Flat cut or Point cut corned beef is better?
Gromit
Hmmmm...@aol.com
end for corned beef and cabbage.
In article <TI3k8.234079$pN4.13...@bin8.nnrp.aus1.giganews.com>,
cathy wells
point cut. You get more even, more presentable slices from a flat cut.
Here's a caution regarding supermarket corned beef. Check the sodium
content on the label. I normally buy corned beef at Ralphs here in Los
Angeles, which carries one specific brand. Vons had a sale last week
and I bought one there, different brand from the one at Ralphs. I
figured packaged corned beef is packaged corned beef.
NOT!! I made the Vons corned beef exactly the same way I make the
Ralphs one (remove meat from package, rinse off, place in large pot,
cover with water and add packet of spices. Boil gently for 3 hours).
The end result looked and cut like it should, but it was so salty it
was impossible to eat. I ended up throwing the whole thing out and
returning the second one I'd bought (and had thrown in the freezer). I
immediately went and bought a corned beef at Ralphs, prepared it the
same way and it was fine. Perfect flavor, etc.
When I looked at the label, the Vons cb had a sodium content of 1350,
and the Ralphs one only 870. So when you buy that corned beef, check
that label or you might get an unpleasant surprise.
Cathy
PENMART01
(cathy wells) writes:
>Here's a caution regarding supermarket corned beef. Check the sodium
>content on the label. I normally buy corned beef at Ralphs here in Los
>Angeles, which carries one specific brand. Vons had a sale last week
>and I bought one there, different brand from the one at Ralphs.
<rigmarole snipped>
After enduring all those machinations you don't remember the brand names,
neither of them... perhaps Mosey's, Freirich, Nathan's, Saval?
NYT September 15, 1999
Bagging the Endangered Sandwich
By R. W. APPLE Jr.
WHEN I first came to New York, at 17, I pestered the school friend I was
visiting until he took me to Lindy's for corned beef and cheesecake. I figured
that that was the closest an Ohio kid was likely to get to the fragrant,
seductively shady world of Damon Runyon and Walter Winchell -- "boxers,
bookmakers, actors, agents, ticket brokers, radio guys, song writers, orchestra
leaders, newspapermen and cops," as Runyon described them, "still sleep-groggy"
as they gathered for breakfast at 1 P.M., "but shaved and talcumed and lacking
only their java to make them ready for the day."
Lindy's has long since vanished from Broadway, along with Leo Lindemann, its
creator, and Sky Masterson, Nathan Detroit and the other urban wayfarers in
Runyon's cast of semimythic characters. Gone, too, are Phil Gluckstern's and
Arnold Reuben's and Lou G. Siegel's, where serious fressers (overeaters) could
count on finding corned beef with taam, the indispensable Jewish taste. They're
all part of the Oh-So-Long-Ago, as Winchell called it, like Jack Dempsey and
Jack Benny.
Now, newcomers to New York -- not 17-year-olds, I guess, but 21- and
22-year-olds -- angle for tables at Balthazar or Nobu. Pals initiate them to
Krug instead of cream soda.
Corned beef is alive and well, of course. It shows up around the world, in one
guise or another. But in New York, where once it was king, good kosher-style
corned beef is as rare as nightingales' tongues.
You find plenty of corned beef in Dublin, as the centerpiece of corned beef and
cabbage, the reliably nourishing standby of the frugal housewife, and in
Boston, as an essential component of a New England boiled dinner. You find it
in corned beef hash, which has been a staple on American restaurant and club
menus for decades.
My stepdaughter, Catherine Brown, found it in a jungle clearing on an
Indonesian island -- Brazilian corned beef, straight from a can with a cow on
the label, heated over a kerosene stove, served with sweet potatoes.
All the other varieties, to tell the truth, pale in comparison with the moist,
garlicky stuff Jewish immigrants brought with them to New York from central and
eastern Europe. Yet, today you can spend yourself halfway to the poorhouse and
give yourself heartburn (not to mention heartache) looking for the kind of
corned beef sandwich that defined eating in Manhattan the way onion soup
defined eating in Paris: steamed, thinly sliced meat stacked high on rye bread,
slathered with spicy mustard, a half-sour pickle on the side.
