Name: Finest Yorkshire Hung Beef
Ingredients: 20 pounds beef (ribs, round, or thick flank); ½ pound coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); ¼ pound saltpetre; ¼ pound salt-prunella; 2 handfuls juniper berries; 3 pounds common salt; 1 pound coarse sugar

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 ↓

Finest Yorkshire Hung Beef

Ingredients

20 pounds beef (ribs, round, or thick flank)
½ pound coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt')
¼ pound saltpetre
¼ pound salt-prunella
2 handfuls juniper berries
3 pounds common salt
1 pound coarse sugar

Directions

Prepare the cure

Cut the beef into two pieces.
In a mortar, beat the coarse sea salt, saltpetre, salt-prunella, and juniper berries. Mix with common salt and coarse sugar.
Rub the mixture thoroughly over the beef for a considerable time.

Salt and dry

Place the beef in a salting pan and rub it with the pickle once a day for at least two weeks, turning it each time.
After two weeks, remove the beef and dry it with a coarse cloth.
Hang the beef in a warm kitchen or chimney corner until properly dried.

Serve

To serve, boil or cut into rashers and broil, dipping in boiling water if desired.

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.

Beef + sugartop 37% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked 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: Forms the meat that is cured, drying and firming as it hangs.
Coarse sea salt: Draws out moisture and seasons the beef during the cure.
Saltpetre: Helps preserve the meat and gives it a characteristic pink colour.
Common salt: Draws out moisture and preserves the meat through the long cure.
Coarse sugar: Balances the saltiness and adds a mild sweetness to the cure.
Juniper berries: Adds a resinous, aromatic flavour to the cured beef.

The step that matters

Rubbing and turning the beef daily in the pickle. The cure must reach every part of the meat. Uneven rubbing or skipped turning leaves some areas under-salted and open to spoilage, so the beef needs regular, thorough coverage for the full two weeks.

“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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Finest Yorkshire Hung Beef