Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
To Pickle Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Make the brine
Fill a large container with 16 quarts of cold water.
Add enough salt to make the water buoyant enough to float an egg.
Stir in 2 cups of coarse sea salt, ½ pound of pounded saltpetre, and 3 pounds of brown sugar until well mixed.
Cure the beef
Submerge the beef in the brine and keep it in a dry place.
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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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + beeftop 31% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,305 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + beeftop 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
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws water out of the meat and seasons it while it cures.
- Saltpetre
- Helps the meat keep its pink colour during curing.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the saltiness of the brine.
“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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