Woody Allen gave Manhattan corned beef one last (or next-to-last) hurrah in
"Broadway Danny Rose," his 1984 film about a small-time Broadway agent, which
included scenes shot in the Carnegie Delicatessen. But Jerry Seinfeld and his
buddies, the quintessential pop-culture New Yorkers of the 1990's, hung out not
in a deli but in a diner or outside a gussied-up soup kitchen.
Except for the Carnegie and the Stage, today's Broadway is mostly a glorified
food court, packed with franchised joints of every description, serving
hamburgers and bagels and pizzas and the like, many of them owned by a family
of real estate operators, Murray, Dennis and Irving Riese.
There is also a Riese-owned restaurant called Lindy's on Broadway between 44th
and 45th Streets, but any resemblance to the original is purely coincidental.
The only authentically New York aspect of the place is the surliness of the
service.
S O where do you find the good stuff? Apprehensive about possible doubts --
make that probable doubts -- concerning the corned beef credentials of a man of
Midwestern Lutheran origins, even if said Midwestern Lutheran has been
dribbling deli mustard down his ever-expanding front for many decades, I sought
the help of Tim Zagat, the guidebook publisher. A New Yorker in both palate and
pedigree, he claims to have eaten corned beef regularly since puberty,
including once a week at his Riverdale prep school.
Zagat's 1999 guide to New York restaurants reflects the declining role of the
delicatessen, and hence corned beef, in New York gastronomy. Not one of the 50
establishments top-rated for food is a deli, although two are pizza parlors and
one is a soup kitchen. Zagat's amateur critics ate in delis a lot (the Carnegie
was the seventh-most-visited spot in the survey), but they must have suffered.
Throwing caution to the winds, Zagat and I decided to taste for ourselves. As a
concession to age -- neither of us is young anymore -- we asked the countermen
to give us thinner sandwiches than usual. Though obviously offended, they
complied.
The sign outside the Stage Delicatessen (834 Seventh Avenue, between 53d and
54th Streets), meant to take a poke at the Carnegie, betrays a certain
defensiveness. "Why wait on line," it asks, "when you could be eating now?" In
the heyday of Max Asnas, the founder, the Stage bragged about the quality of
its food, not how quickly it could find you a table.
But the place still smells right (a little greasy, a little garlicky), waiters
and customers still abuse each other in a good-natured way and the sandwiches
are still named for celebrities (though it's a stretch to think of Fran
Drescher and Richard Simmons, both creatures of television, as Broadway types).
It still deals gently with Iowans who don't know which is the bagel and which
the lox.
As for the corned beef, it's a comedown from the 1960's, when the Stage was
listed in a book called "Great Restaurants of America." The meat is too dry,
too pink, too wan in flavor. If there is really a "secret recipe," as claimed,
they must have forgotten to let the cook in on the secret.
Another big disappointment came at Katz's (205 East Houston Street at Ludlow
Street), a 112-year-old institution that figured in "When Harry Met Sally."
There's nothing not to like about the terrazzo-and-Formica ambiance, with a
cafeteria counter along one side and signs instructing you, as of yore, to
"Send a salami to your boy in the Army." You have to love the fact that they
still use meal tickets (does anyone else?) and cut the corned beef by hand,
with venerable knives sharpened down almost to nothing.
Katz's hot dogs, crisped on the grill, and its garlic-laden knoblewurst are
both vaut le voyage downtown. But the corned beef sandwich is only O.K. --
moist meat with a rough texture, but with a slightly musty flavor instead of
the bright, pungent taste that you look for. The bread is rather bland as well
-- a lot like supermarket rye, though I wince to say so.
THE Second Avenue Deli (156 Second Avenue, at 10th Street) has the least
authentic décor -- a recent redesign by Adam Tihany, no less -- but the most
authentic everything else. This was the domain of Abe Lebewohl, a true
Manhattan treasure, part social worker, part delicatessen genius, who was
gunned down in 1995 by an unknown villain who remains at large.
Here everything is kosher; even the cheesecake is made with tofu, to avoid
transgressing the boundary between meat and dairy. Many other delis serve
"kosher style" food, which means that it looks and (they say) tastes the same,
but is not prepared in strict compliance with Jewish dietary laws.
And here the corned beef, prepared in the basement, is the genuine article.
"Juicier, richer, more zaftig," as my grease-spotted notes say. "A real
knockout." Real kosher corned beef isn't unobtanium after all.
