Brine for Beef Tongues
Ingredients
Directions
Make the brine
Boil the salt, water, and saltpetre together, skimming off any foam.
Cure the meat
Once the mixture is perfectly cold, pour it over the beef or tongues.
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
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out and seasons the meat while it cures in the brine.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat's pink colour during curing.
The step that matters
Let the brine cool completely before pouring it over the meat. Warm brine can partly cook the surface and encourage bacterial growth, so it must be perfectly cold before it touches the meat.
“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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