Pressed Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Rub the meat with coarse sea salt and saltpetre, and let it sit for five days.
Boil the meat gently until it becomes tender.
Once tender, place the meat under a heavy weight or in a cheese press until it cools completely.
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 body of the dish, and its connective tissue softens into tenderness during gentle boiling.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and helps preserve it during the five-day cure.
- Saltpetre
- Helps the cured meat keep its pink color and slows spoilage during the cure.
The step that matters
Pressing the meat while it cools. Pressing under weight while the meat cools packs the fibers together and lets the gelatin set, so the pressed beef slices firmly instead of falling apart.
“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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