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Pressed Corned Beef
There is some advantage in merely pressing the large pieces after boiling, as it makes them firmer to slice, and some never go any further. The streaked rolls may be laid side by side and pressed to square or oval form. But pressed corned beef is generally expected to be something different from that. After boiling the beef 5 hours take it from the liquor, cut in pieces about as large as eggs and simmer it about 2 hours more, using for this second boiling some fresh soup stock or chicken broth, just enough to fairly cover it, and rich enough to be jell when cold. Season with a little pepper. Turn it out into the pan, tin pail or mould it is to be pressed in, the liquor with it, push a strainer down into it and take off the fat that rises in the strainer. Place a plate or lid and a weight on top and set in a cold place. It is not best to drain pressed corned beef of the jelly completely. In making the finest and costliest pates de cailles, or of foies gras with truffles, trouble is taken when the baking is about finished to introduce aspic jelly through an aperture left in the top for the purpose and pressed beef need not be made dryer and harder because it is a cheaper article. Let the jelly be firm enough not to become soft on the table.
This is a cold-buffet preparation: corned beef cooked twice, then set in its own gelatinous broth and weighted into a loaf. The instructions assume a commercial kitchen with strong stock on hand and a cold room to set things in.
- The hinge: the stock must gelWhitehead says the second liquid should be "rich enough to be jell when cold." If it does not set, the loaf will crumble when sliced. Use a stock made from veal knuckles, chicken feet or wings, or reinforce a good stock with about 1 tablespoon of powdered gelatin per pint.
- Cooking times run long for modern beefSeven hours total suits the heavily cured, tougher barrel-cured beef Whitehead was working with. A supermarket corned beef brisket of 4-5 lb is tender in roughly 3 hours at a bare simmer; give the cut-up pieces a further 45-60 minutes in the gelatinous stock rather than two full hours, or they will shred to threads.
- "Streaked rolls"Presumably rolled and tied cuts streaked with fat, of the navel or plate type. The nearest equivalent today is a whole packer brisket with the point left on, or corned beef navel from a butcher.
- Cut in pieces about as large as eggsRoughly 2-inch chunks, cut across the grain where possible. The point is that the pieces should knit together under weight while the meat's own grain still shows in the slice.
- VesselsThe "tin pail" is simply a straight-sided container that turns out cleanly. A 9x5-inch loaf pan lined with plastic wrap works; the plate or lid should sit down inside the rim so the weight bears on the meat, not the edges. Two or three pounds of weight is enough.
- Skimming with the strainerPushing a fine strainer down into the mass makes a well that fat rises into, so it can be spooned off without disturbing the meat. Do this while the liquid is still warm, then again once a skin of fat has firmed on top in the cold.
- ChillingA "cold place" meant a cold room or icebox. Cool the loaf uncovered until it stops steaming, then refrigerate at 40F or below; a dense weighted mass of meat and stock holds heat a long time. It will be firm in 8-12 hours and keeps about four days.
- SaltModern corned beef is milder than 1890s barrel-cured beef, so the finished loaf may need more pepper and possibly a little salt in the second stock. Taste the stock before it goes over the meat, since you cannot correct it afterwards.
- Yield and servingA 4-5 lb brisket fills one loaf pan and gives 10-12 servings. Slice thin with a long knife dipped in hot water, and serve cold with mustard, pickles or a salad; the jelly clinging to the slices is intended, not a fault.
Jessup Whitehead wrote for hotel and restaurant men, and pressed corned beef belonged to the cold sideboard of the American commercial kitchen: a way of turning boiled beef, plausibly including cheaper streaked cuts, into a sliceable loaf that could be sold cold for days. "Corned" refers to the coarse grains, or corns, of salt used to cure the beef in barrel, a preservation method that long predated refrigeration and left meat that needed hours of boiling to become edible. What distinguishes this version from plain boiled beef weighted under a plate is the second cooking in gelatinous stock, an aspic technique of the kind used in pate work. Whitehead makes the connection explicit by comparing it to quail and foie gras pies finished with jelly poured through a hole in the crust, and the comparison carries an argument: a cheap article deserves the same handling as a costly one.