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Pressed Corned Beef
Take six pounds of the brisket of beef, remove the bones and tie it tightly in a cloth. Put it in a kettle and cover with cold water. Simmer gently for five hours. When done, take out, place it between two tin sheets or large plates, put a heavy weight upon it over night. Remove the cloth and it is ready for use.
A cooked-and-pressed brisket meant to be sliced cold, which is why it turns up in a hot-weather book. The only real decision is what kind of brisket you start with.
- "Corned" means already curedThe title assumes a brisket that has been sitting in brine with salt and saltpetre, sold today as corned beef brisket, usually 3-5 lb in a vacuum bag. A fresh brisket simmered the same way gives boiled beef, not corned beef, and no amount of pressing will change that. Do not attempt to cure it yourself from this page, which gives no brine quantities at all.
- Rinse and taste the waterCommercial corned brisket can be assertively salty, and barrel-cured beef of the period was often saltier still. Rinse it well, and if the cooking liquid tastes aggressive after the first hour, pour off half and top up with fresh water.
- "Simmer gently" is a real instructionHold the water at around 180-185F, barely trembling. A hard boil toughens and dries the fibres, and the pressed block is then more likely to break up under the knife.
- Five hours is for six poundsA modern 3-4 lb piece will be done in about 3 to 3 1/2 hours. Test rather than time it: a skewer should slide into the thickest part with no resistance.
- The clothCheesecloth or clean muslin, wrapped in two or three layers and tied at intervals with kitchen string. It holds the meat in one compact shape while the connective tissue softens, and it makes the hot brisket liftable.
- Press it in the refrigerator, not on the counterThis is the one point the original could not make. Cooked meat left to cool overnight in a warm kitchen sits for hours in the range where bacteria multiply. Set the wrapped brisket between two plates with a weight on top and put the whole arrangement straight into the fridge.
- WeightAnything from 5 to 10 lb works: a foil-wrapped brick, a full kettle, two large cans on a board. The point is even pressure across the surface, so the plate must be flat and larger than the meat.
- ServingSlice thin across the grain with a long knife. Six pounds of raw brisket presses down to a dense block that will serve 10 to 12 as a cold plate with mustard and pickles, or make a great many sandwiches. Keep it wrapped in the fridge and use within four days.
"Corned" has nothing to do with maize: it refers to the coarse grains, or corns, of salt used to cure the meat, a usage older than the American cornfield. Brisket took the brine well and was cheap, which is part of why it became the signature meat of urban delicatessens. Pressing a boiled joint under weight overnight was a common enough kitchen trick before sliced deli meats could be bought: it drove out water, knit the collagen-rich layers into a sliceable block, and gave a cook something to serve cold for days without lighting the range again. That last point may help explain its place in a hot-weather collection.