Do it yourself corned beef!

Historically Toronto has been a corned beef town. Montreal is known for Canada’s best smoked brisket but lately Toronto has been nipping at its heels with some great deli. Corning meat (curing in brine) is quite simple to do, does not need special equipment and requires little work.

Usually beef, specifically it is the brisket that is the most commonly pickled. Duck however, and mutton, pork, tongue have been known to be pickled in crock-pots around the world. The following is a multi-day recipe for deli style (think rye bread, yellow mustard and a pickle) corned beef that is easy for you to do at home.

DIY CORNED BEEF

Ingredients

• A “deckle” or the fatter cut of beef brisket 4-5lb

• Coarse kosher salt as needed

• 1 egg in its shell to test brine

• 1/3 cup brown sugar

• Water as needed

• 8 bay leaves crushed

• 5 large garlic cloves coarsely chopped

• 1 tablespoon mustard seeds, bruised

• 2 tablespoon black peppercorn

• 1 teaspoon crushed dried red pepper flakes

• ½ teaspoon ground coriander

Method

1. Locate an enameled pot that is big to enough hold the brisket and enough water to cover by at least two inches.

2. Make brine by stirring coarse salt into water that will fill your crock pot (factoring in the displacement of the brisket). Allow salt to dissolve before adding more (about 1.5 cups). Your brine is correct proportion when the un-cracked egg will float in the salted water.

3. Pour the brine into a pot to simmer for 15 minutes, allow to cool completely, and then pour back into the enameled crock. Lower the brisket into the brine and weigh it down with a heavy object that is food safe and non-metallic to hold the meat in the brine. Place your crock into the refrigerator and allow to cure for two weeks -but no longer than a month.

4. Rinse the corned beef. Place the brisket onto aluminum foil. Mix the coriander, garlic, mustard, bay leaves and pepper flakes in a bowl then rub into brisket. Wrap the brisket tightly, place into a plastic bag and refrigerate for 4 days.

5. Being sure to leave your spice rub on the brisket, place the meat into your large stove-top pot, cover with 2 inches water and very gently simmer your brisket for 3-5 hours. Add boiling water if necessary. It is finished when you can pierce with a fork and taken out with very little resistance.

After allowing your brisket to partially cool in its own broth it is ready to be sliced very thinly and eaten deli style. Your brisket will be good for up to a week. To re-heat, place slices in your steamer for several minutes (or longer, depending on thickness).

– Sam Gundy

The Meat Lessons: Do It Yourself Corned Beef

Posted: November 12, 2009, 10:00 AM by Brad Frenette

Recipes, The Meat Lessons, Corned Beef

Along with two brothers, Sam Gundy is owner of Olliffe, Purveyor of the Finest Meats located at The Shops of Summerhill in Toronto. Gundy will be contributing to The Appetizer as our new resident meat expert, posting about the fine points of meat.

Hasting Whey Butter...Little Miss Muffet may have been on to something

http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/story.html?id=2166197

Olliffe and Scotch Mountain Meats at the Brick Works Forum with Prince Charles

Three wheel delivery vehicle the toast of Rosedale

Nicholas Brown smiles when he hears the little "beep beep" coming down the street.

"It's hysterical," he says. "You just never see anything like that around Toronto. It gives them pizzazz, a little je ne sais quoi."

He's talking about the delivery vehicle for the Olliffe butcher shop on Yonge Street, one of the so-called Five Thieves -- a block of upscale shops along Yonge south of Summerhill subway station.

Olliffe came under new management this year, and while co-owner Ben Gundy says the shop has remained true to its roots, they have spiced things up with a cheeky new delivery vehicle that has been drawing stares.

When Mr. Brown, a long-time customer, first saw the odd little three-wheeled Vespacar coming up his driveway, it brought him back to a little Irish village.

"I remember thinking, gosh, what is that? Is that legal?" he says with a laugh. "I spent some time in Ireland, and you could always remember the milk truck coming down the road. It reminds me very much of those little villages."

Mr. Gundy, who acquired Olliffe in March and opened in June, shares the business with his two brothers, Sam Gundy and James Aitken, who also owns the neighbouring Sweetgrass Flowers.

Their family has always been in the food-service industry, says Ben Gundy, a trained chef who designs marinades and stuffings for Olliffe's meat products. When they took over the store from its previous owners, he says, they were careful to orchestrate a smooth transition, ensuring customers that the business they had grown to love would carry on.

One thing that did change, however, was the mode of transport.

Sam Gundy knew of a builder from Bayfield, Ont., named Ken Johnson, who restores Vespacars on the side. Realizing the potential of the cute three-wheeler as an advertising vehicle, the Gundy brothers enlisted his assistance, and he managed to track one down, retool it and paint it with the Olliffe logo.

While there are fewer than five dozen of these cars on Canadian roads, according to Mr. Johnson's best estimate, Sweetgrass Flowers also got its hands on one, and so the two neighbouring stores have matching Vespacars -- though one is white and red, the other a vivid shade of lime.

Mr. Johnson says the Vespacar is a traditional Italian work vehicle, with the surprising capacity to haul 1,000 pounds, designed after the Second World War as "the big brother of the Vespa scooter."

A few hundred were shipped to Canada in 1982, but they are not made here, he said. Just under 100 of that initial shipment have survived; Mr. Johnson says he stumbles across the rusting remains of a Vespacar every now and then in the United States and Canada, which he can use to salvage parts.

"It's called an ape [pronounced ah-pay], which in Italian means bee, which is the sound that they make," Mr. Johnson notes. While the cars can be driven around town and are licensed as motorcycles, he says, "I wouldn't be tearing down a major highway in one."