Last weekend I took a piece of brisket and brined it for nine days. The brine composed of two litres of water, 200g of salt, 75g of sugar, 2 roughly chopped garlic cloves and a tbsp of pickling spice. To make sure that everything was suitably dissolved I heated the brining ingredients gently together in a saucepan. Once dissolved it was left to cool to room temperature.
The brisket was put into a freezer bag and then the cooled brine was ladled in. I squeezed out as much air as I could and then zipped it up. To make sure that nothing leaked out, this bag was placed in another freezer bag and the whole package was put into the fridge. Each day I tried to move the brisket within the bag to make sure that everything piece of the brisket got a good soaking.
So today was the day! Some peeled carrots, a bay leaf and a roughly chopped onion were put into a saucepan along with the liberated brisket. Enough water to cover the meat was added and then it was brought to a simmer and left for four hours - hey presto Salt Beef.
Rye doesn't agree with me and we couldn't find any sourdough yesterday so good old white bread had to step into the breach. A layer of 1000 island dressing, a slab of salt beef, a mound of sauerkraut and some emmenthal cheese went between the slices of bread before being toasted. All I can say if you never had a Reuben you're missing an eating experience!
Would I do anything different. It's probably against the rules but I would toast the bread on one side before building the Reuben. Other than that, absolutely nothing else would change.
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