First of all, let's deal with the name. "Feiersteng" is Luxembourgeois for "flint." There has been a lot of thrashing around as people try to come up with reasons for the name -- did the dried-out roast beef look like chunks of flint? Were the strips or cubes of beef similar to the rocks idle herdboys threw into the fire while the pre-beef-salad pot roast was cooking, for the fun of seeing them blow up? -- but no one has had a clue for a while. However, EuroCuisineGuy may have hit on the answer while we were photographing the dish. When feierstengzalot originated, three or four hundred years ago, the cubes or strips of cooked, cold beef would have looked like the custom-cut flints that were sold as an essential part of the firing mechanism for your hunting gun. Look to the right fo an example.

In any case, this is yet another of those cunning countryside leftover dishes meant to make sure that none of that expensive beef joint you cooked up for the weekend got wasted (and its strong point is that the slices of meat don't have to be great scenic slabs of beef in the finished dish). Slice the beef into cubes, or better yet, very thin strips, to maximize the surface area (and the flavor); pull some preserved things out of the store cupboard -- pickles, capers, onions, shallots if you have them, maybe even some of those leftover boiled potatoes from yesterday -- and chop them all up; make a spicy/spiky vinaigrette with coarse mustard; toss the whole business together, and garnish with sliced hard-boiled eggs from the farmyard hen, and fresh chives and parsley, which any farmstead would have even as winter approached. Feierstengzalot is the perfect luncheon salad. Add a glass of a country red or white wine, and you're ready to get on with the rest of the day.

This recipe works well either as a lunch entree or as a side dish for the buffet table.

• 500 g cold cooked beef (roast beef or a fine boiled beef like tafelspitz), trimmed of fat and gristle, sliced into strips
• 2 chopped onions
• 2 hard boiled eggs, cut into slices and then the slices cut into strips
• 1 small dill pickle, sliced into narrow strips
• Salt
• Pepper
• 4-6 tablespoons oil (for the sauce)
• 1 tablespoon brown mustard (more if desired)
• 100 ml cream
• Fresh parsley, finely chopped
• Fresh chives, finely chopped

Mix the oil, mustard, salt and pepper and cream together to make a salad dressing. Add the parsley and chives -- lots of them: don't stint!

Toss them together with the sliced beef, chopped onions, sliced / chopped pickle, and chopped hard-boiled eggs. Serve the salad garnished with more parsley and chives.

Serves 4.