‹ The Sandwich 100 › Make it at home

The Sandwich 100 · make it at home

Hot salt beef beigel with English mustard

5 to 7 days curing, 3 1/2 hr simmering · A 1.5 kg brisket, 10 to 12 beigels

London's salt beef is brisket cured in brine and simmered until it shreds at the edges, then sliced thick into a chewy beigel with hot English mustard. Nothing else.

Save it and it opens in Chef Amazing with a timeline, mise en place, what you already have and a shopping list.

The real one

You need

• 1.5 kg (3 1/2 lb) beef brisket, rolled or flat
• For the brine: 2.5 liters water, 250 g (1 cup) kosher salt, 150 g (3/4 cup) brown sugar, 20 g (scant 1 tbsp) pink curing salt No. 1, 2 bay leaves, 1 tsp black peppercorns, 1 tsp juniper berries, 4 cloves
• For simmering: 1 onion, halved, 1 carrot, 1 stick celery, 2 bay leaves, 1 tsp black peppercorns
• To serve: plain beigels (bagels), hot English mustard, sliced gherkins

How to make it

1. Brine (5 to 7 days): Heat 1 liter of the water with the salts, sugar and spices until dissolved, add the rest cold, and chill completely. Submerge the brisket, weigh it down and refrigerate 5 days for a thin piece, 7 for a thick one, turning every day or two.
2. Soak (1 hr): Rinse the meat and soak it in cold water for an hour.
3. Simmer (3 to 3 1/2 hr): Put it in a large pot with the onion, carrot, celery, bay and peppercorns, cover with fresh cold water and bring slowly to a bare simmer; skim the grey foam. Simmer gently, lid ajar, until a fork slides in with no resistance, 3 to 3 1/2 hours. Top up with boiling water to keep it covered.
4. Rest in the liquid (20 min): Leave it in the cooking water 20 minutes so it stays juicy.
5. Slice and build: Lift it out and slice against the grain, about 6 mm (1/4 in) thick. The ends will fall apart; that's the best part. Split a beigel, spread both sides with English mustard, pile in 120 to 150 g (4 to 5 oz) hot beef and add gherkins.

Tips

• Keep leftover meat in some of its cooking liquid and reheat slices in it.
• English mustard is fierce. Start thin.

Chef Amazing's own home version, in our words; not any shop's recipe.