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Melton-hunt Beef

A beef rubbed with juniper berries, spices, and salt, then cured for several weeks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,000 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Melton-hunt Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Cure

  1. Hang the beef in a dry place for as long as the weather permits.

  2. Mix juniper berries, shallots, allspice, black pepper, bay leaves, sugar, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Rub the mixture into all parts of the beef, especially the flap and the area where the bone was removed, every day for a week, turning it every other day.

  4. After a week, add rock salt or common salt and saltpetre, and continue rubbing the beef daily for ten more days.

  5. Turn the beef daily for an additional ten days.

Finish and store

  1. After this period, check the center and fat, shape it properly, and skewer and bind it firmly.

  2. Wipe it dry and coat it with dry bran or pollard if not using immediately.

  3. If baking, allow it to cool for at least 48 hours before cutting.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Shallot + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together386 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Prime ox beef
Forms the main body of the dish, and its fat and muscle take up the cure.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the meat and gives the cured beef its characteristic pink colour.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the beef and seasons it during the long cure.
Coarse sugar
Balances the salt and softens the harshness of the cure.
Juniper berries
Adds a resinous, aromatic flavour that penetrates the meat during rubbing.
Shallots
Add a mild savoury sweetness and aroma to the rub.

The step that matters

Adding the rock salt and saltpetre after a week. Salt and curing agents must be added at the right stage so they penetrate evenly. Adding them too early or too unevenly can leave parts under-cured, while rubbing daily keeps the surface moist enough for the cure to spread through the meat.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, shallot, allspice, pepper, sugar):

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, shallot, allspice, pepper, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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