Cured Fil­let of Beef

cured beef salad

Cured Fil­let of Beef

(serves 6–8, with other ingre­di­ents, as a salad)

good chunk — maybe 700 grams/ 1 1/2 lb -  fil­let of beef, PER­FECTLY trimmed of all fat and sinew and membrane

60% salt to 40% sugar, enough to cover and sur­round the fil­let — per­haps 2 cups total mixture

8 sprigs rosemary

plenty of fresh ground pepper

Place 4 of the rose­mary sprigs on the bot­tom of a plas­tic con­tainer that will eas­ily hold your fil­let.  Gen­er­ously cover the bot­tom of the con­tainer with the salt/sugar mix­ture, then place the fil­let on top and pour in the rest of the salt/sugar mix­ture to cover and sur­round the fil­let.  Place the last 4 leaves of rose­mary into the top of the salt/sugar mix­ture, and cover the container.

Leave in the fridge for 3 days.  You will be amazed!  The salt/sugar has MELTED, the fil­let has shrunk dra­mat­i­cally and dark­ened, and stiff­ened.  Have a look.

Take the fil­let out of the cur­ing liq­uid and wash it well with cold water, then dry with a clean cloth.  Rub more fresh black pep­per all over the fillet.

Now for the salad ingredients.

Cured Beef and Cele­riac Salad

(serves 6–8 eas­ily, as a starter)

fil­let of cured beef

1/2 head cele­riac (cel­ery root), peeled

juice of 1 lemon

1 1/2 tbsp Dijon mustard

4 tbsps creme fraiche or sour cream

sea salt and pepper

good hand­ful rocket leaves (my addi­tion, you know me and rocket)

Sim­ply slice the cele­riac VERY thinly, into pieces like match­sticks.  Fer­gus reminds us to driz­zle lemon juice over the cele­riac all the time you are chop­ping it, so it doesn’t go dark.  Fold the mus­tard and creme fraiche together and sea­son to taste.

Slice the beef very thinly across.  Lay it on a pretty plat­ter on a large cir­cle, then scat­ter the cele­riac match­sticks over, and the rocket leaves.  Driz­zle with the mustard-creme fraiche dress­ing and serve.

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2 Responses to “Cured Fil­let of Beef”

  1. Sean:

    Kris­ten, would you please post this to Punk Domes­tics? I love the cured beef — we were hav­ing a Twit­ter con­ver­sa­tion a few weeks ago about why there’s so much pork in char­cu­terie but not so much beef. This helps dis­pel that.

    February 16th, 2011 at 11:27 pm
  2. steve:

    thanks Kris­ten, this will be our xmas entre !,

    steve in New Zealand

    December 15th, 2012 at 10:12 pm

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