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How to Cook Corned Beef
The flank is a nice piece to corn; though an ugly piece of meat, it can be made a nice and delicious dish. Wash the flank clean, roll it up as tight as you can, and tie it with strong cord in three places; then sew it up in a coarse towel and put it on and boil from five to six hours, according to size; take it out of the pot, but do not undo it, put it on a dish or pan and put a weight on it; let it stand until next day, then remove the cloth and strings: trim it, and you have a nice dish.--Mrs. P. W.
This is a recipe for pressed corned beef made from the flank, and it assumes you already have the meat in brine — the curing itself is described elsewhere in the book. A few points of translation for a modern cook.
- The cutThe whole beef flank as sold in 1879 is not a supermarket item; today's flank steak is a thin trimmed portion of it. A whole brisket, particularly the fattier point end, rolls and presses much the same way and is the cut most butchers will corn for you.
- Start with cured meatThe instruction "a nice piece to corn" refers to the salt cure, not to this procedure. Buy corned beef already brined, or use a modern curing recipe with weighed salt and measured cure; the book's corning directions elsewhere are not calibrated to current standards.
- Soak first if it is saltyNineteenth-century home cures were often saltier than modern commercial brine. If your beef has been in a heavy homemade cure, a soak in cold water for a few hours, changed once, keeps the finished roll edible. Commercially corned brisket usually needs only a rinse.
- The cloth and the cordA "coarse towel" means unbleached linen or heavy cotton. Cheesecloth in two or three layers, or a clean muslin sheet, works; butcher's twine replaces the cord. Tie firmly but not so tight that the roll cannot swell slightly as it cooks.
- Boil means simmerA hard boil for six hours will shred the roll and squeeze it dry. Hold the water at a bare tremble, around 180-190F, with the meat fully covered. Five to six hours is right for a large rolled flank; a 4-5 lb brisket is generally tender at three to four.
- Pressing — but coldThis is the hinge of the dish: the roll must be weighted while it cools so the gelatin sets it into a sliceable loaf. Do the pressing in the refrigerator, not on the sideboard overnight. A plate and two or three tins on top is enough weight.
- ServingSlice thin across the roll, cold, for sandwiches or a cold table. A whole pressed flank will feed a large table; keep it wrapped in the refrigerator and use it within a few days.
Pressed corned beef of this kind was generally kept for the cold larder rather than the dinner table — a joint boiled one day, weighted overnight, and sliced cold. The flank was cheap precisely because it was awkward: thin, coarse-grained and stringy when roasted, but full of connective tissue that turns to gelatin over a long slow simmer and glues the rolled meat into a firm loaf under a weight. "Corned" refers to the coarse grains, or corns, of salt used in the cure, a usage well established in Britain and Ireland long before refrigeration. Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879) was compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by named and initialled Virginia housekeepers, which is why so many entries, this one included, end in a set of initials rather than an author's name — the book is a collection of neighbours' working practice rather than a single cook's system.