Pressed Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Cure
Salt the meat with coarse sea salt and saltpetre for five days.
Cook and press
Boil the meat gently until extremely tender.
Place the meat under a heavy weight or in a cheese press until completely cold.
Serve
Serve cold.
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
- Beef brisket, thin flank, or rib tops
- Long gentle simmering breaks down connective tissue, making the meat tender and sliceable.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws out moisture and seasons the meat deeply during the long cure.
- Saltpetre
- Helps the cured meat keep its pink colour and a firm, distinctive flavour.
The step that matters
Pressing until completely cold. Weight applied while the meat cools compacts it and firms the texture, so slices hold together. Pressing before it is fully cold can leave the shape loose and crumbly.
“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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