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Meat Cure

A cooked meat puree made by mincing steak, beating with water, seasoning, and simmering until the red color disappears.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Meat Cure

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the meat into strips, removing all fat and gristle.

  2. Mince the meat at least twice.

Make the paste

  1. Beat the minced meat with cold water or skimmed beef tea in a large saucepan until it reaches a creamy consistency, using 1 teaspoon of liquid for every 8 teaspoons of meat.

  2. Add black pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

  3. Cook over low heat, stirring continuously with a wooden spoon, until hot and the red color disappears, about 1.5 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, optionally adding a softly poached egg white for the first few meals.

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 + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Beef + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Pepper + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Pepper and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Slices of steak from the top of the round
Lean beef that is minced and cooked down to form the main body of the paste.
Cold water or skimmed beef tea
Adds moisture so the minced meat beats into a creamy, smooth consistency.

The step that matters

Cook over low heat, stirring continuously. Low heat and constant stirring cook the meat evenly and keep it from sticking or scorching on the base of the pan, while the paste thickens and the red color of the raw meat disappears.

“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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