.

Leaves you with a cup.

Add that right in.

So boom, we got our brine here,

nice piece a meat.

Now, here's a little thing I like to do.

I take a little cake tester, and I just like

to prick some little holes in it, especially by the fat.

Brine sometimes has a harder time getting

through the fat than it does just straight on

to the beef grain itself.

Then from there, we just go right into the brine.

Oh look at that, no overflows.

The brisket tends to float a little.

What I like to do is get a plate that fits

or anything that's food safe that can

handle bein' in water, and I just like

to place that right on top of the meat.

There you go, that's the move right there.

Now from here, I just wrap with a little plastic.

Amiel, what are we doin', bud?

Just some crabs, don't worry about it.

Oh, Amiel's got crabs!

Doin' the old Brad wrap.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, they love that.

Oh yeah, they're gonna hate ya for that.

What are ya gonna throw that in the ocean, too?

Yeah, I'm gonna wrap it around some dolphins.

[Dolphins] Ew, um hmm!

Why his is doing that is because it acts,

he's got a little ice pack in there,

and the layers of plastic wrap,

which we recycle afterwards, it acts

as a little insulator.

He's got a little cooler now.

Why don't you have yourself some crabs

this weekend, bud?

I sure will.

Oh, came over here for the plastic.

All right, no big deal.

All right, so from here, we'll drop this

in the fridge now, and we'll see you guys in five days.

(bossa nova music)

There we go.

Vinny, get the door, bud.

Let me take the old plate out.

Yeah.

(plate clattering)

Oh Jesus.

That's our guy.

We'll give that a nice rinse.

You don't have to go nuts gettin' everything off

'cause to cook this, we're gonna boil it essentially here.

I just got a nice little stock.

You can use Dutch oven or just a nice

little sized stock pot.

We'll add in our spices there.

She's heavy.

Right in the old water.

And we're gonna let that boil for like 15-20 minutes.

A watched pot never boils, Vin.

You can walk, we're just (word bleeped) around.

Vinny just loves filmin' me.

Paint me, Vinny, like one of your French girls.

[Vinny] Is that good, oh, oh, oh.

I can't work like this.

So that's cookin' away, and now we'll turn it down

in heat to a little medium low,

throw a little cover on there,

and we'll let that go for about 3 1/2,

four hours, happens over time, low and slow, magic.

(electricity buzzing)

All right, Vinny, zzz.

(bossa nova music)

Look, Vinny, corned beef's all done.

Nice.

Fork-tender.

(hands slapping)

Yeah, buddy, that's it.

I put some green cabbage that I cored,

cut up some carrots and some red-skinned

potatoes and an onion, I put that all in there.

Let that cook for about 40 minutes.

Then I pull it out and serve that on the side.

Nice pink, nice color, that's from the curing salt.

So the grain's going like this.

You kinda want to cut it on the bi.

You wanna cut it against the grain.

(slow piano music)

All right, check this out, Vinny.

That's what you want.

You want to be able to get grain separation,

not falling apart, but separation.

Get yourself a little Guinness.

Right there, that's about as St. Patrick's Day

as it gets.

I can hear the bagpipes goin'.

(bagpipe music)

That's it, Vinny, whatta ya think?

Let's go, focus here.

That's it, corned beef cabbage, St. Patrick's Day.

Bon appetit.

All right, no more, Vinny. we're done.

This is how me and Vinny get our work done.

Oh sweet nectar.

It's a little late in the game, four o'clock

afternoon shot, you know, we got put on the back burner,

a couple celebrities in the house.

So me and old Vinny Bo-Binny, we're gonna

have a little beer before we go.

Lookin' for a sponsorship. (cash register dinging)

Vinny, drink your beer.

Makin' me nervous.

What are you, a cop?