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 ↓
Pickling Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cure
Cut the beef into two pieces.
In a mortar, mix the coarse sea salt, saltpetre, sal-prunella, juniper berries, common salt, and coarse sugar.
Rub the mixture thoroughly all over the beef for a considerable time.
Salt and dry
Place the beef in a salting pan and rub it with the pickle once a day for at least two weeks, turning it each time.
After two weeks, remove the beef and dry it well with a coarse cloth.
Hang the beef in a warm kitchen or chimney corner with a moderate fire until properly dried.
Serve
To serve, boil the beef or cut it into rashers and broil it after dipping in boiling water.
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, which the cure penetrates and firms as it is salted and dried.
- Common salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it, helping preserve it during curing.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat's pink colour and adds a cured flavour during the long cure.
- Coarse sugar
- Balances the saltiness and softens the harshness of the cure.
- Juniper berries
- Add a resinous, aromatic flavour to the cured meat.
The step that matters
Salting for at least two weeks with daily turning. Salt must reach the centre of the thick meat evenly. Turning it daily and rubbing in the pickle keeps the cure distributed, so the meat is preserved throughout rather than spoiling in the middle.
“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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