Family Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Cure
Rub the brisket with the sugar, saltpetre, coarse sea salt, and common salt.
Place the meat in an earthen pan and turn it every day.
After 14 days, boil the meat in its own juices with enough water to barely cover it.
Cook and serve
Serve with savoys or other greens, and enjoy cold with poivrade sauce or pickles.
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 meat that the cure penetrates and firms as it cooks.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat and gives it a characteristic pink color and cured flavor.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it while helping preserve it.
- Common salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat, seasons it, and helps preserve it during curing.
- Coarse sugar
- Balances the harshness of the salt and adds mild sweetness to the cured meat.
The step that matters
Turn the meat daily during the 14-day cure. Salt and curing agents penetrate meat slowly by diffusion. Turning the brisket daily spreads the brine that forms and keeps the cure even, so no area stays under-salted and at risk of spoiling.
“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.
You might also like
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipes
Mutton Broth292 recipes
Yorkshire Pudding264 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.