Salt beef bagel

Here's the thing about bagels - I tend to think I like them more than I actually do. I've lost count of the number of times I've thought "Oh yum! Bagel!" and then got bored half way through the interminable chewing and scraped off the topping with a fork. Generally, I'd rather have something from the fluffier side of the breadroll family (as long as it isn't dusted in flour: I hate that).

But we were watching an old No Reservations episode, and Bourdain was eating bagels at a deli in New York, and it looked so good, that when I was offered some limited edition New York Bakery bagels to try, I was powerless to resist. These are a mixed seed bagel, with pumpkin, sunflower and linseeds baked in, and more seeds on top.

I didn't have time to cure my own brisket, so I bought a nice piece of organic salt beef for our sandwiches.

I split the bagels, toasted them, smeared them lavishly with hot English mustard and piled on the hot salt beef. It is, incidentally Colman's mustard's 200th anniversary, which they are celebrating with these adorably nostalgic labels. Unfortunately, the labels are only the normal paper ones, but I am hoping that they will produce some more memorabilia with that polar bear on it. The museum (you make mustard for 200 years, you get a museum) does sell a tea towel and an apron, but I'd like it on a proper mustard pot. Or one of the mustard powder tins. Anyway, since the Jewish community in London has been selling bagels for almost as long as Colman's have been making mustard, since before the influx of Polish Jews to New York even, it makes sense to me to use the very English mustard on what is usually considered a very American sandwich.

In the 20s apparently a bear with a toothache suggested mustard

The bagels were so nice that they weren't very bagelly at all...

My favourite salt beef sandwich in London is the one at the Brass Rail, in Selfridges. Lavishly filled with excellent salt beef and eye-watering quantities of mustard, the only drawback is the rye bread isn't quite sturdy enough, and ends up dissolving into wallpaper paste around your fingers. Making the sandwich on a toasted bagel does avoid that; it has the structural integrity to stand up to hot, moist meat (oh behave!) to the last bite. They did not, however, have the dense, chewy texture that I associate with bagels (another plus as far as I am concerned).

These seeded bagels had a pleasantly nutty, malty flavour that complemented the spice of the beef (this beef was quite a spicy one, it had residual little bits of coriander clinging to the edge). There was a slight sweetness to them as well, that I thought went well with the clean heat of the mustard.

I've never made bagels myself, but it is my understanding that they are usually a lean, fatless dough. Looking at the ingredient list, these bagels do have rapeseed oil in them, which is probably why they didn't go instantly stale the way other bagels seem to. In fact, they were still pleasantly fresh-tasting a couple of days later, ready to stand up to a schmear of cream cheese and quite a lot of smoked salmon, for a very good brunch.

In fact, the only thing I didn't like about these bagels were the seeds on top - the millet was impossible to chew, and most of the seeds just ended up scattered on and around the board where I prepared the sandwiches. So it turns out that I do like bagels, but only when they aren't very bagelly.

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.

Bacon Chops and A Festival of Cured Meat

I've been dabbling in preserved and cured meats for a while now - I've had a go at duck ham, parfait and rillettes, spiced beef, hot smoked trout, pastrami, droewors, bacon and tonno di coniglio. We both love the taste of cured meats, and we're interested in the old-fashioned techniques, so it works out well for us.

My most recent attempt were these stunningly easy, overnight-cured bacon chops from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall. So simple, they are a very good way in to home curing. I think it is partly the time of year - something atavistic about colder weather making me want to preserve food for the winter to come - but I have definitely been thinking that it was time to make some more spiced beef or something.

I knew Paul would be absolutely delighted when I found out that there is going to be a Festival of Cured Meats next weekend (28th- 30th October), at Southbank. Lots of market stalls, tastings and workshops, including some by Lindy Wildsmith. Plus the Metropolitan line is actually running next weekend, so it is clearly fate that we attend.

I've got a pork belly in the fridge, but I haven't been able to decide whether it is going to become streaky bacon or petit sale. I have to say the lentils in that video may just make my mind up for me. Not to mention the more instant gratification - waiting 3 weeks to try the bacon isn't appealing!

This week I was sent a copy of Lindy's book, Cured, to have a look at, but I haven't been able to do it justice yet. I think after the Festival of Cured Meats I will aim for a jumbo post on all things salted flesh related. With apologies to my vegetarian readers.

Reuben Sandwich

I'd been feeling that I hadn't done any cured meat in a while. I wanted to make some sausage or bacon or something. And then I hit upon the perfect thing. Pastrami.

I did some googling, and decided that this recipe from Emeril Lagasse seemed like the most workable for the home cook. I also liked the sound of the seasonings in the brine - I thought it was likely to make delicious pastrami. I used a smaller piece of brisket, so I only left it in the brine for two weeks, not three.

I smoked it on oak dust for 3 hours (it was a very cold day, and I think the ambient temperature kept the smoker cooler than usual) until it reached an internal temperature of 70C. During the smoking, the connective tissue melted out a bit and the brisket separated into two slabs.

