Traditional Spiced Beef

There is a long tradition of preserving meats in this country (and most other countries) - perhaps salting meat is the best known (think of corned beef, ham, bacon etc).  However, salting meat alone does little to improve the flavour - it simply dries out excess moisture which contains the bacteria that cause decay.  Subsequently, individual 'cures' for meat often include added dimensions - such as flavouring with herbs and spices or smoking.

For Boxing Day lunch this time around, I wanted to something in addition to the usual boiled-and-baked ham (which was delicious by the way), and found this recipe for a traditional spiced beef in Elizabeth David's Salt, Spices and Aromatics in the English Kitchen.  My recipe is an adaptation of her recipe which is an adaptation of a 19th century recipe which is an adaptation of.... well, it goes back a few hundred years at least!

The main difference in my recipe to David's is that I don't use saltpetre - for one, I wouldn't know where to get it these days, and secondly, its main purpose is to preserve the colour.  Given that it doesn't really improve flavour and is bad for you, I decided not to use it.

What is quite exciting/nerve-wracking about this recipe is the sheer length of time it takes - weeks rather than days.  We are, after all, curing the meat here, not just flavouring it.

The outcome, I have to say, was pretty special.  Beautifully firm and close textured yet soft to the bite, it was unlike any other cured beef I'd had.  And the spicing was excellent - not too salty (which was a concern), and penetrating the meat subtly.  It ate very well with the usual cold-cuts trimmings - pickled red cabbage in particular.

Boxing Day Spiced Beef

5lb+ joint of silverside (see below)
3oz soft brown sugar
4oz coarse sea salt
1oz black peppercorns
1/2oz All Spice berries
1oz Juniper berries

For once, this is probably not a dish for an expensive, well-hung joint - as we're going to cure it ourselves where it will naturally mature.  It does need to be a nice sized joint though - and fairly evenly sized throughout.  If you buy the beef from a supermarket (shame on you - well, me actually, 'cos I did) it will probably come in one of those grim elasticated body-stockings - you'll need to remove this and tie the beef yourself.  If anyone can tell me how to tie a butcher's knot, please do!  Only tie the beef enough to keep it in shape - so every inch or so.

Eating day minus 14 days:
Rub the beef all over with the sugar, place in a plastic tub, seal and leave in the fridge for two days.

Eating day minus 11 days:
Roughly grind the salt and spices with a pestle and mortar (you may need to do this in batches) - we're looking for a gritty appearance here, rather than powder, but ensure that all the berries are broken.  The sugar should now have largely been absorbed by the beef and soaked out some of the moisture from the meat - pour off the liquid.  Rub the beef all over with the salt and spice mix.
Put the beef back in the box in the fridge and rub with the spice mix every day (it's not the end of the world if you miss a day or two!).

Eating day minus 1 day:
Preheat the oven to 110-120degrees C.  Remove the beef from the tub.  Try to brush the spice mix off as best you can - but don't wash it off.
Put the beef into a large roasting tin/casserole with 1/2 - 1 pint of water and seal tightly (a double layer of foil, well folded in to create the seal will do).  Cook in the slow oven for 5 (yes FIVE) hours - this is a slow oven mind!  This will now fill your house with the smell of cooking beef and spices - my brother thought it smelled of sausagemeat - he wasn't far wrong.

Remove from the oven, pour away the cooking liquor (which will smell great but mine was too salty to use), cool.  Place it in another tin and press under a heavy weight overnight. 

Serve cool and sliced very thinly (almost so you can see through it). 

Wrapped closely, this will keep in the fridge for a week or more.  Except it won't because your guests will all want to take some home...

So all told, it takes a long time, but is actually quite simple.  Just if you're serving this on Boxing Day, you might want to cook it all on Christmas Eve, rather than Christmas Day. I think next time, I'm going to experiment with the spicing - I can definitely see coriander going in there, but I'm not sure quite what to put in there with it...  answers on a postcard to the usual address!

tags: beef  

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