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Spiced Cured Beef

A cured beef prepared with salt, sugar, and lard, stored in a jar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Spiced Cured Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Take 10 pounds of beef and cut it into slices suitable for cooking.

  2. In a bowl, mix 2 cups of coarse sea salt and 2 cups of sugar.

Cure and store

  1. Layer the beef slices in a jar, sprinkling the salt and sugar mixture between layers.

  2. Melt lard and pour it over the meat, ensuring it is fully covered. Seal the jar.

  3. Store the jar in a cool place.

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

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.

  1. Beef + sugartop 37% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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
Is the meat being cured and preserved, forming the body of the dish.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the meat and helps preserve it during curing.
Sugar
Balances the salt and adds sweetness while contributing to the cure.
Lard (in the method)
Forms a fat layer over the meat that helps seal out air.

The step that matters

Fully covering the meat with melted lard. Any meat left exposed to air can spoil or oxidise. A complete layer of fat, with no gaps, helps keep air away from the surface during storage.

“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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