Bresaola or beef bresaola is one of the cured meat cold cut or charcuterie. Bresaola, sometimes called brisaola is air-dried, salted and spiced beef, bison or venison deer that has been aged for several months until it becomes hard and turns a dark red. Bresaola usually made from lean and tender meat like eye round or tenderloin. Properly trimming process is essential to the rich taste. The meat of beef are thoroughly defatted and seasoned with a dry rub of coarse salt, spices, and herbs. They are then left to cure for a few days. Air drying period of beef bresaola between one and three months follows, depending on the weight of the particular bresaola. The meat loses about 30-40% of its original weight during aging.
I like home curing, smoking and preserving, eversince i’ve made my Homemade Venison Deer Bresaola Recipe, Homemade Gravlax (Salt Curing Salmon) and Homemade Duck Prosciutto (Air Dry-Cured Duck Breast), i’m obsessed with making homemade cured meat or charcuterie. I even made Homemade Smoked Salmon Recipe, Homemade Tea Smoked Duck Recipeand Homemade Smoked Beef Recipe. Homemade beef bresaola is away cheaper than the gourmet deli store price tag. Making beef bresaola is actualy effordless since you let the time doing it’s drying and aging process. Beside, you can control all ingredients and adjust the taste according to your own personal licking. For example, i add szechuan peppercorn to my homemade bresaola to satisfied my asian descent taste buds and you won’t get any of it in the store.
Beef bresaola is popular among the hunters because it was ancient old meat preserving method. Properly dry cured method of bresaola can save the good amount of hunting harvest. Than they can enjoyed it for a long day since it can last for months or even years. Some would love to inocculate a good white mould in the exposed meat to make it last longer. To mantain the red meat color and prevent spoiling and poisoning from botulist, bresaola cured with nitrites like salt peter or potassium nitrid. The nitride oxide binded and reacted with the remaining myoglobin in the flesh and make a red pigmentation. This process get even better when the water is drained out from the flesh.
Home curing beef bresaola is very savety, as long as you had the proper technique and equipments. When you dealing with uncooked meat, you need to made sure that all your equipments is clean and dry. Measure the weight of your beef then calculate the sea salt weight (2-3 %) and the pink salt weight (0,1%) needed to curing the beef . Right after you finished curing the beef with salts, sugar and spices for about 2-3 days, depend on your beef loin size. The cured beef is washed under cleaned running water, hung in a cold, good-ventilated and dark place, then left until dry and loosen 30 percent of it’s original weight. Make sure you notes the weight of the cured beef before you hung it and calculate the 30 percent loss from the original weight. In my case, the cured beef filet mignon weight is 166 grams and the 30% loss is 49,8, which means my bresaola is ready to eaten when it’s weighted 116 grams. Unfortunately, my cured beef is a little bit forgotten in the fridge and the drying goes a little bit too far until the bresaola weight reach 110 grams in 16 days (30 Mei-16 June 2014), but since my bresaola made of finest filet mignon cut, the taste is still fine and the texture is still tender.
The time for maturing or air dry aging the cured beef is depending on the temperature, humidity and the climates. The optimal air drying process made the cured beef aged to develop more umami flavour, but heat and hight humidity introduce the unwanted mold and bacteries and ruined your bresaola. If you found any greenish mold or wet and icky dripping with strange smells, discard your bresaola and made another ones because i’m sure you don’t wanna risk your health. The best enviroment for making cured meat is cold climate with low humidity. When you lived in a tropical country with high temperature and humidity, don’t worry about it, as long as you can set your refrigerator in “dry mode” you can made your own dry cured meat or bresaola. I’m using my fridge for drying and curing many things, i even using it for drying my duck skin for making Homemade Peking Duck Recipe with Crispy Skin Recipe. Never forget to cleaned out your fridge before using it to hung dry and curing meat and never put any veggies like cabbage, onions, etc unless your bresaola got a funny smells and even worst molded and ruined.
The spices and herbs used to curing and flavouring the beef bresaola is different according to the traditions and your personal preferences. For making mine, i’m using a combinations of nutmeg, szechuan pepercorn, fennel seed, cumin, cardamon, sage, tarragon, juniper berries, black pepper, bay leaf, cloves, thyme, oregano, and rosemary. For the salt, i’m using homemade wood smoked salt and also salt peter (sendawa). All of the rub then processed in a food processor until form a fine powder to made it penetrate better to the meat.
How to enjoy beef bresaola is up to your preference, bresaola usually sliced into paper thin and served at room temperature or slightly cold. It is most commonly eaten on its own, but may be drizzled with olive oil and lemon juice or balsamic vinegar. I love to serve beef bresaola as a salad or as an appetizer on a top of toasted whole wheat bread with blue cheese, pesto or spicy salsa dressing. Another variation is serving beef bresaola as a pasta or pizza topping. If you ask me about how does beef bressola taste like, i guess it almost the same with beef bresaola, but got a gamey deer flavour within. Beef bresaola is got more iron-like taste with metal aftertaste, just like you eat your anemia supplement.
