Saturday I was rooting around in the freezer, and I found a corned beef brisket flat cut. It was just begging to be smoked (Yes, corned beef brisket does talk. You just have to listen properly.). So I pulled it out, thawed it and marinated it overnight in a pint of Guinness Draft.
The next day, I made up a quick slather of dijon mustard and Worchestershire sauce (the magic ingredient!). I slathered it over the brisket and sprinkled on some Ribber City Coffee/Chipolte rub I had bought from our friends at The Grill Works here in Marion, Iowa (How's that for two plugs in one sentence?). I poured the Guinness marinade into the water pan in my smoker, loaded up with lots of cherry and mesquite wood chips and fired it up. Into the smoker went the corned beef. Next, being the upright, responsible husband and father that he is, Dr. Dave went off to play golf.
18 holes later, I arrived home to find a cooling brisket. The smoker had run out of propane! The Dr. had made a rookie mistake! It was getting late by then. The corned beef brisket had taken on all of the smoke it needed, so I wrapped the brisket in aluminum foil and placed it into a 250° oven to finish cooking. An hour later, it was not up to temperature. Patience had worn thin, so dinner was made from the side dishes. The brisket was put into the fridge to be heated another time.
Monday, I got to thinking about what to do with that corned beef. My wife is always on the lookout for a good rueben (sandwich). What are the best reubens made from? Pastrami. What is pastrami? Smoked corned beef! I was going to surprise my wife and make reuben sandwiches!
Getting home from work, the corned beef brisket, still in a foil wrap, was placed in a 250° oven. It would come out when the internal temperature, read with a meat thermometer, was 180°F. At this low and slow temperature, the brisket took three hours to finish cooking.
Toward the end, I heated up a small can's worth of sauerkraut. I made a homemade thousand island spread which consisted of 2 parts mayonnaise, 2 parts katchup and 1 part dill pickle relish (not sweet).
I removed the corned beef brisket from the oven an
d allowed it to sit for half and hour so some of the juices given off during cooking could be reabsorbed. I sliced it up. 1/4 to 1/2 inch slices were nice.
Next, I buttered two pieces of russian rye bread and put them, buttered side down into a hot pan. I spread the thousand island spread onto both slices of bread. I put sauerkraut on one bread and a couple of slices of swiss cheese on the other bread.
To help melt the swiss cheese, I added a generous helping of smoked corned beef. A couple of minutes later, the cheese melted, the two halves were made whole. A fabulous reuben sandwich was born!
Enjoy.
