To Pickle Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Make the pickle
Boil the water with the coarse sea salt and moist sugar for 30 minutes, skimming constantly.
Pour the pickle into a deep stone pickling pot and let it cool completely.
Pickle the meat
Remove all kernels, sinews, and pith from the meat.
Immerse the meat completely in the pickle, turning it every day.
Store in a cool place; the meat can be preserved for 2-3 weeks.
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 of the meat and seasons it, helping preserve it in the brine.
- Moist sugar
- Adds sweetness and softens the harsh edge of the salt in the brine.
- Saltpetre
- Helps the meat keep its pink colour during curing.
The step that matters
Immersing the meat completely in the cooled pickle. Any part of the meat left above the liquid can spoil, since salt only preserves what it touches. The pickle must be fully cool first, because hot brine can start cooking the surface and uneven cooling leaves parts unprotected. Turning daily keeps the brine in contact with every surface.
“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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