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Hamb0urg or Dutch Beef

A cured beef product prepared by rubbing with sugar, salt, and saltpetre, then smoking and drying.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Hamb0urg or Dutch Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Cure

  1. Remove all the fat from the beef.

  2. Rub the beef with sugar, coarse sea salt, and saltpetre.

  3. Turn the beef daily for 12 to 15 days.

Press and smoke

  1. Drain and wipe the beef, then enclose it in a cloth and press it.

  2. Smoke the beef in the fumes of damped sweet hay for three days.

Serve

  1. To serve, cut it into rashers and broil, or toss in butter.

  2. If cooking whole, boil it wrapped in a cloth for two hours.

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
The main cut, which is cured, pressed and smoked into a firm, sliceable meat.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness and balances the salt in the cure.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the beef during the cure, helping preserve it.
Saltpetre
Helps the cure keep the meat's pink colour and inhibits spoilage bacteria during curing.
Damped sweet hay
Gives the beef a smoky aroma as it smokes over the damp hay.

The step that matters

Turning the beef daily during the cure. Salt and curing agents must penetrate evenly. Turning the beef daily keeps every surface in contact with the cure, so the meat cures uniformly instead of unevenly.

“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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