Smoked Corned Beef Brisket

This is a pretty simple variation of the standard St. Patrick’s day meal. We bought an electric smoker last summer and we’ve been using it pretty regularly. When Curt was getting his corned beef ready for St Patrick’s day, he noticed that the package had an alternate method of cooking the meat. It was for cooking it in the smoker. He couldn’t pass up this new option.

Smoked Corned Beef

Smoked Corned Beef

Ingredients

  • 1 package of corned beef
  • Wood chips for your smoker
  • BBQ beef rub (optional)
  • 1/2 cup water

Instructions

Here's a picture of the package that had the cooking instructions.

Here’s a picture of the package that had the cooking instructions.

Heat your smoker to 275 F.

Prepare your corned beef by removing it from the package and rinsing with water. Pat the meat dry and then season with your favorite beef rub.

Add your favorite wood chips. We used a mix of Hickory and Mesquite. Smoke the corned beef fat side up until the internal temperature reaches 160 F. This should takeĀ about 2 1/2 hours to 3 hours.

Preheat your over to 350 F for the final step before you remove the corned beef from the smoker.

Remove the corned beef from the smoker and wrap in foil, adding 1/2 cup of water.

Place the foil wrapped corned beef in the oven. Cook until the internal temperature is 195 F, which should be about 45 minutes to 1 hour.

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Armadillo Eggs

If you search out “Armadillo Eggs” you find an array of recipes. Some of them are what I consider jalapeno poppers, rather than Armadillo Eggs. Our version of Armadillo Eggs consists of chicken breast pieces inside a jalapeno and wrapped in bacon. A jalapeno popper would be cream cheese inside the jalapeno.

We decided these Armadillo Eggs would be our main meat course for dinner on Friday night so we used more chicken and less bacon than customary for these items. They are typically served as an appetizer so you aren’t expected to eat too many of them.

Ingredients

  • 9 large jalapeno peppers, halved and seeded
  • 2 1/2 large chicken breasts
  • 9 strips of bacon
  • 1 tbsp chili pepper

Directions

Cut the chicken breasts into 1 inch strips. Then, lay these inside the hallowed-out halves of the jalapenos.

Here is the chicken  strips placed inside the jalapeno halves.

Here is the chicken strips placed inside the jalapeno halves.

Using one bacon strip at a time, stretch it out and cut it in half. Lay each half length wise over one of the chicken filled jalapenos. We wrapped the ends under the jalapenos to help keep it in place. If your bacon isn’t long enough to do this, you can use toothpicks to hold the bacon on top.

Prepare an oven pan and heat the over to 425 F. We laid some foil on the bottom of the pan to make clean-up easier and put a small rack over the foil to keep the jalapenos elevated above the grease that gathers on the bottom.

Here are the Armadillo Eggs ready for the oven.

Here are the Armadillo Eggs ready for the oven.

Place the bacon covered jalapenos on the rack and then sprinkle with chili pepper. Now put the pan in your oven. Cook for 35 to 40 minutes, or until the bacon is crispy.

Armadillo Eggs right out of the oven.

Finished Armadillo Eggs