I think the question always asked by Abe Lebewohl's brother Jack or one of the
other servers has something to do with it. "Lean or juicy?" they ask, before
anyone has a chance to say "extra lean." Confronted with that choice, most
people opt for juicy, which means they get enough fat, Jack Lebewohl says, to
boost the flavor and make sure the sandwich doesn't get dry.
Another thing: People from Sweden walk in, sure, as three did just a few days
before our recent visit, but this is still primarily a neighborhood spot.
Some customers come in six or seven times a week, and on Friday, the locals
pack the place. They know their corned beef; they make sure that Jack keeps
things up to snuff.
The Carnegie (854 Seventh Avenue at 55th Street) is only a half-step behind, if
that, despite the agonizingly corny names it gives to some of its sandwiches
(e.g., "The Mouth That Roared," which is roast beef and Bermuda onion). And
despite a less demanding clientele (big groups from Kansas City and Utah, on my
last visit, but some from the Bronx, too). Sometimes the country boys exhibit
unacceptable table manners; when he was running for the Vice Presidency, former
Senator Lloyd M. Bentsen of Texas tried in vain to eat his bulging sandwich
with a knife and fork.
Every week, the Carnegie corns 15,000 pounds of beef at a plant in Carlstadt,
N.J., starting with well-marbled 8- to 12-pound briskets cut from the breast of
the steer. Injected first with a saline-and-garlic solution enriched with
allspice, thyme and mustard and coriander seed, the beef is then pickled for
about a week in barrels filled with the same solution.
Some is sold to other restaurants, but about 10,000 pounds a week are cooked as
needed in the Carnegie's damp, dungeon-like basement. The meat is boiled for
two to two and a half hours in 35-gallon pots, then carried upstairs, where it
is steamed and sliced to order, across the grain, of course, on razor-sharp
rotary cutting machines. The blades are replaced once a month; the machines
themselves, exhausted by constant use, are sent back for rebuilding every three
months, said Sanford Levine, one of the Carnegie's co-owners.
Sandwiches are built on thin, seeded rye bread delivered four times a day from
the Certified Bakery in Union City, N.J. More than a dozen ultrathin slices of
beef go into the average sandwich, a few lean, a few fat. That's the way Leo
Steiner, who first put the Carnegie on the map, liked it best.
"It should melt in your mouth," he confided to a reporter almost a decade ago.
"I don't like to chew. Thinner, the flavor comes through."
B ROADWAY and environs still have plenty of delicatessens, of a sort. There's
the All-American Gourmet Deli, the Celebrity Deli, Roxy's (named after a
defunct theater), the Crown Deli ("featuring Colombo yogurt") and the 55th
Street Deli, a produce-stand-cum-convenience-food-shop. Downtown, I spotted
delis touting waffles or salad bars. These are the kinds of places that would
happily sell a passing innocent a corned beef and Swiss on toasted seven-grain.
It goes without saying that none of them, or their yuppified counterparts
elsewhere, are authentic, thumb-in-your-soup, garlic-scented,
damn-the-cholesterol delis. That kind of place has mostly vanished from midtown
and the Lower East Side as the Broadway crowd has thinned and the Jewish
population has scattered to New Jersey and Queens and Long Island, losing touch
with its roots in the process. We're talking heavy social anthropology here,
but we're also talking gastronomy.
"When we were all on the Lower East Side, every mom-and-pop store cured its
own," said Rabbi Arthur Herzberg, a professor of humanities at New York
University and a kosher food maven of considerable standing. "That was one
thing. Now you get two-week-old corned beef, supermarket corned beef and corned
beef and cheese -- utter desecrations of Jewish soul food."
The genuine article is even harder to find elsewhere in the country. Some film
people swear by Nate 'n Al's in Los Angeles, but in my experience, kosher
corned beef starts to fade once it wanders beyond commuting range of Manhattan.
(Zingerman's in Ann Arbor, Mich., is an honorable exception.)
Branches of New York nosheries have failed in Beverly Hills, New Jersey, Boston
and the Washington suburbs in recent years, and several decades before that, my
friend Stanley Karnow, the Brooklyn-born journalist and historian, lost his
shirt, or at least a sleeve or two, struggling to teach the long-suffering Hong
Kong Chinese the finer points of Jewish gastronomy.