Homemade Beef Bresaola Recipe:
Ingredient:
- 1 1/2 pounds beef tenderloin (replace with beef)
- 20 gr (about 2-3 percent from the meat) wood smoked seasalt
- 1/4 tsp of salt peter/ pottasium nitride (you can either use pink salt)
- 30 gr brown sugar (you can replace with regular sugar)
- spice : nutmeg, szechuan pepercorn, fennel seed, cumin, cardamon, juniper berries, black peppercorn, and cloves
- herbs : sage, tarragon, bay leaf, thyme, oregano, and rosemary
Instruction:
- Trim any silverskin and fat from the beef tenderloin, note the weigh for counting the salt weigth (2-3% sea salt and 0,1% curing salt/pink salt/salt peter)
- Process all salt, sugar, spice and herbs in the food processor until form fine powder, set aside
- Put the spiced beef loin in the non reactive airthight container (or using zip lock bag), let it refrigerate in 7-10 days until very firm depending on the size of your meat, flip it every 12 hour
- Washed the cured beef under running cold water, patted dry and set aside
- Tide the cured beef with butcher twines and secure the end, note the date and the weight of your salted and cured beef loin (count and note your 30 percent weight loss of your beef bresaola)
- Hung the beef bresaola in your clean refrigerator, set it in “dry mode”
- Watch and weight your beef bresaola until it got ideal 30 percent of weight lose target
- Thinly slice your bresaola with sharp knive and enjoy your homemade beef bresaola in fresh greens salad or with tomato pizza.
I’m always so intrigued by your smoked and cured recipes Dedy. I’m sure this one is delicious. We made a beautiful charcuterie platter last weekend and it was well received and delicious. I wish I had home made bresaola for sure.
It’s incredible that you make all these things at home! But frankly my dad does the same, and I have to ask him what is the process, ingredients he uses and so on, I think it’s good to preserve these recipes, I might use them at some point. You should be proud of yourself, as these days very few people have time and enthusiasm to make things really from the scratch. It looks delicious 🙂
This is one of my husband’s favorite meats when we travel to Europe. I’ve never thought of making it. Thanks for the inspiration.
This is so inspiring! I want to make one of my own now 😀
Wow, so impressed that you cure your own meat too : ) Looks awesome!
Impressive! Curing your own meat must be fun, specially when the outcome is gorgeous. Wish I can grab a slice and put it in my sandwich 🙂
Hi Dedy, this post is not displaying correctly on my iPad. I could only see the image of you slicing the beef. It reads very well though.
Best,
Conor
Wow, this is impressive! I always wanted to learn how to cure meats. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Once again, I am speechless. You are so talented, Dedy. This cured beef must taste amazing.
That is such red beef bersola. One of the reddest I’ve seen. I like my beef thinly sliced or else it will be tough to chew. I also prefer it when steaks aren’t served to thick, easier to cut.
Thanks for cooking again, Dedy. As Angie said above, you have a talent for cooking. Maybe you should open a restaurant or food stall 🙂
Hi Dedy, Wow! this is truly amazing. It seems like a lost art that you are resurrecting.
I am definitely going to try is Dedy! It is so hard to find good bresaola in the U.S. Thanks for the step by step instructions. ~ David
Dedy – about how long does it take for it to lose its 30% weight? I know it will vary, but would love an estimate! Thanks, David
well, from the experience, my 166 grams cured beef tenderloin loss more than 30% to 110 grams bresaola in 16 days (30 mei-16 june 2014) and i’m dry aging it on a fridge,
i’ve ever made from 1 kg beef eye round and it’s loss 30% weight and turn into bresaola in 70 days
Just curious, how many fridges do you own? Sounds like you have one dedicated to curing meat. Thanks for the bresaola tutorial, your finished product sure look delicious.
Actually i had only one fridge Norma, i need to keep all of my veggies in a tupperware or any other thight container during the curing process
i even brought my veggies daily in a small groceries store and mostly eait it all to kept the fridge clean
Bresaola is so good. Amazing to think of doing this yourself. It looks terrific!
Oh, I’d love to try this! I don’t know if I’d have the patience to wait 1-3 months to sample it, though 🙂
Oh this is amazing! Can’t believe this is made from scratch, totally in awe!
You did such a great job…It is a work of patience for sure. I wish I could enjoy this bresaola.
Wow, you are very talented at preserving meats. This looks better than anything I’ve seen in a store/at a butcher.
Liat bentuk nya rada2 jijik hahaha tapi kalo dimasak pasti enak 🙂
kalo orang kota bresaolanya dimakan langsung mas, gak dimasak lagi, hehehe
hah, beneran langsung dimakan yaa Ded? bayangin rasanya gimana dong *ndeso
iya kak, lgs dimakan gitu aja, rasanya mirip dendeng dr daging sapi mentah
tp dijadiin topping pizza juga enak kak
Your cured meat always looks so good!
I would eat this in one sitting!
🙂 Mandy xo
Well done! That bresaola looks fantastic.
Cheers,
Rosa
I am very impressed Dedy, your cure bresaola looks amazing. And this one is a challenge too with a lot of precaution and patience. I have done a few but nothing this advanced.
I love bresaola as an alternative to pork cured meats, which we don’t eat. SO amazing that you made your own! WOW!
It is just amazing how you make all these at home!
Your home-made Bresaola looks like in a fancy restaurant! Well done you! I am so going to try this out too! Very impressive work, Dedy! xx
The one you hold and I can see the light shining through the cured beef… so pretty! That’s a great shot. We can snack on this anytime. You’re one impressive chef, Dedy!
Homemade cold meats are always the best, especially the cured or smoked ones… I wish I had conditions to smoke or cure meat on my own… This bresaola looks extraordinary!
You kidding me? From scratch? You’re Amazing!
Home-made Bresaola…. You are amazing Dedy! This looks like something the chefs at my work would produce, its beautiful! Go you good thing you! xox
quite an interesting post! Pretty impressive! 🙂