St. Patty’s Day Corned Beef

Prep Time: 20 mins

Total Time: 6 hrs 20 mins

Servings: 4-6

About This Recipe

“This is our traditional St. Patrick’s Day meal. I have served this sweet, spiced version of corned beef ever since I first tried it years ago. Not the healthiest meal, but worth it for just that one special holiday each year. I serve this with soda bread, mashed parsnips, and boiled cabbage. This serves 4-6. If you prefer, you can sub mini red skinned potatoes and baby carrots so you don’t need to do any cutting, just use more of them.Adapted from a Killian’s recipe.”

Ingredients

2 1/4-3lbscorned beef briskets, drained, rinsed, and trimmed

water

4bay leaves

2 (12ounce) bottles red Irish ale( such as Killian’s)

1dashcrushed red pepper flakes

3cinnamon sticks

12peppercorns

3garlic cloves, peeled

3cloves

1largered onion, cut into large chunks( or other onion)

4 -6carrots, peeled and cut into large chunks

4 -6mediumred potatoes, quartered

Dry Rub

1/2 cupbrown sugar( brown sugar Splenda works fine too)

1/2 teaspoonground cloves

1/2 teaspoonground ginger

1/2 teaspoonmustard powder

1/4 teaspooncelery salt

Directions

BE SURE TO DISCARD ANY BRINING LIQUID THAT COMES WITH THE MEAT- INCLUDING THE SPICE PACKET!

Trim all visible fat from the meat- this may take some time (I use kitchen shears to ease this process).

Place meat in a large Dutch oven and cover with water.

Add ale, bay leaves, cinnamon stick, cloves, a light shake of crushed red pepper flakes, peppercorns, garlic, and the onion chunks to the pot.

Bring to a boil, then lower heat just a bit and boil very gently, with lid ajar, for 4-5 hours or until meat is so tender that is breaks apart when you pull at it with a fork.

Keep checking the pot from time to time to prevent boilovers- you will need to keep lowering the heat throughout the cooking process as the liquid reduces, especially in the first hour (It should still be hot enough to still gently boil, but not spilling over the sides of the pot).

Meat should be very, very fork tender when ready for the next cooking stage and will have shrunk considerably from its original size.

In the last half hour or so of cooking time, boil the carrots and potatoes in a separate pot of water to cover and cook until fork tender; Drain vegetables and set in a small bowl.

Remove meat and onion pieces from boiling liquid (discard that liquid) and set into a large roasting pan (I usually pour the liquid through a strainer to catch the onion pieces).

Surround meat with boiled carrots, potatoes, and onion pieces.

Combine dry rub ingredients in a small bowl and rub all over the meat surface and sprinkle any remaining rub over the vegetables.

If needed, make up extra dry rub to coat the vegetables (we often do this).

Bake, uncovered, in a preheated 325°F oven for about 20 minutes until the top of the meat begins to look shiny.

Remove from oven and wait about 10 minutes before slicing into thin slices along the grain of the meat.

Note: The meat will take on a very bright red hue when sliced- this is perfectly normal and is a result of both the brining nature of corned beef and the red ale enhances this color.

I often make an extra pan of vegetables sprinkled with a full batch of dry rub and include not only carrots and potatoes, but parsnips as well (treat parsnips the same as you would a carrot.) I have successfully half-doubled this recipe when only larger corned beef cuts were available- larger cuts will take longer to boil but the roughly the same time to bake because the baking stage is merely to cook the dry rub into a glaze.

PLEASE NOTE: If you substitute regular brown ale, then you will not get the same result in both color and flavor (You may substitute another Irish ale or even an Irish lager if you must, but we really prefer the red ale).

Reviews

“I am somewhat embarassed to say that I have never in my life eaten corned beef. This is what I made for our St. Patrick’s Day family get-together and boy, have I been missing out. In preparation, I sent my husband out to get the red Irish ale. You are right, that is a very key ingredient. I followed your directions to the letter and I made extra spice rub just for the carrots and potatoes. That is definitely the way to go. The meat was so tender, you could cut it with a fork. The red color was beautiful and impressive. The spice rub had a delicious sweet and spicy flavor. I served it with cabbage and soda bread. So, this is the first St. Patrick’s Day that I have made actual Irish cuisine. We loved it and thanks for your most excellent recipe.”