Without a maven or two a day among its customers, any deli will sooner or later
lose the touch, exactly like a Thai restaurant in Afghanistan. And without real
delis, there can be no real New York corned beef -- rich and warm and tender,
slightly salty but also slightly sweet, with just enough fat clinging to the
meat to keep it moist. Ordering the stuff extra lean, the way some people do,
is about as pointless as drinking 3.2 beer.
Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company
---
Sheldon
````````````
"Life would be devoid of all meaning were it without tribulation."
sf
>In article <3c936768...@netnews.att.net>, cwel...@NOSPAMhotmail.com
>(cathy wells) writes:
>
>>Here's a caution regarding supermarket corned beef. Check the sodium
>>content on the label. I normally buy corned beef at Ralphs here in Los
>>Angeles, which carries one specific brand. Vons had a sale last week
>>and I bought one there, different brand from the one at Ralphs.
>
><rigmarole snipped>
>
>After enduring all those machinations you don't remember the brand names,
>neither of them... perhaps Mosey's, Freirich, Nathan's, Saval?
>
We have Nathan's hot dogs, can't remember seeing their corned beef in
my markets. Shenson's is a popular (and very good) West Coast brand.
PENMART01
>PENMART01 wrote:
>>cathy wells writes:
>
>>Here's a caution regarding supermarket corned beef. Check the sodium
>>content on the label. I normally buy corned beef at Ralphs here in Los
>>Angeles, which carries one specific brand. Vons had a sale last week
>>and I bought one there, different brand from the one at Ralphs.
>
><rigmarole snipped>
>
>After enduring all those machinations you don't remember the brand names,
>neither of them... perhaps Mosey's, Freirich, Nathan's, Saval?
>We have Nathan's hot dogs, can't remember seeing their corned beef in
>my markets. Shenson's is a popular (and very good) West Coast brand.
Interesting: http://www.showgate.com/shensons/welcome.html
Good Website: http://www.freirich.com
BASIC REUBEN SANDWICH
Marinate well-drained sauerkraut with a little mayonnaise and caraway
seed for half and hour. Place 2 or 3 slices of Cooked Freirich Corned
Beef , sliced thin across the grain. Place on rye bread slice, buttered on
both sides. Top with sauerkraut mixture, then sliced Swiss Cheese. Top
with another bread slice, buttered both sides. Grill on griddle preheated
to 350º. Turn when lightly browned and cheese melts. Serve 1000 Island
Dressing in a souffle cup on the side.
Puester
>
> Does it make any dif which cut one should buy of corned beef?
Point cut is cheaper, but it shrinks and curls up terribly.
Flat cut stays flat and is much easier to cut and serve.
I usually shave off as much of the surface fat as possible
before cooking. The flavor of both is aobut the same.
gloria p
sf
I'll give it a try - if I have any corned beef leftover after making
"hash" (which I like to top off with a soft boiled/poached egg
drizzled with hollandaise sauce).
````````````````````````````````````````
On 16 Mar 2002 20:32:24 GMT, penm...@aol.como (PENMART01) wrote:
Sheryl Rosen
penm...@aol.como (PENMART01) wrote:
> After enduring all those machinations you don't remember the brand names,
> neither of them... perhaps Mosey's, Freirich, Nathan's, Saval?
I used to buy Mosey's and it's good. Last year I tried a local brand,
Hummel Bros., out of New Haven, with the Penzey's Corned Beef Seasoning
(the best there is, IMHO) and it was fantastic.
This year, I bought 3 corned beef briskets, the point cut. 89 cents a
pound. I buy the smallest ones I can find. 2.5-3 pounds each. All
under $3. I buy them now and freeze them for the rest of the year.
I found 2 Hummel Bros. And one Freirich. I didn't buy the Mosey's this
year.
The Freirich and Hummel Bros. has less sodium than the Mosey's. I made
one Hummel Bros. last night. Garlic cloves, the CB seasoning. Black
Peppercorns. Was a bit salty, but very, very good.
I've never had Freirich's. Looked good, though. It's in the freezer.
They had Nathan's, but only the flat cut. I like the flat cut, but it
was twice as expensive. I trim the fat, anyway, but it adds flavor.
