KOBE CORNED BEEF ROUND

The good people at Snake River Farms raise American style Kobe Beef. Once a year they offer a very special product of corned beef. This is not made with the traditional brisket cut of beef but from the beef round. I am not a butcher and maybe if Donna reads this she can chime in but the round cut is from the rear end section of a cow. It does not have a lot of fat marbling and can be tough if not cooked properly. The wonderful thing about American Kobe style beef it does have more fat marbling than the traditional western breeds. Our local club store carries this special beef for St. Patrick's day. Traditionally this cut of beef is boiled. You know we are not going to be so conventional and cook ours in a smoker.

Corned beef is cured in salt, sugar and spices. We need to purge some of the salt from our beef to lower the salt content. Twenty four hours before our cook, we put our beef in a pot of cold water into the refrigerator. We changed this water three times. You could see the water clouded with a briny salt solution with each rinse. Before we put our roast in the smoker we dried it and gave it a light dusting of rub. This was more to add color and crust flavor boost because this roast with the corning process was highly seasoned. We used hickory wood as our smoke. The roast smoked for 6 hours until the internal temperature reached 190 degrees. We let our roast rest for 45 minutes. It was a very long 45 minutes.

This corned beef almost brought tears to my eyes it was so good. With the purging process our roast was seasoned to perfection. It sliced very nice leaving a tender but succulent piece of beef. Ms. Goofy proclaimed this to be the 'Best Corned Beef Ever". I will have to agree.  I could use terms like; Umami, buttery, beefy, heavenly, fantastic mouth feel and so much more to describe this beef. Kobe beef has a unique beefy flavor that just needs to be experienced. I may have to go back and pick up a couple of more roasts before they are gone.