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
Slice and 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
- Brisket, flank, or rib tops
- Provides the meat that becomes tender and sliceable after gentle boiling and pressing.
- Saltpetre
- Helps the cured meat keep its pink color and adds a cured flavor.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during the five-day cure.
The step that matters
Boil the meat gently until extremely tender. Boiling hard toughens the meat's protein and can break it apart, while gentle simmering slowly breaks down connective tissue into tenderness. Keep the water barely moving.
“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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