Bagel with salted beef

Few weeks ago, I tasted this bagel in a Jewish bakery shop at Brick Lane, London. It tasted so good that I was craving for it when I got back to Cambridge. Since I can only get it from London, and decided to cook it myself. So here it is:

British beef, the one that is free of mad cow disease:


Covered it with sea salt..keep it for days (ideally 6 days) in the fridge:


This is how it looks like after 2 days.. and I couldn't wait any longer. It looked a bit unappeatizing at this time:


Simmer it with garlic and black pepper:


After one hour of cooking, and the meat looks better:



Cut the meat into slices and serve with bagels, mustard and pickles:



Note:
It is not as good as the one in the bakery shop, but it is the closest that I can get. It does taste similiar though.

The meat needs to be boiled a long hour (3-4 hours) for it to be soft and moist. But I couldn't wait, so I had to settle with a slightly chewy meat.

I don't have food poisoning the next day too :) . I guess the salt kills all the harmful bacterias.

Mussels With Tomato Sauce

Went to this Belgium restaurant the other days with Shawn and Jay in London, and had this wonderful mussels with tomato sauce. Even since then, I have been having cravings for mussels.

In order to please my tummy, I decided to cook it myself. Here are the steps:
Heats up some olive oil in a pot. Once it is hot, throw in finely chopped garlic (3 cloves) and onions(2 medium size ones). After the chopped onions are translucent, put in some thinly sliced celery (5-6 sticks) and fry iit for a while. After that, add a can of chopped tomatoes, a few fresh tomatoes and 2 cups of water into the pot. For seasoning, 2-3 bay leaves and crushed black pepper and salt (to taste).


Then, add in the mussels. Simmer it till the sauce is reduced.


Instead of baked bean on toast, tried it with mussels on toast:


Note:
Something is missing from my version of mussels with tomato sauce; it does not have a slight sour taste in the sauce. This probably causes by not having red wine as part of the ingredients. Ah, well, it is still good, considering it is 3 times cheaper than the restaurant version.