Pressed Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Cure
Cure the brisket with coarse sea salt and pulverized saltpetre for five to six days.
Cook and press
Boil the brisket slowly until it is fully cooked and tender.
Press the brisket until it is completely cold.
Serve
Slice thin and serve with toinato sauce.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Brisket
- Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender when slowly cooked and firm when pressed.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it during the curing period.
- Pulverized saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat and gives it a pink colour during curing.
The step that matters
Pressing until completely cold. Pressing while the meat is still warm can leave it crumbly. Cooling under pressure lets the meat set into a firm, dense block that slices cleanly.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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