Recipe for Beef Brine
Ingredients
Directions
Make the brine
Boil the water, coarse sea salt, saltpetre, and brown sugar together, skimming the liquid as it boils.
Allow the liquid to cool, then pour it over the beef.
Cure the beef
Rub the beef with salt and let the bloody brine run off 2 to 3 days.
Pour the brine over the beef, ensuring it is fully covered.
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 meat and seasons it, helping the brine penetrate the beef.
- Saltpetre
- Helps the meat keep its pink colour during curing.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the saltiness of the brine.
The step that matters
Skimming the boiling brine. Skimming removes coagulated proteins and impurities that rise to the surface as the liquid boils, keeping the brine clear and reducing off-flavours in the cured beef.
“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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