Beef, cured, corned beef, brisket, raw

Corned beef brisket starts as a raw brisket cut that has been cured in a brine of salt, sugar, and pickling spices like coriander, mustard seed, and bay leaf, but has not yet been cooked. From this raw cured state it is typically simmered low and slow for hours until tender for the classic corned beef and cabbage dinner, or smoked further to become pastrami. The long cook is what breaks down the tough brisket into sliceable, fork-tender meat, and the cooking liquid itself often gets reused as a flavorful base for boiling potatoes and cabbage in the same pot.

Per 100 g it has 198 calories and 29% of the Daily Value for protein, with 14.9 g of fat and almost no carbohydrate, and it also shows 30% for vitamin C, which comes from curing agents such as sodium ascorbate added to the brine rather than from any produce in the recipe. Sodium is very high at 1220 mg per 100 g due to the salt brine, so rinsing or soaking the brisket before cooking, and skipping extra added salt in the cooking liquid, helps temper the final saltiness. It cooks down into a rich, protein-dense main once braised, but the sodium level is worth factoring into the rest of the meal.