With St. Patrick’s Day rapidly approaching, I’ll be doing at least one beer-braised corned beef. At that point, I’ll definitely be doing reubens and variations on them.
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One kind of beer do you use?
I love thick cut corned beef on rye with mustard. Not reubens though. I've worked up to having sauerkraut as a side with sausages at a good German restaurant, and will try a taste of coleslaw (there are one or two places I'll eat it), but no I am not a cabbage person.
I’m not what one would call a beer snob, but I‘m picky, and tend to buy better beers than average. None of the big brand stuff.
But I don’t have ONE beer for this. I haven’t really nailed down a formal recipe yet. I veer away from stuff that would be sweet (like Belgian lambics), though.
That said, typical choices for this recipe would be something like Kirin, Killian’s Irish Red, Guiness, Shiner Bock, Shiner Blonde, or Newcastle Brown. Sometimes, I mix beers if I’m short of a particular one.
As for cabbage & coleslaw…
I love cabbage, but generally don’t eat coleslaw. I’ve only had a few in my life that I enjoyed, and of those, one stands head and shoulders above all others. There WAS a place in Dallas called Vincent’s that lasted 80+ years, but folded a decade or so ago. But their garlic cole slaw was EPIC! I used to drop by and get some every time I was in their neighborhood, and even drove acro town a couple of times to buy it. Fortunately, they published their recipe in the local paper…
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If you're doing it for St. Patrick's Day, the obvious choices are Guinness and Smithwick's (if you can find the latter), but there are a couple of other actual Irish stouts available, and there are some American brewers that make decent Irish Dry Stouts (though Guinness isn't likely to be more expensive than craft beer).
Never heard of Smithwick’s.
Over the past few years, I have gotten away from using Guiness for this as the SOLO beer for this recipe- I’m more likely to mix it with others. Its flavor is strong, and that can give the corned beef a bit of a bitter beery flavor my Mom (the true CB fanatic) doesn’t particularly care for. Shiner Bock is almost in the same category.
So the reds and paler beers have been more of what ive used of late. Their flavors tend to blend in a bit more, as opposed to potentially overpowering the corned beef.
FWIW, the other thing I do is I use the flavor packets that come with store bought uncooked CBs, but I supplement that with MORE of the same from my pantry. I posted this a few years ago:
Over the past few years, I have gotten away from using Guiness for this as the SOLO beer for this recipe- I’m more likely to mix it with others. Its flavor is strong, and that can give the corned beef a bit of a bitter beery flavor my Mom (the true CB fanatic) doesn’t particularly care for. Shiner Bock is almost in the same category.
So the reds and paler beers have been more of what ive used of late. Their flavors tend to blend in a bit more, as opposed to potentially overpowering the corned beef.
FWIW, the other thing I do is I use the flavor packets that come with store bought uncooked CBs, but I supplement that with MORE of the same from my pantry. I posted this a few years ago:
Dannyalcatraz;7374736 said:I did my second corned beef, but with some changes.
1) not only did I rinse the meat to leach it of excess salt, I soaked it in water beforehand (as opposed to afterwards, like I did the first time) in Tupperware in my fridge. The soak was @36 hours- extended from the intended 24 (like the first one) by necessity because the kitchen’s plumbing was backed up until midmorning on Monday. (Neither taster mentioned saltiness, so it would seem the soak did its job.)
2) Instead of the bottle of Kirin and some water, I went with 2 bottles of Shiner Bock and a bit less water as my braising liquid. I also added a 4th bay leaf to the liquid.
3). I still used the seasoning packet, but I added more of the pepper (switching from cracked to ground) and thyme overall. I also made sure significant amounts of thy,e and pepper were in the braising liquid.
Everything was cooked at 350degF for 50 min/lb.
My taste-testers were Mom and our friend, the former caterer visiting from OK.
RESULTS:
No surprise, the CB was moist and super tender. There was better flavor penetration into the body of the meat.
I was surprised to see the fat cap shrink to about 75% coverage of the meat, unlike last time. Perhaps I used too hot an oven this time and got rescued by the amount of braising liquid- will have to check.
The seasoning on the fat cap had crusted up beautifully. And I do mean “crust”- it was resistant to being cut neatly, so I had to resort to cutting thicker slabs of meat this time. Again, this may be the result of too high a heat. But nothing tasted burned, apparently.
But the verdict from the taste testers was 100% positive. My Mom (the true CB nut here) had had a huge amount of CB at a Luby’s Cafeteria on St Patrick’s day. That’s her go-to locale here for that dish on that day, not just because of the meat, but also their sides. But according to her, theirs is among the better commercially available CBS in our area. SHE said she may never go back for their St. Patrick’s day offerings because mine outclassed it in every way.
Our caterer friend also raved about the flavor and moist, tender texture. So it was a clear win. Come to find out this morning, as I was helping her load her bags into her car’s trunk for her return to OK, it was a bigger win than I knew.
Because, like me, she is a lifetime non-Corned beef eater. Her one exception was classic Reuben sandwiches. But her verdict (like Mom’s) was delivered on the meat naked & alone.
So apparently, braising your corned beef is key to converting haters to enjoyers, because by my count, it’s 2 for 2.
My usual are the various flavored stouts and the German wheat bears... but I used to be a regular Killian's drinker, so that might be a good choice for me to use if I can't find something appropriate on the singles shelf.
Smithwick's is (or maybe was ... I haven't seen it for a while) an Irish red ale, made by the same folks as Guinness.
I dunno what's available where you are, but something Fat Tire is an amber ale that has some vague traces of Belgian in its ancestry, but is (to my palate, at least) pretty gentle on anything that would cook down to bitter--which is kinda a known problem, cooking with beer. I might also recommend something like an actual bock (not a maibock--they should be really hoppy) or maybe doppelbock. They're bigger beers, but they're mostly focused on the malt, so they should cook well. Nothing on Shiner, but it's not strong enough to play with real bocks, IMO.
Of course, the only stuff I cook with beer is chili--I have a beef chili recipe I make with imperial stout, and a pork chili I make with doppelbock. Neither is exactly a purist chili, but my wife and I like them lots.
I dunno what's available where you are, but something Fat Tire is an amber ale that has some vague traces of Belgian in its ancestry, but is (to my palate, at least) pretty gentle on anything that would cook down to bitter--which is kinda a known problem, cooking with beer. I might also recommend something like an actual bock (not a maibock--they should be really hoppy) or maybe doppelbock. They're bigger beers, but they're mostly focused on the malt, so they should cook well. Nothing on Shiner, but it's not strong enough to play with real bocks, IMO.
Of course, the only stuff I cook with beer is chili--I have a beef chili recipe I make with imperial stout, and a pork chili I make with doppelbock. Neither is exactly a purist chili, but my wife and I like them lots.
I would think a wheat beer would work well fir braising CB.
I think my first choice would be something more like a Belgian wit than a German weissebier--I'd think the orange peel and coriander might work better than the yeasty esters. OTOH, that's entirely guesswork--and those witbier flavors might work better for braising pork than beef.
Fat Tire should work, I would think.
But anything stronger than Shiner could be too much. It might overwhelm the other seasonings.
