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Preparing Hung Beef

Hung Beef is a cured and smoked beef prepared with salt, spices, and herbs, then simmered and served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Preparing Hung Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cure

  1. Remove the bone from the rump of beef.

  2. Rub the beef with a mixture of salt, saltpetre, salt prunella, and brown sugar.

  3. Cover the beef with parsley, shallots, thyme, bay leaves, marjoram, sweet basil, winter savory, coriander seeds, juniper berries, and garlic.

  4. Turn the beef in the brine daily for 10 days, placing the herbs on top each time.

Smoke and cook

  1. Hang the beef in a chimney to smoke or use another smoking method.

  2. Soak the beef in cold water for a few hours before use.

  3. Simmer the beef in cold water with a little vinegar, onions (one with cloves), nutmeg, and sweet herbs until done.

  4. Allow the beef to cool in the liquid and serve cold with fresh parsley.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Thyme + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together780 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Marjoram + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together455 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Marjoram + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  5. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 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

Rump of beef
Forms the meat that is cured, smoked and simmered into the dish.
Common salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the beef during the cure.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the meat and gives it a characteristic pink-red colour during curing.
Coarse brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the saltiness of the cure.
Juniper berries
Adds a resinous, aromatic flavour to the cure.

The step that matters

Turning the beef in the brine daily. Cure salts only penetrate evenly if the brine is redistributed regularly, so turning the beef each day over the full 10 days keeps the curing even and prevents spoilage at exposed surfaces.

Swap the basil

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, sugar, parsley, shallot, thyme, marjoram, winter savory):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Basilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, parsley, shallot, thyme, marjoram, winter savory. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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