Smoked Corned Beef & Cabbage

Over the weekend we celebrated St. Paddy's Day by making the holiday favorite Corned Beef and Cabbage with a smoky twist. I started with a packaged 3 lb. corned beef brisket flat from the grocery store. From there it went into a plastic ziploc full of water for a 48 hour soak to draw out some of the salt and other additives.

 

The water was changed every 12 hours and then patted dry with a paper towel and covered in the spice rub. Then back in the fridge it went overnight to cure.

The next morning I preheated the smoker to 250 with Royal Oak Lump Charcoal and started cooking the brisket. I wasn't sure how long this would take so I started at 11AM hoping to eat by about 5PM. Cabbage was on sale for .19 lb. so I bought a big one. I used this 5 lb. head during my workouts for bicep curls earlier in the week! The Smoked Cabbage recipe came straight from Steven Raichlen's How to Grill book. The bottom stem of the cabbage was cut out and filled with a mixture of melted butter, sauteed onions, and precooked diced bacon. Then on top some more butter pads just for emphasis. Below is the cabbage right before being put in the smoker, sitting on a beer can chicken holder. The recipe called for a 2 lb. cabbage to be smoked for 1 to 1.5 hours so I let this one go for three.

Here is the finished product, it tasted better than it looks here. The charred outer layer was removed and the cabbage was very moist and tender and the addition of the onion & bacon mixture gave it some extra flavor. We had plenty of leftovers!

The corned beef took longer than I expected, at 3pm it was only up to 140 degrees so I decided to start up the Weber to get things moving along. I cooked it foiled over indirect heat for another two hours and that got the temp up to 190 rather quickly. It came off and rested for about 15 minutes then we started slicing.

The Recipe:

1 prepackaged corned beef brisket flat (3-5 lbs)

For the Rub

1.5 tablespoons ground coriander

1.5 tablespoons cracked black pepper

3 cloves minced garlic

3/4 teaspoon ground mustard

coarse salt to taste

1/8 cup light brown sugar

1/8 cup sweet or smoked paprika

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

Here is the finished Reuben sandwich on toasted rye with swiss c

heese and thousand island. Smoked Cabbage and a Yukon Gold potato on the side.

What I would do differently next time

The cabbage turned out great, we just had a TON of it. A 5 lb cabbage will probably feed 8-10 adults with good appetites. The next day we reheated the leftovers in some foil over direct heat. The corned beef had a really nice outer crust from the spice rub but the meat just wasn't very tender. This was obviously due to moving it to indirect heat for the last 2 hours. Brisket is one of those cuts you really can't rush, it would have been better if I started earlier on the smoker and let nature run it's course...

The brisket was a perfect size for our little group and we even had plenty for leftover corned beef omelots the next morning! This will definetely be on the menu for next St. Paddy's Day.