Hamburg Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Cure the beef
Rub the coarse sea salt thoroughly over the beef.
Pour the treacle over the beef.
Turn the beef every day and rub it well in the pickle.
Smoke the beef
After three weeks, put the beef to dry in wood smoke.
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
What each ingredient does
- Beef
- The meat that is salted, cured and smoked into a preserved product.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and slows spoilage by inhibiting bacteria.
- Treacle
- Adds sweetness and a dark, rich flavour to the cure.
- Saltpetre
- Helps the meat keep its colour and inhibits harmful bacteria during curing.
The step that matters
Rubbing the salt in thoroughly and turning the beef daily. Salt penetrates meat slowly and unevenly. Any area that gets too little salt or stays wet can spoil, so even coverage and daily turning keep the cure working throughout the meat.
“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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