I make a traditional New England Boiled dinner the way my Mom did, with
yellow turnips, (which I adore!), potatoes, carrots and cabbage. The
root veggies go in the last hour, the cabbage, after the meat and
veggies come out, while the meat is sitting. I cooked it about 2 hours
for 2.4 pounds. Was tender but not falling apart. Perfect.
I will have to try Sheldon's recipe for glazed corned beef. Sounds
fabulous. I might stop and get another one. I love this stuff.
--
Sheryl
--
I had to start using a spamblock.
To email, replace nospam with catmandy
Thanks
PENMART01
<nos...@optonline.net> writes:
>They had Nathan's, but only the flat cut. I like the flat cut, but it
>was twice as expensive. I trim the fat, anyway, but it adds flavor.
The flat cut costs more per pound green weight but less per pound cooked
weight, also much easier to carve... I don't trim any fat until just before
carving... the fat adds flavor, keeps the meat from drying and from breaking
up. Also, by using the flat cut more will fit in the pot.
>I make a traditional New England Boiled dinner the way my Mom did, with
>yellow turnips, (which I adore!), potatoes, carrots and cabbage. The
>root veggies go in the last hour, the cabbage, after the meat and
>veggies come out, while the meat is sitting. I cooked it about 2 hours
>for 2.4 pounds. Was tender but not falling apart. Perfect.
>
>I will have to try Sheldon's recipe for glazed corned beef. Sounds
>fabulous. I might stop and get another one. I love this stuff.
Get the flat cut, get two... you'll want hash the next day... so cook some
extra spuds. Corned beef hash topped with runny bulls eyes, YUMMM!
cathy wells
label on the package. Doesn't matter what the brand is, check the
sodium content. Let that be your guide.
Cathy
On 16 Mar 2002 17:09:00 GMT, penm...@aol.como (PENMART01) wrote:
PENMART01
>No, I don't, and my point was check the sodium content on the FDA
>label on the package. Doesn't matter what the brand is, check the
>sodium content. Let that be your guide.
>Cathy
>
>(PENMART01) wrote:
>
>>(cathy wells) writes:
>>
>>>Here's a caution regarding supermarket corned beef. Check the sodium
>>>content on the label. I normally buy corned beef at Ralphs here in Los
>>>Angeles, which carries one specific brand. Vons had a sale last week
>>>and I bought one there, different brand from the one at Ralphs.
>>
>><rigmarole snipped>
>>
>>After enduring all those machinations you don't remember the brand names,
>>neither of them... perhaps Mosey's, Freirich, Nathan's, Saval?
Actually there's no need to check salt content, but if I did I'd choose the
saltier one, which indicates the meat was more likely cured properly... and
then cooking according to my instructions (pre-simmer and discard water) the
meat will be sweet n' succulent, you'll barely notice any saltiness at all. I
can't comprehend how some of you can eat corned beef without first leaching the
curing chemicals out regardless how you cook it... you soak the heck outta salt
cod, yes?
AND STOP TOP POSTING YOU FRIGGIN' DUMB TWAT!
kswck
Around here they are called Thin Cut or Thick Cut. The thin cut has less fat, but I
think less tasty. The thick cut often has more fat than it looks like, and allowing
for shrinkage, less meat to finally eat.
I usually prepare one of each-like I'm doing now.
kswck
w/leftovers. But he serves corned beef(hates cabbage) with Mashed potatoes. He
swears that corned beef has w/leftover mashed potatoes is the greatest thing. Never
thought of it; I use either fresh cooked diced potatoes or leftovers. Ever had it
w/mashed taters?
PENMART01
writes:
>Question for ya Sheldon: A friend loves to make corned beef hash the next day
>w/leftovers. But he serves corned beef(hates cabbage) with Mashed potatoes.
>He
>swears that corned beef has w/leftover mashed potatoes is the greatest thing.
>Never
>thought of it; I use either fresh cooked diced potatoes or leftovers. Ever
>had it
>w/mashed taters?
Nope.
kswck
Christopher Green
> Does it make any dif which cut one should buy of corned beef?
Flat cut is usually leaner and easier to work with than point cut. Or
just get a whole brisket if you're serving a crowd or want lots of
leftovers.
There are exceptions, though: point cut is often dreadful, but we had
a nice lean point cut last night (it was Albertson's store brand).
--
Chris Green
Maywood Wong
"Christopher Green" <cj.g...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:c31fa7b1.02031...@posting.google.com...