SALTY DOGS

 

This is one of the better sandwich-related headlines I’ve ever read:

 This is possibly the least flattering photograph I’ve ever seen of Grace Dent with a sandwich (it’s from her Instagram, so don't blame me).

This is a sandwich I ate at the Rosey Lea Café at the Henry Moore Garden and Studios: 'Salt Beef: Fresh rocket, fresh tomato, red onion and horseradish.’  It was good.

 

And this is a sandwich I ate at the Rose, a rather good pub, on the Albert Embankment: ‘Salt beef sandwich - salted beef, mustard, gherkins, skin on fries.’  I really didn’t need the fries.

 

Then I saw that my local Co-op sells salt beef – made by a company called The Taste of Suffolk - so I bought some of that and made my own sandwich.

 

     Then I saw that the Co-op was also selling brisket joints and I had some notion that salt beef is made from brisket so I bought some of that.  Then I got home and looked up recipes and discovered that a good salt beef is brined for 10 days, and that was just too much delayed gratification, so we made a brisket hotpot which certainly involves a certain amount of delay since you’re supposed to cook it for four hours but we decided we could live with that.  The result looked like this:

Brisket pics by Caroline Gannon

Our verdict at the time was ‘tasty but tough’ so maybe we should have cooked it even longer.  In any case, there was plenty left over for a sandwich.  Like a fool I bought some bagels, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I really don’t like bagels.  But the meat was great.  There’s some Boursin in there too because that’s the kind of guy I am.

Is a bagel a sandwich?  Of course it is.