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 ↓
For Corning Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Pack the pieces of beef in a barrel, sprinkling a little coarse sea salt between each piece.
Boil together 4 gallons of water, 8 pounds of brown sugar, 3 ounces of saltpetre, and 1 ounce of saleratus to make the pickle.
Boil the pickle until a potato can float on top, then cool it before pouring it over the meat.
Ensure the meat is fully immersed in the pickle, using a heavy stone if necessary.
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
- Pieces of beef
- The main protein that the pickle cures and flavours.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the salty, cured flavour of the meat.
- Saltpetre
- Helps the meat keep its pink colour during curing.
- Saleratus
- Raises the pickle's alkalinity, which helps the brine penetrate the meat.
The step that matters
Boil the pickle until a potato can float on top. This step is a traditional test of the brine's strength, since dissolved sugar and salt make the liquid denser. Cooling it before pouring protects the meat from being partly cooked and keeps the cure working evenly.
“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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