Make Your Own Corned Beef

From the Mixed Greens Blog learn how to brine your own corned beef.
I’m not Irish but St. Patrick’s Day gives me an unnecessary excuse to wear green and to eat corned beef. I decided to try “corning” my own beef this year and in the process learned that I have more of a connection to this dish than I realized. As it turns out, corned beef didn’t originate in Ireland after all. The story goes that on the lower east side of NYC in the late 1800’s, Irish immigrants learned to make corned beef from their Jewish neighbors as a less expensive version of their beloved Irish bacon. My Jewish ancestors may not have been those sharing their recipes, but I had plenty of corned beef growing up, mostly from the only Jewish deli my father could find in Charlotte, NC. It was at Leo’s Delicatessen that I learned to love the food of his childhood, as out of place in the South as it seemed at the time.  More