The only other thing that I did differently was to press the pastrami under some fairly heavy weights (a plate, a wooden board and 3 cans of tomatoes) over night in order to make it easier to slice into neat serving slices. I left one half intact, wrapped it tightly and put it in the freezer, the other stayed out for eating!

So there was my pastrami. But how to eat it? Well, it had to be a Reuben sandwich! Although apparently it is only a reuben if it is made with salt beef. The same sandwich made with pastrami is a Rachel.

So I needed to make some good rye bread, to match my lovely pastrami.

We've been watching the Hairy Bikers on BBC iplayer, and I really liked their Classic Brown Loaf. It used a technique I haven't tried before, of making a ferment with flour, water and yeast and leaving it overnight before adding it to the rest of the flour.

I was very, very dubious when I put the ferment together - it looked very dry - but as the yeast started to work the bubbles worked through all the flour and made a very light sponge.

Because I wanted the rye flavour to come through more, I subbed rye flour for all of the wholemeal flour in the main bread recipe. I also used the last of my whey from cheesemaking instead of the water, to give it an extra tang.

I was a bit scared when I left the bread to prove - at one point I thought it was going to overflow all over the kitchen, so it only got 1 1/2 hours before it went into the oven. It did need the full 30 minutes to bake though.

It's a lovely bread! I gave it about 20 minutes to cool before I cut it, but I should have been a wee bit more patient, because it sliced much better when it was properly cooled.

The rye tang was still very subtle, but it had a lovely chewy texture and robust flavour. And I think the crust is the best I have ever produced; just the right balance between crisp and chewy. The very thing for my sandwich.

So then it was really just a matter of assembly. A good slice of bread, thickly smeared with mustard (we used Dijon), topped with overlapping thin slices of the pastrami, then forkfuls of well-drained sauerkraut and slices of gruyere cheese.

That went under the grill until the cheese melted and the sauerkraut and pastrami was hot through.

Topped with a second slice of bread and served with tall glasses of German beer, this was pretty much the perfect sandwich experience, and made a really delicious lunch. Genuinely worth the effort! This sandwich is going to Deb for her Souper (soup, salad and sammie) Sunday event!

School Holiday Treat - Ultimate salt beef sandwich

I really should have taken this picture when it was in full glory on the plate, not sitting there almost finished, a shadow of itself.

Anyway. Lunch this week with a teacher pal (Jude, of the famous Jude's thighs) to celebrate the fact that it is school holidays and she can play during the day. 32 Great Queen St - because we can.

I started with brawn fritters. Now, I don't know if the brawn was in fact made from pig's head, but if it was then it was the most user-friendly introduction to pig's head that you can imagine. Richly flavoured succulent shreds of meat encased in sturdy breading and deepfried to a chestnut brown. Very rich, but thoroughly delicious.

My main, was simply described as Hereford brisket, dripping toast, pickles. What emerged was the best salt beef sandwich ever. Thin, robust toast, crisped with dripping, topped with a goodly measure of sauerkraut and slices of gruyere, then covered with the most divinely tender salt brisket, crisscrossed with german mustard. On the side, a gherkin and a pickled chilli. I could have eaten two, only I wanted to leave room for pudding.

Corned beef

I do try not to serve beige meals, but occasionally I impress myself with the colours on a plate. Tonight's vibrant green and orange are so very pretty.

When I moved to the UK I had no idea that corned beef was held in such poor esteem here - it is entirely associated with the cans of shredded not-sure-what (which my husband makes into a fab, comforting pasta sauce) and not at all with the corned silverside of Australian country Sunday lunches and brilliant sandwiches. Come to think of it, I must find out from my mother how she came to be such a proponent of the art of silverside without being Australian or a country girl... On the other hand, there is a great fondness and respect for the Jewish hot salt beef bar, and from where I sit, salt beef and corned beef are very much the same animal.

Tonight's corned beef was a small piece from a brisket that I cured according to a recipe in Preserved by Nick Sandler and Johnny Acton. It's been sitting in the freezer for quite some while, and I am on a bit of a freezer-emptying jag at the moment, so I decided the time had come. With the other piece from this cure, it was a bit too salty, so I soaked this one overnight, before cooking it for 2 1/2 hours in fresh water, with a slosh of vinegar, a bayleaf and an onion spiked with cloves. I don't think the extra flavourings do anything much for the flavour of the meat, but they make the kitchen smell heavenly.

I am very lucky to have found in my husband a soulmate: someone who likes their parsley sauce thick as wallpaper paste, and with far more parsley in it than white sauce just like I do. It is so rare to find that I don't think I will be making parsley sauce for anyone else, ever. So, corned beef, peering from a thick blanket of sauce, with roast butternut pumpkin, some roast cloves of garlic and steamed broccolini. Yum. Nothing like the stuff in cans.