Skip to main content
Main

To Spice a Round of Corned Beef

A method of seasoning and brining a round of corned beef with cloves, saltpetre, and fine salt over ten days.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Beef and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,462 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

To Spice a Round of Corned Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Tie the twine tightly around the round of corned beef to keep its shape.

  2. Insert cloves into both sides of the beef, pushing them in as far as possible.

  3. Rub the beef with 3 tablespoons of pounded saltpetre, then with plenty of fine salt.

Cure

  1. Place the beef in a large wooden tray or round vessel.

  2. Every other day, turn the beef and rub the brine that forms back into it.

  3. After 10 days, the beef will be ready for use.

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 + clovetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Saltpetre
Helps the meat keep its pink colour and adds a cured flavour during the cure.
Fine salt
Draws moisture out of the beef and seasons it while curing the meat.

The step that matters

Turning and rubbing the brine back in every other day. Salt and cure must reach the whole piece evenly. Turning the beef and rubbing the forming brine back in keeps the curing even, so no area is left under-cured.

“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.

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes