friday05Apr2013: salt beef, dill pickle on rye

cook-a-cow, continued...this week's cut: brisket

#13 on the diagram, brisket is one of the prime cuts of beef. The brisket is the cut that comes from the chest of the animal & covers the ribs & sternum. It contains a lot of connective tissue, meaning it is best suited to long slow cooking, such as braising in liquid or a slow smokey bbq roast, also brisket stands up to being corned in a brine or cured with salts. Recipes for brisket often call for a marinade of sorts which is rubbed or basted on, caramelising as the joint cooks, tenderising & getting all nice & flavoursome. A cheap cut, the cook is well rewarded for time it takes to prepare.

In the pre-fridge/freezer age, food needed preserving if it stood any chance of being edible sometime later on. But not only that, because also food rations back in the day may not always have been steady, so people would smoke, dry or salt cure their catch to ensure there was something to eat when times were lean. Fortunately, I do have a fridge, & a freezer, & not only that, there are two big chain supermarkets, a Chinese market, a Japanese importing store, an Italian deli, a greengrocer, three fish mongers & several bakeries all within walking distance from my house. I can buy just about any food I feel like anytime I'm hungry, which is lucky, cause I get hungry a lot. Still, this week I'm salting beef brisket & preserving it, not just because somethings get better with age, but because I can & I want to.

Ingredients: Salt Beef (stage1)

2kg beef brisket

1 heaped Tablespoon sea salt

1 heaped Tablespoon saltpetre, or if this is not available, another heaped Tablespoon of sea salt

Method:

*dissolve the salt/saltpetre in water & immerse beef in the brine

*keep this in the fridge for 3 days, turning once a day

>note: the water will turn pink, the meat a dullish red, & I gotta admit it looks kinda dodgy, but sometimes you just gotta keep the faith!

Ingredients: Salt Beef (Stage2)

2 litres beef stock

1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds/6 peppercorns/3 bay leaves/pinch or salt

2 carrots/2 onions

Method:

*rinse & pat dry the beef, discarding the brine solution

*in a braising pot, poach the beef in stock & seasonings for 3 hours

*remove from the heat, cool, then into a fridge suitable container, leaving the meat in the stock

 

>note: it will keep 1 week in the fridge, 6 months in the freezer

This dish, a variation on salt pork, has its origins in Jewish culinary traditions, where beef was used instead of piggy (which the rest of us love so well), for obvious reasons. Although by no means unique to the culinary traditions of that particular culture, my guide to this method of cookery comes in the form of notes & recipes from one of my favourite books, Preserved, by Nick Sandler & Johnny Acton, in which a line is drawn to that most institutional of culinary establishments, the New York Jewish delicatessen & that most celebrated of culinary combinations: salt beef, dill pickle, rye bread.

Ingredients: Dill Pickle

1 cucumber

a sprig of dill/2 cardamom pods/2 cloves/4 peppercorns

1/2cup cider vinegar/3cups H2O/1 T salt

Method:

*make a brine by combining the water with the salt/dill/spices 

*bring to the boil then remove from heat

*add the cider vinegar

*peel/deseed/slice the cucumber into strips & pack into a jar

*pour the brine over the cucumber & allow to cool

>note: this quantity of pickle is quickly used, so I don't bother to steralise the jars for bottling, but rather it sits in the fridge for a few days & simply find excuses to gobble it all up instead

As a final note I should add that, having woefully neglected to update the fridaynightdinnerbox blog in recent weeks as a result of work commitments elsewhere (Fridays can be busy times for us chefs), I decided that such a sandwich was just what would help pull me through these trying times...even though it probably isn't the norm to eat sandwiches for dinner...

Tasting Notes:
It's only recently I've started drinking beer for breakfast. Admittedly, it never felt quite right but now I can't stop. That was until this sandwich. First bite, I swear I heard the angels sing. I have to say, Olaf's rye bread is sensational; soft, warm & slightly bitter. Here's what happens when you bite this sandwich: first the bread & then a sweetsour crunch of dill pickle cucumber which follows the creamy silky overture of dijon & mayo, with the beef to fill in the rest. My God! What else? Well, as I started to say, about at that time you get this feeling & that's when I popped the first ice cold brewski of the day, in this case a Carlsberg, & that, to put it simply, rounded it all off. Now I'm at peace, complete & at one with the universe. 
Sometimes a dish happens that reminds me why I chose to become a cook. This is such a dish.

Olaf's, Epsom Ave, Mt Eden shops