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To Salt Beef or Pork for Eating Immediately

A method of salting beef or pork for immediate consumption using coarse sea salt, optional saltpetre, bay salt, and cochineal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,677 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Salt Beef or Pork for Eating Immediately

Ingredients

Directions

Salt and wrap

  1. Salt the meat thoroughly just before cooking.

  2. Fold a coarse cloth around the meat, and fold it tightly.

Cure

  1. Sprinkle the meat with salt and let it drain for a few hours before rubbing it with salt.

  2. Turn the meat daily and rub it with salt as needed if you want it soon.

  3. For red salt beef, choose a piece with minimal bone, sprinkle it, and let it drain for a day.

  4. Rub the meat with common salt, a small amount of saltpetre, and bay salt, adding cochineal if desired.

  5. Rub the pickle into the meat daily for a week, then only turn it.

Cook

  1. Put the wrapped meat into a pot of boiling water and boil until cooked, similar to other salted beef of the same size.

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. Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Beef and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,677 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 or pork
The main meat, which the salt cure firms and seasons throughout.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat as it cures.
Saltpetre
Helps the meat keep its pink-red color during curing.

The step that matters

Rub the pickle into the meat daily for a week. Salt must be reapplied and the meat turned each day so the cure penetrates evenly; uneven salting leaves pockets that spoil or cook unevenly.

“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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