Corned beef

Corned beef is a salt-cured beef product. The term comes from the treatment of the meat with large grained rock salt, also called "corns" of salt. It features as an ingredient in many cuisines. Most recipes include nitrates or nitrites, which convert the natural hemoglobin in beef to methaemoglobin, giving a pink color. It has been argued that nitrates reduce the risk of dangerous botulism during curing. Beef cured with salt only has a gray color, and is sometimes called "New England corned beef". Often sugar and spices are also added to recipes for corned beef.

It was popular during both World Wars, when fresh meat was rationed. Corned beef remains popular in the United Kingdom and countries with British culinary traditions and is commonly used in sandwiches, corned beef hash or eaten with chips and pickles. It also remains especially popular in Canada in a variety of dishes, perhaps most prominently Montreal smoked meat.

History

Although the exact beginnings of corned beef are unknown, it most likely came about when people began preserving meat through salt-curing. Evidence of its legacy is apparent in numerous cultures, including Ancient Europe and the Middle East. The word corn derives from Old English, and is used to describe any small, hard particles or grains. In the case of "corned beef", the word may refer to the coarse granular salts used to cure the beef. The word corned may also refer to the corns of potassium nitrate, also known as saltpetre, which were formerly used to preserve the meat.

Beef

Beef is the culinary name for meat from bovines, especially cattle. Beef can be harvested from bulls, heifers or steers. Its acceptability as a food source varies in different parts of the world.

Beef muscle meat can be cut into roasts, short ribs or steak (filet mignon, sirloin steak, rump steak, rib steak, rib eye steak, hanger steak, etc.). Some cuts are processed (corned beef or beef jerky), and trimmings, usually mixed with meat from older, leaner cattle, are ground, minced or used in sausages. The blood is used in some varieties of blood sausage. Other parts that are eaten include the oxtail, liver, tongue, tripe from the reticulum or rumen, glands (particularly the pancreas and thymus, referred to as sweetbread), the heart, the brain (although forbidden where there is a danger of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, BSE), the kidneys, and the tender testicles of the bull (known in the United States as calf fries, prairie oysters, or Rocky Mountain oysters). Some intestines are cooked and eaten as-is, but are more often cleaned and used as natural sausage casings. The bones are used for making beef stock.

Salt

Common salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in its natural form as a crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantities in seawater, where it is the main mineral constituent; the open ocean has about 35 grams (1.2 oz) of solids per litre, a salinity of 3.5%. Salt is essential for animal life, and saltiness is one of the basic human tastes. The tissues of animals contain larger quantities of salt than do plant tissues; therefore the typical diets of nomads who subsist on their flocks and herds require little or no added salt, whereas cereal-based diets require supplementation. Salt is one of the oldest and most ubiquitous of food seasonings, and salting is an important method of food preservation.

Some of the earliest evidence of salt processing dates to around 8,000 years ago, when people living in Romania were boiling spring water to extract the salts; a salt-works in China has been found which dates to approximately the same period. Salt was prized by the ancient Hebrews, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Hittites and the Egyptians. Salt became an important article of trade and was transported by boat across the Mediterranean Sea, along specially built salt roads, and across the Sahara in camel caravans. The scarcity and universal need for salt has led nations to go to war over salt and use it to raise tax revenues. Salt is also used in religious ceremonies and has other cultural significance.

Beef tenderloin

A beef tenderloin, known as an eye fillet in Australasia, fillet in South Africa and the UK, filet in France and Germany, is cut from the loin of beef.

Description

As with all quadrupeds, the tenderloin refers to the psoas major muscle ventral to the transverse processes of the lumbar vertebrae, near the kidneys.

The tenderloin is an oblong shape spanning two primal cuts: the short loin (called the sirloin in Commonwealth countries) and the sirloin (called the rump in Commonwealth countries). The tenderloin sits beneath the ribs, next to the backbone. It has two ends: the butt and the "tail". The smaller, pointed end — the "tail" — starts a little past the ribs, growing in thickness until it ends in the "sirloin" primal cut, which is closer to the butt of the cow. This muscle does very little work, so it is the most tender part of the beef. The tenderloin can be cut for either roasts or steaks.

Processing and preparation

Whole tenderloins are sold as either "unpeeled" (meaning the fat and silver skin remain), "peeled" (meaning that the fat is removed, but silver skin remains), or as PSMOs ("pismos"), which is short for peeled, silver skin removed, and side muscle (the "chain") left on. While the most expensive option pound-for-pound, PSMOs offer considerable savings over other tenderloin options as they require little handling by the chef, since the fat and trimmings have already been removed. How to trim the silver skin can be learnt by home cooks quite easily, but trimming a tenderloin is a job best done by experts. Inexperienced meat cutters can damage the steaks by reducing the yield or worsening the visual presentation. Since it is the tenderest part of the animal, beef dishes requiring exceptionally tender meat, such as steak tartare, are ideally made from the tenderloin.

Brisket

Brisket is a cut of meat from the breast or lower chest of beef or veal. The beef brisket is one of the nine beef primal cuts, though the precise definition of the cut differs internationally. The brisket muscles include the superficial and deep pectorals. As cattle do not have collar bones, these muscles support about 60% of the body weight of standing/moving cattle. This requires a significant amount of connective tissue, so the resulting meat must be cooked correctly to tenderize the connective tissue.

According to the Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Second Edition, the term derives from the Middle English brusket which comes from the earlier Old Norse brjósk, meaning cartilage. The cut overlies the sternum, ribs and connecting costal cartilages.

Method of cooking

Brisket can be cooked many ways. Basting of the meat is often done during the cooking process. This normally tough cut of meat, due to the collagen fibers that make up the significant connective tissue in the cut, is tenderized when the collagen gelatinizes, resulting in more tender brisket. The fat cap, which is often left attached to the brisket, helps to keep the meat from drying during the prolonged cooking necessary to break down the connective tissue in the meat. Water is necessary for the conversion of collagen to gelatin, which is the hydrolysis product of collagen.