A proper salt beef

[JC70]

I’m not a red meat lover, but I can’t resist the taste of a proper salt beef. So far, one of the best I’ve tried is the one at Selfridges (!), but I’m looking for a decent one to have in a restaurant. I have been once at the restaurant close to Swiss Cottage, where they where advertising a big ‘Salt beef’ neon light sign. I was completely disappointed when I was served a thinly sliced out-of-the-packet kind. I haven’t seen the sign on this particular restaurant recently…. (must have been the several complaints!).

Anyway, if you can suggest me your favourite place, where I can have the dish ‘traditionally’ done, I will be really grateful… (I’m already craving for it!!)

[Matthew Grant]

Salt beef bagels from Brick Lane - superb. I'm afraid I can't remember the name of the place (I think there are actually two) but it never disappointed when I was working long nightshifts in Docklands.

[JC70]

Salt beef bagels from Brick Lane ....

I have been here already, and was very good indeed, but this time I'm looking more for a traditional restaurant rather than a quick bite

[Fat Guy]

Nomenclature question: are you looking for the dinner that we in the US would call "corned beef and cabbage"?

[wesza]

Salt beef bagels from Brick Lane ....

I have been here already, and was very good indeed, but this time I'm looking more for a traditional restaurant rather than a quick bite

"Blooms" in Golders Green is a authentic Kosher Restaurant originally from Whitechapel that was one of the first serving Salt and Spiced Beef in London.

Irwin

[JC70]

are you looking for the dinner that we in the US would call "corned beef and cabbage"?

???

[Fat Guy]

Okay, let me try again: would you give a description of all the components of "the dish ‘traditionally’ done"?

[MobyP]

The most popular and 'authentic' salt beef shack that I know of is on St. John's Wood High st - which is close to Swiss Cottage. But we're talking the real thing here. No packets.

I just had the pastrami at Harrods - and it was pretty bad. They also have salt beef. Of course, you could always use it as a cheap excuse to stick your nose into the white truffle box.

Not that I'm sayin I did that, mind you.

[JC70]

.... would you give a description of all the components of "the dish ‘traditionally’ done"?

well, I probably mis-used the term traditional, as this could mean different things in different places. What I meant by traditional was a 'real' salt beef, not something coming out of the packet, as my previous experience....please don't ask me what I mean by 'real 'now... :

[MobyP]

Okay, let me try again: would you give a description of all the components of "the dish ‘traditionally’ done"?

FG -

Technically it is some form of salting/boiling/braising/burrying beneath a yak for 40 days and 40 nights/slicing/dollop o' mustard/serve on rye/get that big boy down ya.

But that's bein', like, technical.

Culturally I got no idea.

Edited November 11, 2003 by MobyP (log)

[Fat Guy]

So, forgive me for being slow, the traditional English version of the dish is a sandwich: salt beef on rye with mustard?

[jackal10]

salt beef (UK) = Corned Beef (US)

A traditional Ashkenazi Jewish delight.

Beef, salt pickled, then long slow cooked. A bit like pastrami without the smoke.

Eaten with Latkes, or best in a sandwich with rye bread, plenty mustard and full sour dill pickles.

I second the suggestion for Blooms in Golders Green, , but its not the same as the original east end restaurant in the Mile End Road. Last time I went the waiters were almost polite, and the portions small enough to finish!

Cue for Jewish restaurant jokes..

Edited November 11, 2003 by jackal10 (log)

[Fat Guy]

Here in the USA the average citizen would not necessarily associate corned beef with Jewish delis. Rather, it is most commonly viewed as an Irish product, as in the corned-beef-and-cabbage dinners that are widely available at Irish-American-owned pubs across the country. I was just figuring that, with England being so close to Ireland, maybe the association would be stronger. Although I've heard that corned-beef-and-cabbage is less popular in Ireland than it is among Irish-Americans.

[jackal10]

Corned beef here refers usually to a tinned product, often of South American origin.

Doesn't have the saltpetre in it that Salt Beef does, so it is brown, not pink/red.

Used in hash, but that is about all.

[Fat Guy]

Here's a little background from our friends at the US Department of Agriculture:

Originally "Corned Beef and Cabbage" was a traditional dish served for Easter Sunday dinner in rural Ireland. The beef, which was salted or brined during the winter to preserve it, could then be eaten after the long, meatless Lenten fast.

Since the advent of refrigeration, the trend in Ireland is to eat fresh meats. Today this peasant dish is more popular in the United States than in Ireland. Irish-Americans and lots of other people eat it on St. Patrick's Day, Ireland's principal feast day, as a nostalgic reminder of their Irish heritage.

Corning is a form of curing; it has nothing to do with corn. The name comes from Anglo-Saxon times before refrigeration. In those days, the meat was dry-cured in coarse "corns" of salt. Pellets of salt, some the size of kernels of corn, were rubbed into the beef to keep it from spoiling and to preserve it.

Today brining -- the use of salt water -- has replaced the dry salt cure, but the name "corned beef" is still used, rather than "brined" or "pickled" beef. Commonly used spices that give corned beef its distinctive flavor are peppercorns and bay leaf. Of course, these spices may vary regionally.

[Shiewie]

Corned Beef & Cabbage - The Feeding of A Myth.

[JC70]

I second the suggestion for Blooms in Golders Green.....

I'll go with this suggestion,

thank you!

[Andy Lynes]

We've discussed this a couple of times on the boards on the past : here and here.

[Andy Lynes]

I have had a very good salt beef bagel in the Nosherie, 12-13 Greville Street, London EC1N 8SB, tel: 020 7242 1591. Reasonable prices, quite comfortable and quite good service if I remember correctly.

[Suzi Edwards]

I have had a very good salt beef bagel in the Nosherie, 12-13 Greville Street, London EC1N 8SB, tel: 020 7242 1591. Reasonable prices, quite comfortable and quite good service if I remember correctly.

you beat me to it :-)

[Katherine]

But back to the myth: It was in the late 19th century that it began to take root. When the Irish emigrated to America and Canada, where both salt and meat were cheaper, they treated beef the same way they would have treated a "bacon joint" at home in Ireland: they soaked it to draw off the excess salt, then braised or boiled it with cabbage, and served it in its own juices with only minimal spicing - may be a bay leaf or so, and some pepper.

At the time when the Irish began immigrating to New England, it was already the practice there to store chunks of meat in barrels of brine for the winter. Think "salt pork", the square of brined fat back we put in beans.