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Hung Beef

A preserved beef that is salted, dried, and optionally smoked, then sliced thinly for serving.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Hung Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Hang the beef for 3-4 days until tender, ensuring it does not spoil.

  2. Salt the beef using dry-salting or brine with coarse sea salt, brown sugar, saltpeter, black pepper, and allspice.

  3. Roll the beef tightly in a cloth and hang it in a warm place to dry for at least 2 weeks.

Finish and serve

  1. If desired, smoke the beef for longer preservation.

  2. Slice thinly and serve on hot buttered toast or shredded in omelets.

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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Beef + allspicetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,940 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Sugar + allspicetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,938 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the meat that becomes tender and dense as it hangs and dries.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and preserves the meat during curing.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the saltiness of the cure.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the meat and gives it a cured color and flavor.

The step that matters

Hanging the beef. Hanging must be long enough to tenderize and dry the meat, but the meat can spoil if conditions are not controlled. Salt and drying help inhibit bacterial growth, so the salting and warm drying must be done carefully.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, sugar, pepper):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Rosemaryfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, pepper. 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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