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Hung-beef,

Hung Beef is beef cured with salt and saltpetre, then left in a cask with weights and dried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Hung-beef,

Ingredients

Directions

Cure

  1. Rub the beef well with salt and saltpetre in the proportion of 2 ounces of saltpetre and 7 pounds of salt to 50 pounds of beef.

  2. Place the beef in a cask or tub and cover it with a board and weights.

  3. Leave it for about two weeks.

Dry

  1. After two weeks, take it out and hang it in the kitchen to dry for about three weeks.

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

What each ingredient does

Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the beef and helps preserve it during curing.
Saltpetre
Acts as a curing agent that helps preserve the meat and keep its color.

The step that matters

Rub the beef well with salt and saltpetre. Salt draws moisture out of the meat and slows spoilage. Any area that is missed or lightly coated stays wet and unprotected, so it can spoil or cure unevenly. Thorough, even coverage is what makes the cure work across 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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