Homemade Corned Beef
Homemade Corned Beef (Corned Beef sa Bahay)
Best homemade Filipino corned beef: cure beef brisket, simmer until tender, shred, then ginisa with garlic, onion, and potatoes—better than the can.
Serves 8 · 3h 55m total
The Story
The can is a miracle of convenience and a crime against texture. Homemade corned beef is what happens when you look at punta y pecho, a bag of salt, and five days on the calendar and decide you are the factory now.
Corned beef is not Filipino in origin—salt-cured brisket is an old preservation trick—but the way we eat it is ours: shredded, kissed by garlic and onion, stretched with potatoes, dumped on rice or stuffed into pandesal. The pink can taught a generation the flavor. This recipe is how you make the meat itself, then cook it the Pinoy way so it actually tastes like breakfast instead of a boiled Irish holiday.
The wait is the whole joke. You mix a cure, you flip a bag in the fridge like it owes you rent, you simmer until a fork surrenders, then you ginisa it so nobody asks why you spent a week on 'canned' beef. If someone says just buy Delimondo, they are correct for Tuesday. This is for the weekend you want to brag.
Best paired with
Garlic rice, a fried egg, tomato slices, pandesal, and the Corned Beef Ginisa recipe if you already have leftover shredded meat and zero patience left.
Don't skip this extra recipe
Weeknight version: skip the cure, open a can, same garlic-onion-potato energy in 15 minutes.
Use it in these KusinaPH recipes
Lola's Tips
- ✦Brisket or kenchi (punta y pecho) is the cut. Lean stew beef dries out and becomes sad flakes.
- ✦Flip the bag every day. Uneven cure is how you get one salty corner and one bland middle. The beef is not a houseplant, but it still needs attention.
- ✦Rinse well after curing. You are removing extra salt, not the entire personality.
- ✦Simmer, do not boil like you are angry. A rolling boil makes tough corned beef, which is just expensive disappointment.
- ✦Prague powder #1 (pink curing salt) is optional. It keeps that canned-pink color. Use 1 teaspoon per kilo, never 'a handful.' Regular salt already does the curing.
- ✦Shred when cool enough to handle. Then ginisa. Boiled chunks on a plate is homework. Sautéed shreds are breakfast.
Substitutions
- beef brisket → kenchi / punta y pecho, or beef shin if that's what the tindera has
- Prague powder #1 → skip it—the beef stays brown-gray, still homemade, still better than a sad can
- 5-day cure → overnight fridge brine in a pinch, then simmer—less 'best,' still not from a factory
- potato ginisa finish → slice and eat with mustard like a deli, if you want to confuse your relatives
Ingredients
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Instructions
- 1
Pat the brisket dry. Mix coarse salt, brown sugar, Prague powder if using, crushed peppercorns, crumbled bay leaves, smashed garlic, and cloves. Rub every surface like the beef insulted your lola. Bag it tightly (or a non-reactive container), fridge 5 days. Flip once a day. This is the 'best' part people skip, then wonder why theirs tastes like boiled stew.
- 2
Rinse the beef under cold water. Do not skip the rinse unless you enjoy salt that yells. Put it in a pot, cover with water, add a couple extra garlic cloves if you want. Bring to a simmer—small bubbles, not a typhoon.
- 3
Cover and simmer 2.5 to 3 hours until a fork slides in like it paid rent. If the water drops, add hot water. Cool in the broth 20 minutes so it stays juicy. Lift out. Shred with two forks into chunky strands, not baby food.
- 4
Now the Filipino ending: heat oil, fry potato cubes if using until golden, scoop out. Sauté onion and sliced garlic until the garlic turns pale gold and smells like a good decision. Add the shredded corned beef. Let it sit so the edges glisten and brown. Fold potatoes back in if you stretched it. Pepper. Taste. It should be beefy, a little sweet from the cure, and loud with garlic.
- 5
Pile the shreds on a plate so you can see every strand. Tuck parsley on top like you meant to be fancy. Serve with garlic rice, a fried egg, and tomato—or eat it as-is with a fork and no regrets. Freeze extra meat in packs so Tuesday-you can skip the five-day wait.
Kitchen Timer · 40 min prep first
195:00
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