Leftover Boiled Beef Salad
when it was time to make this dish, I didn’t happen to have any leftover boiled beef in the fridge. I remedied that problem with a nice three-pound piece of chuck roast. Generally following the recipe for Bollito Misto from page 405, I just left the misto part out and used beef alone. After setting aside the pound of cooked meat needed for this assignment, there was enough left for a huge pot of vegetable beef soup – which we’ve been enjoying for several days.
I wanted a more traditional “salad” feel, and decided to use the first of Marcella’s several optional recommendations — serving the sliced beef over a bed of celery sliced very, very thin. Since I was using that beautiful delicate green celery, I chose to use lemon juice instead of red wine vinegar for the acid.
After slicing the beef, coating it with olive oil, and seasoning with salt I arranged it atop the sliced celery on a serving platter. The final touch was a liberal grinding of fresh black pepper.
This makes about four generous sized servings. We enjoyed ours as the starter of a menu that included wonderful Walnut Cake from page 588. I’ll be reporting on that in a couple of weeks.
Deborah, I love boiled beef! We often use a brisket and serve it with Marcella’s salsa verde, the red bell pepper sauce, or her sauce made from green apples and basil. We store the leftovers under a coating of olive oil to use in a salad.
I like your choice of lemon instead of red wine vinegar. I have a very prolific Meyer lemon tree and always have a stash of preserved Meyer lemons. I like to julienne the peels for the salad. I hope Marcella doesn’t disapprove!
I also like your choice of the thinly sliced celery. Looks great!
The julienned peels, are they there for their aroma or for chewing on? I don’t know whether chewing on raw lemon peels can be pleasant.
Celery is indeed an excellent choice and a commendable display of intuition about flavor. In Venice, we also serve celery with poached folpeti, tiny octopus. I wonder whether Kim has tried it?