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Beef Ham

A cured beef ham seasoned with sugar, salt, spices, and optionally smoked, then boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Beef Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the beef with a handful of brown sugar warmed in the oven.

  2. Leave it for 2 days to mellow.

  3. Wipe the beef.

Cure

  1. Rub the beef with a mixture of coarse sea salt and saltpetre.

  2. Leave it for 14 to 18 days, rubbing daily.

  3. If desired, smoke the beef for added flavor.

Press and cook

  1. Roll the beef tightly in a cloth.

  2. Weigh the wrapped beef down.

  3. After 24 hours, place the wrapped beef in cold water.

  4. Boil the wrapped beef slowly.

  5. Press the beef again until cold after boiling.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  5. Nutmeg + white peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef round (silver-side)
The main cut that is cured, firmed and sliced after cooking.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the beef deeply during the long cure.
Saltpetre
Helps the meat keep its pink colour and resist spoilage during curing.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the salt and softens the sharp cure flavour.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, aromatic heat that forms the outer spiced crust.

The step that matters

Rubbing the beef daily during the cure. Salt and saltpetre only penetrate by diffusion, so daily rubbing redistributes the cure and keeps it even, preventing spoiled or unevenly salted patches over the 14 to 18 days.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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