Well people, I'm back. You may have wondered where I've been these last few weeks. Turns out that going to Mexico and trying to smuggle back a trunkload full of midgets for the purposes of selling them to bars is a crime. Now what are the drunken patrons going to toss to pass the time? It's a sad sad world we live in.

Anyway, while I was gone, the blessed holiday of St. Patrick's Day came and went. And with it came the annual sale on corned beef brisket. Now, I know that people in the southwest hear the word brisket and think barbecue, but corned beef is most definately not a meat best served off the grill. You may have even picked up one of these puppies in the last few weeks when you saw them on sale at your local store thinking that you could smoke it one weekend. To do so would destroy the delicate spice balance that is a corned beef.

When you go to the store to buy your corned beef, there's a couple things you will notice. First of all, you generally don't buy a whole brisket when buying corned beef. You can purchase either the flat or the point. The flat is generally a slightly better cut of meat, but the point is what I typically go after for economic reasons. Also, if you know what you're doing, you can typically cook either and have them turn out spectacular. Since the basis of this is a brisket, visible fat on the meat is not a problem. What you want to look for is a thick layer of fat on one side of the meat, but not a lot of fat marbled throughout the main chunk of meat. While you're at the store, get some carrots, some potatoes and some cabbage. Oh, and some rye bread wouldn't hurt either, unless you're going to make a loaf of irish soda bread

The first thing you may notice when you look at a corned beef is that it's an odd shade of red. Upon opening the pack, you will probably see a bunch of red goo around the brisket as well. Don't fear the goo, it's just a bit of the nitrite goo that is used to treat the meat to make it corned beef. You may also see a little package of seeds that comes with the brisket. Don't throw that away, but rinse it off for use.

Anyway, with most corned beef briskets, there's a simple procedure for preparation and cooking. First of all, you remove the beef from the package, and trim all the big chunks of visible fat from the meat. These chunks of fat I typically discard. Next, place the brisket into either a slow cooker or a pot with a lid. Yes Virginia, we're going to cook this thing Irish style, and that means boiling that chunk of meat until it's tasty. Next, you're going to sprinkle the top of the corned beef with the spices from that little packet. Just sprinkle them right on top of the beef, they won't hurt anything. The secret ingredient I find is a necessity when cooking a corned beef is in the liquid you cook with. We're going to actually braise this meat, so you're going to add just enough liquid to cover the meat, then simmer it for a long time (and when I say long time, I typically am talking around 10 hours in a slow cooker, 5 hours on the stove top). Getting back to the liquid, I find that it helps in the tenderization of the meat if you add about a half-cup of vinegar (either plain white vinegar or cidar vinegar work best here), then use fresh water to cover the brisket. Put the lid on the pot, then place it on the stove to cook at a low temperature. You will see the brisket shrink during the cook time. When it's done, it'll be about 75% of the size it was when you started. Once it's done, put the brisket on a plate and set in the microwave to rest. Do not, under any circumstances, throw out that water. That's going to be the basis for our tasty vegetable dinner.

Now, no corned beef dinner would be complete without potatoes, carrots & cabbage. The trick to these veggies is that they take different times to cook. You peel and chunk the potatoes, peel and slice the carrots, and cook these two in boiling water for about 15 minutes or until fork tender. You then pull them out, cut the cabbage head into quarters along the vertical axis, then add that to the water until it's fork tender for you (I find about 5-7 minutes works for me). The secret here is that you're going to add more water to the brisket water, then use that to cook the vegetables. Yes, there will be fat floating on top of the water, but the flavor will be something to behold, and really spices up plain old boiled carrots.

I hope that you'll not shy away from this tasty cut of meat in the future when you see it on sale at your local store. There are just too many tasty uses for corned beef, including the almighty Reuben sandwich, to pass up on buying a brisket when they're on sale. And I hope that this has taken some of the mystery out of how to prepare it. Have fun, and eat well.