Food
Making salt beef from scratch
Move over sourdough - there's a whole new haimish lockdown food project
October 15, 2020 12:03
By, Jack Shamash
2 min read
Move over sourdough - there's a whole new haimish lockdown food project
October 15, 2020 12:03ByJack Shamash , Jack Shamash
The water was cold and blackened, there was a slick of blood floating on the top and it gave off strange and largely indescribable smells. And just beneath the surface was a large mass of slime-covered flesh. No, this was not the creature from the black lagoon, but my first attempt at making salt beef.
I’d always rather fancied making my own. And with lockdown, it was difficult to go out to eat and I had plenty of time at home. So now was the time to get cooking!
Brisket — the cut needed for pastrami or salt beef — used to be relatively cheap, but it’s become trendy and is no longer a bargain. I needed about three kilos, which set me back around 30 quid.
I followed the recipe from Evelyn Rose’s The Entertaining Cookbook. Perhaps when it was published, in 1981, it was more common to make your own salt beef from scratch. Nearly 40 years later, and in the middle of a pandemic, it was not easy to get all the ingredients. Salt and demerara sugar weren’t too hard to source, but I had to buy the pickling spices and the saltpetre (aka potassium nitrate, which helps the beef keep its signature reddish-pink hue) online.
The best bit was grinding all these ingredients, together with a bay leaf and a couple of garlic cloves. The smell filled the kitchen. It was lovely — very haimish. I smeared the meat with the spices, put the lot into an enamelled casserole dish and covered it with water.
That evening, my son peered into the dish. He wasn’t impressed. “What’s that dead thing in the fridge?” he asked.
According to Evelyn, you must keep the meat in solution for about two weeks, turning it every night. Over the fortnight, the water became almost black as the meat juices seeped into it. Turning the brisket became part of my evening ritual. I actually started to enjoy the smell — primarily of coriander seeds and garlic.
At the end of day 14, it was time for the last stage — a long slow cook. I threw away the liquid, rinsed the meat thoroughly and put it back in clean water with a couple of bay leaves and a large onion. I had to boil it for three hours, after which time it emerged — steaming, soft and absolutely delicious.
That evening, we cut off some large slices and ate it with bagels, a latke and some continental salad, washed down with a cup of lemon tea. And we ate more, cold, the following day. One problem with the experiment was having to make such a large amount. In lockdown I couldn’t invite people around to share it, so we ended up putting some of it in plastic boxes and handing it over the garden fence to our next-door neighbours. That’s one of the great things about making salt beef — it allows you to spread the joy.