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Curing Beef for Chipping

A method for curing beef hams, insides, outsides, and knuckles using pickle, steam, and smoke to produce chippable cured meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,729 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Curing Beef for Chipping

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cure

  1. Prepare the smokehouse with steam coils under all floors except the top to dry the meats.

  2. Pack the chilled beef in tierces and cover with pickle, sealing tightly.

  3. Roll the tierces every 25 days for 70 to 80 days to ensure even curing.

Soak and smoke

  1. Soak the cured meats in water for 10 hours, changing the water once; soak older hams for up to 30 hours, changing every 10 hours.

  2. Hang the hams in the smokehouse and turn on steam for 3 to 4 hours at 130°F (54°C).

  3. Start a light smoke fire, gradually increasing the temperature to 135°F (57°C) while maintaining a little steam for about 5 days.

  4. Cool and dry the smoked meats for 3 to 5 days before chipping.

Trim and package

  1. Trim the outside crust from the hams, slice, and pack in cans or glass jars.

  2. Use a vacuum machine to draw not less than 26 inches of vacuum.

  3. Inspect all packages for leaks and reprocess any that are not sealed.

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. Beef + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,729 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
The main protein, which the cure and smoke transform into preserved, sliceable meat.
100 degree strength pickle
Salt-based cure that draws out moisture and seasons the meat during the long curing period.

The step that matters

Roll the tierces during the long cure. Rolling redistributes the pickle so the cure penetrates evenly. Without it, some areas may cure unevenly, leaving parts of the meat under-preserved.

“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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