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 ↓
To Salt Beef Red
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare and cure
Choose a piece of beef with as little bone as possible.
Sprinkle the beef and let it drain for one day.
Rub the beef with coarse sea salt, saltpetre, bay salt, and cochineal in fine powder.
Rub the pickle into the meat daily for a week, then turn it.
Drain and smoke
After eight days, it will be ready; drain it from the pickle after sixteen days.
Smoke the beef at the oven mouth or send it to the baker for a few days.
Serve
For serving, boil the beef until tender with greens or carrots.
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.
-
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 cut that the cure penetrates and the smoke flavours.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it during the cure.
- Saltpetre
- Helps the meat keep its colour during the long cure.
- Bay salt
- Adds salt and seasoning to the cure.
- Cochineal
- Adds red colour to the cured meat.
The step that matters
Draining the beef from the pickle after sixteen days. Salt needs time to move into the meat evenly, so the cure must run its full course. Draining at the right point stops the meat from becoming too salty while still preserving it.
“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.
More salted beef recipes
You might also like
Roast Beef211 recipes
Beef Loaf175 recipes
Corned Beef87 recipes
Beef Broth67 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.