Cooking with AH2: Salt Beef

Just put another 1.3 kilos of salt beef in the pot to boil.

Got pastrami in the fridge, didn't realise it was a smoked meat. Does anyone know any supermarket that stocks wood chippings? Otherwise I'll just have to do it with out smoking this time and order some on line for next month.

Also any idea how long home made tiger suave would last and best way of sterilising jars of Mayo based sauces. Usually I put cooked sauces in the jar, put them in bath of water then in the oven. But that wouldn't work for Mayo.
 
I respect the effort you go to salting the meat for 10 days, but I personally couldn't eat meat that colour - visually it looks very similar in colour and texture to muscle from a cadaver. I like to think I'm a pretty adventurous eater as well.

Certainly if I served that up to any of my family or friends no-one would eat it.
 
Jolteh said:
I respect the effort you go to salting the meat for 10 days, but I personally couldn't eat meat that colour - visually it looks very similar in colour and texture to muscle from a cadaver. I like to think I'm a pretty adventurous eater as well.

Certainly if I served that up to any of my family or friends no-one would eat it.
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Seems an odd thing to say. Advent rouse but wouldn't try a bit of grey meat, which you know is fine. It's just the lack of curing salts which retain the redness.

Here's this months, although they are more red, the only thing which changed. Is I ran out of sea salt so used table salt instead.

imageysef.jpg
 
Don't get me wrong, I would try and have tried salt beef. But if someone put some soggy grey beef on my plate then I'd politely decline, and I'd put a fair bet that 90% of other people would too.

As I say, big respect for having the patience to nuture this for 10 days, but I think it would have been quicker and tastier to roast it or something. Personal preference though I guess!
 
Have to admit that this doesn't look that appetising, though I'm sure it's delicious. After a similar (though not quite so pronounced) experience with curing a ham I've decided to order some curing salts to preserve the colour that us British folk are used to :)
 
Ok, I had another attempt and I have red salt beef all the way through.

As with curing bacon and ham, the time taken for the cure to get in without making it too salty seems to be key here. I snipped the strings off my brisket so that the cure could get into the middle. It was curing for 12 days, which was too long, and I estimate that 7-8 days would have been fine.

I used a 650g piece of brisket, 100g of salt, 2g of saltpetre and about 250ml of water to cover it in the bag I bought it in. I tied the bag such that there was no air in the top.

What I did observe was the blood in the brine changed colour at about day 8 from bright red to dark red. I reckon if you take it out at the point of that change it's at its best.

Cooking was traditional Jewish way. 2.5 hours with a carrot, onion, 4 cloves and some peppercorns, then adding dumplings in the final half-hour. Serve with mashed potato, the veg from the cooking and a splash of cooking liquor as sauce.
 
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