Irish Spiced Beef

What to do with a beef or elk brisket. While it would be wrong to call this a corned beef recipe, it has that tone to it but is more of a beef brisket. It takes four days to make, so plan accordingly. This is an old pioneer stable that involves a lot of ingredients and a fair amount of work, but what the hell right, life on the frontier is supposed to be a struggle…and the rewards much appreciated. I like to make this every spring when the stores put briskets on sale for Saint Patrick’s Day.

Ingredients

• 6 lbs Beef Brisket or elk brisket
• Cure
  • 3/4 cup Kosher salt
  • 1/3 cup Brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup Onion – diced
  • 4 Bay leaves – crushed
  • 3 tsp Black pepper
  • 2 tsp dried Rosemary – crushed
  • 2 tsp dried Thyme – crushed
• Roast
  • 16 oz Beef stock
  • 4 Onions – sliced
  • 4 Carrots – halved
  • 4 Celery stalks
  • 1.5 tsp Allspice – ground
  • 1.5 tsp Cloves – ground
• For Serving
  • Rye bread
  • Swiss Cheese
  • Dijon mustard

Process

1. Mise en Place: Measure and prepare you ingredients prior to starting.
2. Cure Brisket
   1. Place brisket in a 15″x10″x1″ roasting pan. Rub with brown sugar and refrigerate for 24 hrs.
   2. Mix rest of cure ingredients and rub onto brisket
   3. Cover and refrigerate for 3 days. Turn and re-rub cure ingredients onto brisket each day.
3. Roast Brisket
   1. Preheat oven to 235 F.
   2. Remove cure from pan and brisket.
   3. Place brisket and roasting ingredients in pan.
   4. Add water to halfway up brisket.
   5. Roast for ~4 hrs .
   6. Remove pan from oven and let meat cool in juices for 1 hr.
   7. Remove meat and discard vegetables and juices.Most the taste has been removed from the vegetables and the juice will not make a very good gravy.
4. Serve
   1. Slice brisket across the grain
   2. Serve on rye bread with cheese and mustard.

Note: I section into ~2 lb pieces and freeze what I’m not consuming right away in vacuum sealed bags.