Avoid This Corned Beef Cutting Mistake For A Better Piece Of Meat

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After spending hours making corned beef from scratch, the last thing you want to do is make a simple mistake that sabotages its texture. Fortunately, guaranteeing all your work isn't for naught is as simple as slicing against the grain.

The transition from brisket to corned beef is all in the brine, a process that both seasons and tenderizes the former to give it its iconic flavor profile. The essential ingredients, primarily salt, kick-start the breakdown of muscle fibers over several days to even a couple of weeks. After cooking, your meat should already be quite soft, but slicing along the grain keeps those fibers more intact, leading to more chewing. While this won't ruin your dish, it's a missed opportunity to easily tenderize it even further. Slicing against the grain breaks down muscle fibers further, working with your wet-curing and slow-cooking processes to deliver the most melt-in-your-mouth meat possible.

Before you cook the meat, you can identify the grain by noting the direction in which the lines of muscle flow. Once you've prepared it, this can be a little tricky to see. To help you remember and locate it, try sticking a toothpick into the side of your raw brisket parallel to the grain. Muscle fibers contract when exposed to heat, so they should hold it in place no matter how tender your corned beef ends up.

Since corned beef has two main steps — wet curing and cooking — most recipes give you even more opportunities to impart great flavor and tenderness. Whether you're tweaking the cooking method or just using the right tools, most tricks involve little to no extra effort for a better meal.

When slicing corned beef, you want to use as little pressure as possible to preserve the juices and achieve even, clean-looking pieces. If you don't own a long, thin carving knife, a serrated knife can be great for the job because it makes starting each cut quite easy, gliding through a perfectly browned exterior and into the tender pink flesh. If you can afford one, an electric carving knife — which sometimes comes in a set, like the one offered by Hamilton Beach — is even better because it requires practically zero pressure to use. If you don't have access to either, just be sure to freshly sharpen your knife before cutting.

If you want more flavor but don't want to sacrifice tenderness, braising is the best way to make corned beef. It allows you to develop a caramelized crust first before the meat absorbs tons of flavor through a tasty bath of spices and stock. For a more complex taste and extra-soft texture, try incorporating beer into your cooking. One bottle of beer per six cups of water introduces enough acids and tannins to loosen up the tough muscle fibers of different brisket cuts while drastically overhauling the flavor profile in the best way. Dry, hoppy IPAs pair perfectly with the pickling spices from the brine, but standard lagers also add enough flavor to be noticeable.