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Hung Beef or Dutch Beef

A cured beef product prepared with sugar, salt, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 or Dutch Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Select prime, juicy, and lean beef from the round or thick flank.

  2. In cold weather, hang the meat for 3-4 days before curing.

  3. Rub the meat thoroughly with 1 pound of coarse moist sugar 3-4 times a day for several days.

  4. Once the sugar has penetrated, wipe the meat dry.

Cure the beef

  1. Pour off the pickle, leaving sediment behind. Scald and dry the salting vessel, then return the meat to the salting vessel.

  2. Cover the meat with a mixture of finely pounded, dried, and heated ingredients: ¼ pound common salt, ¼ pound coarse sea salt, 2 ounces sal prunel, 2 ounces saltpetre, 1 ounce black pepper, and 1 ounce allspice.

  3. The next day, turn the meat. Cover the upper side with remaining salt. Gently pour in the leftover sugar pickle.

  4. Turn the meat at least once a day for two weeks.

Finish

  1. After two weeks, remove the meat. Roll it tightly and bind it with tape.

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

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

  3. 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 (in the method)
Lean, juicy round or flank cut is the meat that the cure penetrates and firms.
Coarse moist sugar
Rubbed into the meat, it draws out moisture and adds sweetness that balances the salt.
Common salt
Penetrates the meat, drawing out moisture and seasoning it through the curing period.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the meat's pink colour during curing.
Black pepper
Adds sharp aroma and flavour to the cured surface.

The step that matters

Rubbing the sugar in thoroughly. Uneven rubbing leaves patches that cure unevenly. Repeated, thorough application lets the sugar and salt penetrate the meat evenly, so the cure reaches the centre rather than just the surface.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Allspicethe original
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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