Why it works: Beef and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 37% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,435 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
To Cure Beef Hams
Ingredients
Directions
Cure the beef
Mix saltpetre, brown sugar, and fine salt together.
Rub the mixture thoroughly all over the meat.
Let the meat sit for 24 hours.
Place the meat in an open tub or on a shelf with 2 quarts of fine salt to drain.
Allow it to cure for 15 days.
Hang and finish
Hang the cured meat up.
If desired, place it in pickle after 4 or 5 days.
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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Beef + sugartop 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
- Beef
- The main meat that is preserved and cured into ham.
- Saltpetre
- Helps keep the cured meat's pink colour and inhibits spoilage bacteria.
- Fine salt
- Draws out moisture and preserves the meat during the long cure.
- Brown sugar
- Balances the saltiness and adds mild sweetness to the cured meat.
The step that matters
Rubbing the cure in thoroughly. Salt and curing salts only preserve the meat where they reach. Uneven coverage leaves spots that can spoil or cure unevenly over the long cure.
“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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