The Dutch Way to Salt Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Cure
Rub the beef well with treacle and let it sit for 3 days, turning and rubbing it often.
Wipe the beef, then pound the salt and saltpetre very fine and rub them in well.
Turn the beef every day for 10 days.
Press and smoke
Roll the beef tightly in a coarse cloth and press it under a large weight.
Smoke the beef and turn it upside down every day.
Boil and press
Boil the beef, and after removing it from the pot, place a heavy weight on it to press it.
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
What each ingredient does
- Lean beef
- Provides the meat that is cured, pressed, smoked and boiled into the final dish.
- Treacle
- Adds sweetness and moisture to the surface, helping the cure adhere and flavour the meat.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat and gives it the characteristic pink colour of cured beef.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the beef and seasons it during the cure.
The step that matters
Pounding the salt and saltpetre very fine. Fine particles dissolve and spread through the meat's surface moisture evenly, so the cure penetrates uniformly rather than leaving salty or uncured patches.
“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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