Cook\'s Country - 2019-02-03

2 COOK’S COUNTRY • FEBRUARY/MARCH 2019

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Corned Beef

What exactly is corned beef, and

how is it made?

–Mary Morrison, Savannah, Ga.

“Corning” is an old English term that

refers to the “corns,” or kernels of rock

salt, used to cure meat for preservation.

The cut used for corned beef is brisket,

the large slab of muscle from the cow’s

chest. Although you can make corned

beef from either the point or fl at cut of

brisket, it is most often made from the

leaner, more uniformly shaped fl at cut

(which is easier to fi nd in markets).

There are two ways to “corn,” or

salt-cure, beef brisket: dry or wet. In

dry curing, you rub the meat with salt

and seasonings, wrap it in plastic wrap,

and weigh it down for a few days.

As the meat sits, the salt draws out

water, creating a concentrated brine

on the meat’s surface. In wet curing,

you submerge the meat in a seasoned

brine for a period of days. Today, both

methods use table salt and curing (or

“pink”) salt, a specialty product dyed

pink to distinguish it from conven-

tional salt. It contains sodium nitrite,

which prevents bacterial growth and

gives cured meats such as corned beef

their pink color.

When the brisket is fully cured, it

is seasoned and preserved, but it’s still

raw; this is how you purchase corned

beef at the grocery store. Since brisket

is a tough cut loaded with connective

tissue, it needs low, slow, moist cooking

to become tender; thus, corned beef

is usually simmered for hours in a

covered pot.

In the test kitchen, we prefer to sim-

mer the brisket in the gentle, even heat

of the oven. When it is fork-tender, the

corned beef is ready to serve, typically

with carrots, potatoes, and cabbage,

but it can also be thinly sliced and

packed into sandwiches, made into

hash, or smoked for pastrami. Web

members can fi nd recipes for corned

beef at CooksCountry.com.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Corned beef is sim-

ply salt-cured brisket; the curing was

originally a method of preservation.

Compiled by Morgan Bolling

and Cecelia Jenkins

Homemade

Seasoned Salt

My family loves Lawry’s Sea-

soned Salt sprinkled on popcorn,

baked potatoes, steak—you

name it. Can I make a home-

made version from ingredients

I already have in my pantry?

–Bonny Mix, Augusta, Maine

Lawry’s Seasoned Salt is a blend of

salt, sugar, paprika, turmeric, onion

powder, cornstarch, garlic powder,

and sometimes monosodium

glutamate (MSG). We ordered the

MSG-free version for reference

and tinkered with a homemade

facsimile, sampling it on white rice

and in our Southern-Style Smoth-

ered Pork Chops, until we came

up with a version that tasters found

nearly identical.

THE BOTTOM LINE: It’s easy

to make a facsimile of Lawry’s

Seasoned Salt from spice-cabinet

staples; it will be lighter in color

than the real McCoy.

HOMEMADE SEASONED SALT

Makes 2 tablespoons

Use sweet paprika, not hot or

smoked, in this recipe. We found

that turmeric, a less common pan-

try spice, was used just for color,

so we omitted it in our version.

1 tablespoon salt

1 teaspoon granulated garlic

1 teaspoon paprika

1⁄2 teaspoon sugar

1⁄4 teaspoon cornstarch

1⁄4 teaspoon onion powder

Combine all ingredients in bowl.

Fat Swap

I keep rendered bacon fat in my refrigerator.

A friend suggested using it in place of butter

when baking biscuits—will this work?

–Annabeth Martins, Winslow, Ariz.

To put your question to the test, we made two

batches of our Buttermilk Drop Biscuits and our

North Carolina Cheese Biscuits. We made one

batch of each as written and the second batch by

swapping in cooled bacon fat for the butter.

There were some notable diff erences. Butter

is 15 to 20 percent water, while bacon fat contains essentially no water. The water

in the butter converts to steam in the oven, creating pockets of air, which in turn

make for fl aky biscuits.

The biscuits made with butter were fl uffi er than their bacon-fat counterparts.

In both tests, the bacon-fat biscuits were denser than the butter versions but very

tender. They had a notable smoky, savory fl avor that some tasters liked but others

thought was too out of place in biscuits.

If you’d like to store bacon fat after cooking, pour it through a fi ne-mesh strainer

or cheesecloth into a heatproof container. Once the fat has cooled completely, cover

the container and refrigerate it for four to fi ve days. Even if you don’t use it for

biscuits, you can use it to cook potatoes or in our Southern-Style Skillet Cornbread.

THE BOTTOM LINE: You can substitute chilled bacon fat for butter in biscuits, but

you will end up with dense biscuits that have notable pork fl avor.

A Grating Question

Is there a diff erence

between grating and

shredding cheese?

–Jason Irving, Oak Park, Ill.

In the test kitchen, we consider grated

cheese to be the delicate, tiny grat-

ings of a hard cheese such as Parme-

san or Pecorino Romano made with

a rasp-style grater. The fl uff y fl ecks

deliver cheesy fl avor while easily

incorporating into or dispersing on top

of foods.

We consider shredded cheese to be

the larger strands of generally semi-

soft block cheeses such as mozzarella,

Monterey Jack, and cheddar made with

the large holes of a box grater. The

Knife Angles

When I got my knives sharpened

at my hardware store, they asked

me what angles I wanted the blades

sharpened to. What does this mean?

–Beth Balter, Somerville, Mass.

Traditionally, there were two styles of

chef’s knives: European/American and

Asian. The blades of Western knives

were manufactured with 20-degree

angles, while Asian knives were

made with narrower

15-degree angles.

But in recent years,

the trend toward

slimmer blade con-

struction has spread

west; many European

and American knife

manufacturers now

off er knives with

blades sharpened

to 15 degrees. In a

recent testing, our top

three favorite knives

were sharpened to

15 degrees, including

our winner, the Victorinox Swiss Army

Fibrox Pro 8" Chef’s Knife. Assum-

ing similar sharpness, a blade with a

thinner edge (sharpened to a smaller

angle) will slide through food more

easily than one with a thicker edge

(sharpened to a larger angle).

Unfortunately, there is no easy way

to tell what a blade’s angle is just by

looking at it. If you don’t know the

angle of your knife’s blade, we suggest

contacting the manufacturer to fi nd

out so you know what angle it should

be sharpened to.

THE BOTTOM LINE: The cutting edges

of knives are sharpened to a specifi c

angle. It’s important to know this angle

so the blade can be properly sharpened.

20 ̊ 15 ̊

PINK SALT = PINK MEAT
Curing salt gives corned
beef its color.

Some knives have

20-degree angles,

while other knives have

15-degree angles.

PARMESAN CHEESE

Grated versus shredded

large shreds are easy to sprinkle evenly,

which promotes even melting.

THE BOTTOM LINE: We consider grated

cheese to be the fi ne gratings of a hard

cheese such as Parmesan made with a

rasp-style grater. The larger strands

of shredded cheese are made on a box

grater, often from soft cheese such as

cheddar or mozzarella.