Right before St. Patricks day, my local supermarket was offering corned beef brisket for a ridiculously low price, so I bought 3 and froze them. Someone in another thread mentioned they didn't freeze well, so I was a little concerned. Oh well... the deed was done.
A few days ago, I defrosted one of the briskets and put it in the crock pot with enough water to make it float. I added the spice packet it came with (because I like mustard seed) and also added some pickling spice that I recently bought from Penzey's specifically for this meat. It took a lot longer than I expected (about 7 hours), but we had it for dinner that night along with some stir fried cabbage. I don't like steamed cabbage, but I really enjoy stir fried with Asian condiments. It was really tasty. My only disappointment came in slicing it. Of course, I sliced across the grain, but several times bits of stringy meat broke off from the slice. It wasn't that big a deal, but I wonder if that had anything to do with it being frozen beforehand? Oh... and how do you all handle the layer of fat? I tried to slice it off, but close to the meat, it got mushy and gross.
Ginny
