Making your own authentic Salt Beef is fairly easy – particularly if you use the equilibrium brining technique described below. If you’re in the UK I recommend using Weschenfelder’s superb cure mix. It’s essentially just right blend of salt and nitrates to do the job and produce that lovely pink colour. You can make your own with 90% salt and 10% cure #1.
Equilibrium Curing – or brining in this case – is a technique whereby you use exactly the right amount of salt to cure the meat rather than using a heavily saline mix and basing it on a shorter cure time. The main advantage is that using the correct amount of salt, means you can pretty much leave the meat in the brine for as long as you like without it turning out inedibly salty.
All you have to do for equilibrium brines is weigh the meat with the water and add the right amount of cure! For salt beef we want to aim at 2.5-3.5% of salt absorption. Therefore the below example assumes that you will use a 1kg lump of brisket and require 2kg of water. 3kg in total is then multiplied by the desired 3% salt to give us a result of 90g of cure mix.
Salt Beef and Pastrami
Equipment
- 1 medium/large plastic lidded vessel
Ingredients
- 1 kg Beef Brisket
- 2 ltrs Water
- 90 g Salt beef cure
- 150 g Brown sugar
- 1 tsp Crushed peppercorns
- 1 tsp Coriander seeds
- 1 tsp Crushed juniper berries
- 1 tsp Thyme
- 2 Bay leaves
Instructions
- Make the brine by adding all the ingredients to the water and bringing to the boil – adjust your cure level based on the exact weight of your meat and water as per the instructions above.
- Once the brine is cold, fine a tupperware container big enough to contain the beef completely submerged in the brine. You may need to weigh down the beef if it wants to float.
- Leave in the fridge for 10-14 days, turning daily.
- Once the beef is cured, wash it under cold water, it is then ready to be turned into salt beef or pastrami.
- For Salt Beef: So simple, just put the beef in a stockpot with some onion/carrot/celery/herbs and simmer for 2-3 hours. Best eaten warm, usually with mash and greens. To reheat wrap in foil and pop in the oven, or gently warm in a pan with some butter. Yum!
- For Pastrami:
- Take the cured beef and submerge in cold water for at least 8 hours in order to desalinate it a bit. Change the water at least once during the process.