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Hunting Beef

A preserved beef seasoned with saltpetre, black pepper, salt, sugar, suet, and flour paste, baked for 12 hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hunting Beef

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Cure the beef

  1. Rub the beef with ½ cup saltpetre and let it sit for 24 hours.

  2. Mix ½ cup black pepper, 1 pound common salt, and ¼ pound moist sugar together, then rub the mixture into the beef and let it pickle for 3 weeks, turning it daily.

Bake and serve

  1. When ready to cook, place the beef in a large baking dish.

  2. Cover the beef with melted suet and a thick paste made from flour and water.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 12 hours.

  4. Remove the paste and suet, and trim the beef for serving.

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

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

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Saltpetre
Cures the beef and helps keep its red colour during the long pickling.
Common salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the beef while it cures.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the salt in the cure.
Black pepper
Adds aroma and a sharp, spiced flavour to the crust.
Suet
Covers the beef and helps keep its surface moist during baking.

The step that matters

Baking for 12 hours. A very long, low-moisture bake can dry out or overcook the beef. The suet and flour-and-water paste seal the surface to hold in moisture, so the seal must stay intact throughout the bake.

“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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