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 ↓
Hung Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Cure the beef
Soak the rib of beef in a strong brine of coarse sea salt, saltpetre, and spring water for 9 days.
Hang the beef in a chimney where wood or sawdust is burned.
Once slightly dry, wash the outside with blood 2-3 times to darken it.
When sufficiently dried, boil the beef for use.
Alternative dry cure
For an alternative method, hang the navel-piece in a cellar until it begins to be sappy.
Cut the navel-piece into three pieces.
Wash each piece in sugar and water.
Mix 1 pound of saltpetre, 2 pounds of coarse sea salt, and 3 tablespoons of brown sugar.
Rub this mixture into the beef.
Sprinkle common salt over the beef.
Let it sit until the salt dissolves, turning it every other day for 2 weeks.
After 2 weeks, hang the beef in a warm place for another 2 weeks.
Boil and serve
When ready to use, boil the beef 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
- Beef
- Is the meat being cured, so the cure determines its texture, colour and flavour.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws out moisture and seasons the meat while preserving it during the cure.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat and gives it a characteristic pink-red colour during curing.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the harshness of the salt in the dry cure.
The step that matters
Turning the beef during the dry cure. Turning the meat every other day lets the salt mixture contact all surfaces evenly, so the cure penetrates uniformly and no area stays under-salted or spoils.
“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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