Saturday 29 December 2012

Christmas brisket sandwich


The only downside to our snacky approach to Christmas eating is not having cold cuts left over to eat for a few days. In order to fill that gap, I bought a lovely piece of brisket from ELSCo and cured it, to eat as salt beef. I followed Diana Henry's recipe this time, but it's not hugely different from the recipes I've used before.

We had some the night before Christmas Eve, hot with parsley sauce. It's not something I grew up with, but it is a very old-fashioned, comforting dish and one of Paul's favourites.
The rosy pink colour of the meat is from the saltpetre in the cure

The rest of the meat has been in the fridge, the piece getting smaller and smaller as Paul has cut off chunks for snacking. In the end, there was just enough for these two well-filled Christmassy takes on the reuben sandwich.

The baps, left from Boxing Day and slightly stale, needed warming to soften them a bit. On one side went a layer of sauerkraut and the slices of beef. On the other, some cranberry mustard and some of the blue cheese mousse from the Christmas Day canapes. It went under the grill until the cheese melted, the edges of the bap toasted and the meat was hot through, then it was wedged together. Definitely worth curing another brisket to make more of these.


2 comments:

Choclette said...

There was me hoping for one of your excellent Meat Free Monday posts! Hope you had a good Christmas and I wish you a very Happy and Rewarding 2013.

grace said...

it's always a struggle for me to pace myself with certain things, even though i'd rather they last me a long time instead of just a few days (or one day, which is the case sometimes...). a christmassy reuben sounds tasty to me! :)

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