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Hung Beef

Hung Beef is a preserved beef cured with salt, sugar, saltpetre, vinegar, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Hung Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Bury the beef in snow for two weeks or hang it to tenderize as long as desired.

  2. Wash the beef well in a strong saltwater solution and dry it with cloths.

Make and apply the pickle

  1. Combine the coarse sea salt, coarse sugar, common salt, saltpetre, and water in a pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil and skim well.

  3. Rub the vinegar into the meat.

  4. Pour the warm pickle over the meat, ensuring it is fully immersed.

  5. Let the beef sit in the pickle for 14 days.

Dry, hang and smoke

  1. After 14 days, remove the beef and dry it well.

  2. Hang the beef near the kitchen chimney for a week.

  3. Store it in a paper bag in a dry, airy room.

  4. Smoke the beef for three weeks using oak sawdust.

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. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Beef + vinegartop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,895 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Beef + sugartop 37% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Fine fat beef
Provides the meat that is cured, tenderized and smoked into the finished product.
Saltpetre
Helps the meat keep its red color and inhibits spoilage during curing.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it during the long pickle.
Coarse sugar
Balances the saltiness of the cure and adds mild sweetness to the meat.

The step that matters

Keeping the beef fully submerged in the pickle. Any part of the meat left above the brine can spoil or dry out unevenly over the 14 days. Full immersion keeps the cure working evenly through the whole piece.

“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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