Battle Beef - Bresaola

A group of foodie friends got together Friday evening for a beef-themed dinner. Each couple brought a 2 1/2" porterhouse from the best source they could find (Lobel's, Snake River Wagyu, Brian Flannery, and Allen Bros. were represented), as well as a beef side dish and wine to match the steak or side.

Sides included beef consomme, burrata, and ice cream (beef-derived milk products were acceptable).

My side-dish contribution was a bresaola - Italian air-dried beef, sliced paper thin. The hosts served it with shaved Grana Padana, Arugula and Lemon-Pepper Dressing. It was the first time I had tried making bresaola and it was amazingly simple and delicious. I used the recipe from Ruhlman's Charcuterie.

Here is the meat after curing for 2 weeks:



Here it is after drying for 3 weeks:



Slices:



Ready:



Bill/SFNM

A thing of beauty, Bill.

What were the thoughts on the Porterhouse face-off?

Dmnkly wrote:
What were the thoughts on the Porterhouse face-off?

Thanks, Dom.

All of the steaks were among the best I have ever eaten, but judging one over another was difficult. On my plate I ended up with a crispy edge piece of one steak and juicy interior piece of another, etc. Every morsel was great, but it was quickly apparent that crowning a winner was not going to be realistic. Now, if you place four steaks in front of me and I can sample equivalent slices of each one in the process of consuming all four before or during the drive to the ER, then I think I could make a better judgment.

Bill/SFNM

Bill/SFNM wrote:

Dmnkly wrote:
What were the thoughts on the Porterhouse face-off?

Thanks, Dom.

All of the steaks were among the best I have ever eaten, but judging one over another was difficult. On my plate I ended up with a crispy edge piece of one steak and juicy interior piece of another, etc. Every morsel was great, but it was quickly apparent that crowning a winner was not going to be realistic. Now, if you place four steaks in front of me and I can sample equivalent slices of each one in the process of consuming all four before or during the drive to the ER, then I think I could make a better judgment.

Bill/SFNM

Oh, I don't even necessarily mean in terms of ranking or anything like that... just wondering if anything stood out or struck you as interesting with a variety of awesome beef in the room all at once.

Bill,

The sliced bresaola looks really wonderful.

Antonius

Antonius wrote:Bill,

The sliced bresaola looks really wonderful.

Thank you, A. It tasted even better and is quickly disappearing, just drizzled with a little olive oil and some lemon juice. Two more pieces are getting cured today since running out is now unthinkable. I would greatly appreciate suggestions for other ways of serving bresaola.

Bill/SFNM

Bill/SFNM wrote:I would greatly appreciate suggestions for other ways of serving bresaola.

I suggest you serve it at the LTHForum Picnic Sept 8th.

Downright inspirational. I saw the pix; I ordered the Ruhlman book; I plan to make.

David:

You will need Instacure (Prague Powder) #2, which you might not have if have never done dry-curing. If you are itching to make this, you might want to get some on order now if you don't have any.

Bill/SFNM

G Wiv wrote:I suggest you serve it at the LTHForum Picnic Sept 8th.

Gary,

You never know!

Bill/SFNM

The bresaola looks great. How did you manage to get those slices so thin? That's been my biggest problem with my cured meats.

benscanlon wrote:The bresaola looks great. How did you manage to get those slices so thin? That's been my biggest problem with my cured meats.

These were sliced on the hosts' ChefSelect brand slicer. These dried meats are hard enough to be easily sliced very thin. I have an ancient Italian slicer that I picked up maybe 30 years ago at a food service outlet. It slices so thin you can see through the slices, but it is such a major pain to clean - I pretty much have to disassemble it.

I will ask Louisa Chu to jump in here because she showed us some amazing high-speed, hand-cranked slicers that were for sale in the Rungis in Paris. She explained that hand-powered slicers are considered superior to electric ones. Maybe she can explain why. These were big floor-standing models. It would be great if they made smaller, counter-top ones.

Bill/SFNM

Hi,

During a free moment, I read the good book on how to make this product. There is a 2-3 weeks hanging time, did you do this in your wine cooler? How do you adjust the humidity? (I don't have a wine cooler yet, so I realize the last question may be self-explanatory ... maybe)

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:Hi,

There is a 2-3 weeks hanging time, did you do this in your wine cooler? How do you adjust the humidity?

Cathy2,

I normally dry this kind of product in my mini wine cooler which seems to maintain a humidity of around 60-70% without doing anything special. I could not use my cooler for the bresaola since it is currently set to a much lower temperature for another experiment that is in progress. So, in this case, the host of the Battle Beef agreed to let it hang in his enormous wine cellar where he measured a temperature where the meat was hanging at 55F and 50%-60% relative humidity. Turned out to be perfect.

In the past I have used a dish of water in the bottom of the cooler to increase the humidity. Although relative humidity is important for dry-aging, I've found the correct temperature is even more important. There seems a bigger window for humidity.

For measuring humidity, I use a cheapo hygrometer/thermometer that I purchased from RadioShack many years ago.

Hope this helps.

Bill/SFNM

Bill - do you have a Berkel slicer? What we saw at Rungis was the Ferrari of the Berkel family - the manual fly-wheel slicer. It's MSRP is $9450 - but you can find it for as "little" as around $5000 through a number of vendors. The stand is sold separately, MSRP $2040.

I had a chance to use one in New York and the action on it is pretty remarkable. Extremely smooth, effortless, incredibly precise. Purists believe that the manual fly-wheel is superior because it does not heat fine cured meats, as do electric machines with their quickly whirring blades.

Chris Cosentino, chef at Incanto restaurant in San Francisco uses one and is a huge advocate. He told me he's done side-by-side taste tests with manual and electric machines and was blown away by the notable differences. Here's Chris's own site, Offal Good:
http://www.offalgood.com/

An interesting note, W.A. Van Berkel was the Dutch butcher who invented the world's first meat-slicing machine in 1898. In 1909 the first American made machines were manufactured in Chicago at the U.S. Slicing Machine Company. Berkel is now based in South Bend, Indiana. See the company history here:
http://www.berkel.com/history/

FYI I wrote a CHOW column on meat slicers:
http://www.chow.com/stories/10197

I think we'll need some of Bill's cured meats AND a manual fly-wheel Berkel at the picnic.

Louisa Chu wrote:Bill - do you have a Berkel slicer? What we saw at Rungis was the Ferrari of the Berkel family - the manual fly-wheel slicer. It's MSRP is $9450 - but you can find it for as "little" as around $5000 through a number of vendors. The stand is sold separately, MSRP $2040.

I wish!

I have a no-name compact Italian electric - the Vespa of slicers.

Thank you, Louisa, for the great information, as always! It makes a lot of sense that slow speed is better for fine cured meats.

Bill/SFNM

Hi Bill - Berkel does actually make "entry-level" electric slicers too - not just the famous fly-wheel. The 823E is on sale here for only "only" $466.
http://ckitchen.com/Berkel_823E_Slicer. ... WAodwl6LUw

Chef Michael Symon uses an antique Berkel at Lolita in Cleveland to slice his house cured meats...he makes a great Lamb Heromeri (lamb leg prosciuttio), Soppresatta –spicy with fennel, Red Wine Lomo and Pancetta-pork loin, and pork belly.

His Heromeri, which has sweet spices such as cinnamon and allspice mixing with an undercurrent of saltiness, is one of the better/more interesting cured meats I've had in the last year.

Lolita

If anyone is looking for an antique Berkel, I've seen them on ebay for as low as a $1000, though that's totally cosmetically beat up, but otherwise functional (Symon basically bought one like this, fixed and repainted).