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Dutch Beef

A cured and smoked beef prepared with salt, pepper, juniper berries, and treacle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Dutch Beef

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Rub the prime ribs of beef with common salt and let them sit in a pan for three days.

  2. Rub the beef with the salt, black pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Add plenty of juniper berries and turn the meat every two days for three weeks.

  4. Smoke the beef after the curing period.

  5. After four days, pour 1½ pounds of hot treacle over the beef.

  6. Soak the beef in cold water for twelve hours before smoking.

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).

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

What each ingredient does

Prime ribs of beef
The main cut that is cured with salt and then smoked.
Common salt
Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it during curing.
Treacle
Adds sweetness and a dark, sticky surface that browns during cooking.
Juniper berries
Add a resinous, aromatic flavour to the cured meat.

The step that matters

Soaking the beef before smoking. After long curing the surface is very salty. Soaking in cold water draws out some of this excess salt, so the finished beef is not overpoweringly salty. Skipping or shortening the soak leaves the meat too harsh.

“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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