Why it works: Beef and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 37% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,435 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Dutch Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Cure
Rub the beef thoroughly with the sugar and let it sit in an earthen pan for 2 days.
Wipe the beef with a cloth and rub in the saltpetre, coarse sea salt, and common salt.
Let it sit for 16 days, turning and rubbing it in the brine every other day.
After 16 days, take the beef out and wipe it dry.
Season and smoke
Bruise the juniper berries and rub them all over the beef.
Sew the beef in a coarse cloth without wiping it.
Suspend the beef in your chimney and smoke it for 8 days or more, turning it every second day.
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.
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Beef + sugartop 37% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,435 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Beef
- Forms the meat that is preserved, firmed and smoked into a dense, sliceable joint.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and softens the harshness of the salt during curing.
- Saltpetre
- Helps set the meat's pink colour and inhibits spoilage bacteria during long curing.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and preserves it through the long cure.
- Common salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it throughout during the cure.
- Juniper berries
- Add a resinous, aromatic flavour that complements the smoke.
The step that matters
Turning the beef in the brine every other day. Salt and cure penetrate the meat slowly from the outside in, so regular turning and rubbing keeps every surface in contact with the brine and ensures even curing.
“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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