“Boiling the day before made all the difference for me. We went out for an Irish breakfast and a stout, came home finished the meat and vegetables in less than an hour. Took it to a party for 20 and there wasn’t a bite left.I had to make it 3 more times that week, and everyone said it was the best they’ve ever tasted. It was true that it didn’t matter on the size of the meat when baking,it was already cooked. We even left it all in the oven on low for an extra hour. Since it wasn’t sitting in all that juice, the veggies didn’t get mussy.I’ll never JUST boil my corned beef again!!!”

“This is a great recipe.The corned beef is so tender it shreds with a touch.The meat when cut was a beautiful red, due I am sure to the ale, which was enjoyed alone as well. The rub was a nice sweet to the saltness of corned beef. We really enjoyed this meal!”

“Perfect! Tender and I loved the topping. I will def. make it this way again. I’m also going to use the topping for other dishes I prepare. I served with potatoes and cabbage fried w/ butter, salt and pepper, and Irish soda bread. I loved it,, and theres none left (made 2 corned beefs to.)!! Thank you for posting.”

“I wish I had eaten this after the boiling phase.I stole a small slice before adding the rub and loved it!I wasn’t as happy after baking it with the rub.I guess I just don’t like meats with sweet glazes, as I thought it really overpowered the delicious flavor of the meat. I will definitely use your recipe for the boiling liquid from now on, however.Thanks for posting. “

“My wife and I loved this dish! We even made boiled cabbage and added the dry rub on that. We almost at a whole 2 pound corned beef between the two of us! The flavor the dry rub added was awesome!”

“OMG – I always cook this for my hubby but I don’t like it. This recipe is so wonderful I just can’t stand it. Everybody just raved about it. Thankx so much for posting it I’ll never cook another corned beef any other way!!!!!”

“We wanted to love this, but it turned out entirely too sweet for our tastes.My husband says he hates when meat tastes like it’s trying to be dessert.The texture was nice though.It was a good try.”

“This was my first time making corned beef (I had only ever had the canned stuff before), and it was well worth the effort! I boiled it for less time than suggested (about 3 hours), but it was still tender and delicious. I served it with colcannon, and so omitted the carrots and potatoes. The rub was a tad sweet for me, but otherwise we loved it. Thanks for sharing!”

“I made this last year and it was fantastic. Don’t change a thing. You won’t be disappointed.”

“Made this for St. Paddy’s , but when else do you make it? Smelled heavenly, had the neighbors sniffing around my door! This is the first Corned beef I’ve married my married life as we were married ON St Paddy’s day! Came out great, I left out the veggies (exc onion) as I was making lots of side veggies, I used Moylans Red Ale as I couldn’t find Killians. The rub went over great, the only request was that I had used more of it. 🙂 Thanks!”

“I have been eating plain boiled corned beef and cabbage and it was one of my favorite meals.Now this is my new favorite way!I loved the cloves and brown sugar! I didn’t have any ale and used a bottled Coors Lite, seemed pretty good to me.Next time I will splurge for the ale.Thanks!”

“Very yummy! The spices in this dish are unexpectedly different but very good. Everyone really enjoyed it. I did use Killian’s Red, took the chef’s suggestion and used small red potatoes and baby carrots, and used only the amount of dry rub in the recipe. Thanks for sharing the recipe!”

“The long cooking gives the meat a really wonderful texture.The clove in the glaze, however, is so overpowering we had to trim it off.This would be great with a more balanced spice blend.”

“Great!I’d never made this before, but my father-in-law, who is a wonderful cook, makes it for DH.I was so glad this measured up!Even the kids gobbled it down and asked for seconds, which is unheard of around here!Loved the use of the crock pot.Thanks!”

“Tender yet, it didn’t fall apart when it was carved.The glaze was superb.I cooked the carrots and potatoes in the broth, after the corned beef came out of the crock pot.”

“I made this with Bud Light instead of Killians but I did everything else exactly as stated. My boyfriend (who is EXTREMELY picky) took a bite of the meat and looked at me and said “WOW! This is unbelievable!’ I guess that says it all. Thanks for the great recipe.”

“I am not a big Corned Beef fan, but we have a large St. Patty’s party and I tried this and another Corned beef recipe.This recipe was completely finished and people were raving about it.It is now top of the party list.Thanks”

“I made this for St. Patrick’s Day this year.The method was similar to how I have done corned beef in the past, finishing it up in the oven.I did reduce the brown sugar by half for the rub and only put it on the meat.It was a really delicious addition to the corned beef.Great flavor.Thanks for posting your family favorite! Pam”

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