a rous­ing success

I know one of the car­di­nal rules of enter­tain­ing is NEV­ER to make a dish for guests that you’ve nev­er made before. I have nev­er adhered to this rule. I think that if you choose your guests wise­ly, invit­ing only peo­ple who are adven­tur­ous and gen­er­ous of spir­it (and come to think of it, why would you have any friends who are not?), all will be well. Make sure your guests are in the exper­i­men­tal mood, tell them in advance what inven­tion they’re in for, and let the bells chime.

It was in this spir­it that Annie and her fam­i­ly arrived for my much-dra­ma­tized spiced beef on Wednes­day. As you will recall, I acquired a sol­id gold 2‑kilogram chunk of brisket from my dear butch­er, Mr Sten­ton of Brack­en­bury Vil­lage, near­ly two weeks ago. In the inter­ven­ing time, I had to wait for the fed­er­al author­i­ties to vet Mr Sten­ton, ascer­tain that he was not a card-car­ry­ing mem­ber of the IRA or any oth­er para­mil­i­tary orga­ni­za­tion, and let him pur­chase 46 grams of salt­pe­tre. Then I had to trek up to Not­ting Hill to the Spice Shop and hunt down juniper berries and all­spice, plus some very intrigu­ing sort of black pep­per­corns. Once this was accom­plished, I was ready to go.

Row­ley Leigh’s Spiced Beef
(serves 10 at least)

1 2‑kilogram piece of brisket, with fat but no sinew or membrane
100 grams Demer­ara sugar
15 grams saltpetre
125 rock or sea salt
30 grams black peppercorns
15 grams allspice
15 grams juniper berries

Rub the beef with the sug­ar, top and bot­tom, cov­er with cling­film and refrig­er­ate overnight. The next day, grind the spices coarse­ly in a mor­tar and pes­tle or in a food proces­sor and com­bine with the salt and salt­pe­tre. Rub this mix­ture vig­or­ous­ly into the meat, cov­er again with film and refrig­er­ate for 10 days, turn­ing the meat from time to time and ensur­ing it is even­ly exposed to the cur­ing mixture.

After 10 days, remove the meat from its brine and rinse off any adher­ing spices. Place the meat in a tight-fit­ting casse­role with two inch­es of water. Cov­er with grease­proof paper and the lid of the casse­role. Place in a mod­er­ate oven 150C for three hours so that it gen­tly steams and braises.

Remove the meat from the oven and leave to cool in the casse­role. Once cool, remove to a dish and place a weight­ed plate ‑four tins of toma­toes is the usu­al pre­scrip­tion — on top. Refrig­er­ate overnight. The next day, serve the meat cold, in thin slices.

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Well. I can report that this dish, pos­i­tive­ly Rube­nesque in its audac­i­ty and flesh­li­ness, is MAG­NIF­I­CENT. I put my nose down to it right away and was trans­port­ed to the cor­ner of Hous­ton and Avenue A, the loca­tion of the most superb Jew­ish del­i­catessen on earth, Katz. The aro­ma is at once robust and del­i­cate, smelling faint­ly of a gin and ton­ic (that’s the juniper for you) and mak­ing you think of Hen­ry the Eighth with a stein of ale in one hand and a huge roast­ed turkey leg in the oth­er. This beef is not for the faint of heart, but then what good food is? It’s hearty, gen­er­ous, and very, very exotic.

We rev­elled. The can­dles gleamed, the Christ­mas snow that we’d sprin­kled on the table pro­vid­ed the per­fect vehi­cle for young Fred to write mes­sages to every­one, Annie’s usu­al ring­ing laugh­ter.  And the side dish­es were per­fect, though I say it. I had intend­ed to pro­duce Orlan­do’s out­ra­geous­ly rich straw pota­toes in goose fat, but the after­noon got away from me and I did not have time to juli­enne any­thing or any­one. So it was mash: rich and deca­dent with dou­ble cream. I had also intend­ed to serve a love­ly crunchy red cab­bage slaw with fen­nel, but some­one had cru­el­ly bought all the red cab­bage in Shep­herd’s Bush, so I impro­vised and end­ed up with:

Sauteed Savoy Cab­bage with Fen­nel and Fen­nel Seeds
(serves 10 generously)

3 tbsps olive oil
5 cloves gar­lic, minced
1 head Savoy cab­bage, shred­ded as for cole slaw
4 heads fen­nel, sliced thin (be sure to include the fer­ny tops)
2 tbsps fen­nel seeds

Heat the oil in a large skil­let and fry the gar­lic until just soft. Throw in every­thing else and saute gen­tly, tak­ing care not to burn the gar­lic. When the fen­nel is soft, you’re done.

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Kei­th was right when he said that the soft (and dare I say it) unc­tu­ous veg­eta­bles were the per­fect foil for the beef, and with a nice dab of mash on one’s fork to go with it… heavenly.

Inter­est­ing­ly, the meat that weighed near­ly exact­ly 2 kilo­grams when fresh had dimin­ished to about 1.3 kilo­grams when we were ready to cook it. And yet there was noth­ing approach­ing 700 grams of liq­uid in the dish the beef mar­i­nat­ed in. A mys­tery, to be sure. It was intrigu­ing to note how, as the days went by, the tex­ture of the beef changed; it start­ed out that rather pli­able and lumpy feel­ing of raw meat, but by the end of the mar­i­nat­ing process it had solid­i­fied and hard­ened. Fas­ci­nat­ing. And deli­cious, too. John mused that he might pre­fer the beef with­out the final step of refrig­er­a­tion, just lift­ed from the hot brais­ing brine and eat­en imme­di­ate­ly. Per­haps next time.

The din­ner was the per­fect fes­tive occa­sion to ush­er in a lit­tle more Christ­mas spir­it. I look back on that evening now with nos­tal­gia, as I am writ­ing now from a bed of dizzi­ness and mis­ery. I have the Virus That Ate Shep­herd’s Bush, or even the Greater Lon­don Met­ro­pol­i­tan Area. Just mis­er­able. I only hope I don’t pass it on to Avery, and that I feel some­what less dire when it’s time to get on a plane tomor­row evening and head to Con­necti­cut. Peo­ple have been frown­ing dark­ly when they find out I am under the weath­er and mut­ter­ing things like, “Mine hung on for two weeks.” That is not on, not at all.

I’m wad­ing through Christ­mas cards and stamps and piles of presents and books I can­not live with­out for two weeks and cam­eras and all the oth­er detri­tus need­ed for our hol­i­day. I feel nowhere near ready to leave home for such a long time, but I know from expe­ri­ence that once I arrive at Red Gate Farm, my cares will melt away and I’ll be ready to celebrate.