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
Prepare the beef
Hang the navel piece in a cellar until slightly damp, but not long enough to change.
Wash the beef well in a mixture of brown sugar and water.
Dry the beef with a cloth.
Cut the beef into two or three pieces.
Cure
Rub the brown sugar, coarse sea salt, and saltpetre into the beef thoroughly.
Sprinkle common salt over the beef until it is sufficiently salty.
Let the beef sit together for ten days.
Change the pieces from bottom to top daily.
Hang and cook
Hang the beef in a warm place, but not too close to the fire.
The beef will keep for two to three months.
When it becomes moist, dip it in water.
When ready to cook, boil the beef in hay and pump 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
- Navel piece of beef
- Is the cut that is cured, dried and then cooked until tender.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and helps preserve it during curing.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat and gives it its characteristic cured colour.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the harshness of the salts in the cure.
The step that matters
Sufficient salting during the cure. Salt and saltpetre must fully penetrate the meat to preserve it. Thorough rubbing and turning the pieces daily help the cure reach evenly through the beef, so under-salted areas do not 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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