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 ↓
Thing Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Pat the rib of beef into a strong brine of coarse sea salt, saltpetre, and spring water for nine days.
Hang it up in a chimney where wood or sawdust is burnt.
When slightly dry, wash the outside with blood two or three times to darken it.
Once sufficiently dried, boil the beef for use.
For another method, hang the navel-piece in a cellar until it begins to be sappy.
Cut it into three pieces and wash each piece in sugar and water.
Mix 1 pound of saltpetre, 2 pounds of coarse sea salt, and 3 tablespoons of brown sugar, then rub it into the beef.
Strew common salt over the beef and let it sit until the salt dissolves, turning it every other day for two weeks.
After two weeks, hang it in a warm place for another two weeks.
When ready, boil it in coarse sea salt and water until tender.
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
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the beef and preserves it, forming the brine and dry cure.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat and gives it a characteristic cured color.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the harshness of the salt in the cure.
The step that matters
Rubbing and turning the cure. Salt and saltpetre must reach every part of the meat evenly. Turning the beef regularly while the salt dissolves keeps the cure distributed, so thick areas do not stay under-salted and spoil.
“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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