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Preparing the Beef for Corning

Nothing that is done for meat gives a better return for the time expended than attention to this point.

When you have sawn off the brisket ends of the rib roasts and taken off the skirt or flank from the long loins take out the bones--you need them in the stock-boiler--and roll up the boneless meat to about the size of a wrist in diameter and of any convenient lengths, and bind these rolls tightly with cotton twine. They are generally finely streaked with lean and fat and when corned right color will slice cold into the very handsomest dishes of cold meat that can be set on a table, and are equally good in their way for hot corned beef on cabbage.

If time allows it is best to shave the thick outer skin from such pieces of beef before rolling. Some lean and tough pieces such as come from the outside out of the round, from the shoulder and neck can be cut in thick steaks, quite large, thin teaks of fat from some other part laid on and both rolled up together, these as well as fragmentary pieces are best used in the form of pressed corned beef. Throw the pieces when prepared into the brine, place a barrel head or board on top and a large stone to keep the beef under. Cover the keg with a cloth to keep flies out and keep in a cold place. Hundreds and thousands of pounds of meat are spoiled in hotels and thrown away for want of decision in those who have to a manage it, or, perhaps, for want of definite knowledge of what use each particular portion must be put to sooner or later. The choicest close-trimmed joints of meat that can be purchased have some portion that is tough and hardly eatable with the ordinary five-minutes cooking, but even the worst can be made tender if cooked long enough in some suitable way--hence the use of more ways than one in cookery, braising, stewing, potting, smothering, etc.

It is the expedient of ignorance and inefficiency to get the rough and tough off their hands by sending it to table as roast or steak, (we are speaking of good hotel tables, of course), it is gone, to be sure, but will mostly be wasted just the same and somebody dissatisfied will eat something else. It is useless to hang a poor piece of beef on a hook "for the present" hoping in some indistinct way that something will turn up so that you will want just such a piece of meat as that. The meat you hesitate about in warm weather is lost. It is the cook's business to know exactly what use every ounce can be put to.

The minute the meat comes from the butcher's, if possible, the portions that must be either salted or thrown away sooner or later should be taken off and put in the brine barrel, and if that can be kept in the ice house there need not be a pound lost even in the hottest season.