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To Cure Beef for Drying

A method for curing beef with saltpetre, fine salt, and molasses before drying.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Cure Beef for Drying

Ingredients

Directions

Cure

  1. Mix saltpetre and fine salt with molasses until the color resembles light brown sugar.

  2. Rub the beef pieces with the mixture, ensuring it adheres well.

  3. Pack the beef in a keg or half barrel, ensuring the mixture covers the meat.

  4. Let it sit for 48 hours to form enough pickle to cover the beef.

Dry

  1. Remove the beef and hang it in a suitable place for drying.

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. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Beef + molassestop 35% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together606 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. 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

Saltpetre
Helps preserve the meat and gives the cured beef its characteristic pink colour.
Fine salt
Draws moisture out of the beef and helps preserve it during curing.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and a brown colour to the cure mixture.

The step that matters

Pack the beef so the mixture covers the meat. Salt draws moisture out of the meat to form a pickle. Any uncovered areas cure unevenly and are more prone to spoilage, so full coverage matters.

“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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