Traditional Corned Beef with Salsa Verde

Corned beef – beef preserved in brine – is such a classic, but our ideas of it are now very coloured by the tinned version. To do the real thing at home, it is important to get the right balance between fat and meat, and this is my interpretation of how it should be done. Because it has been used by terrorists in bombmaking, saltpetre has disappeared from most chemists’ shelves, but you might well be able to get it via your butcher or Internet suppliers.