Name: Dutch Beef
Ingredients: 1 raw buttock of beef; brown sugar; saltpetre; coarse sea salt

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 ↓

Dutch Beef

Ingredients

1 raw buttock of beef
brown sugar
saltpetre
coarse sea salt

Directions

Prepare the beef

Cut off the fat from the beef.
Rub the lean part all over with brown sugar.
Let it sit in a pan for 2‑3 hours, turning it occasionally.

Cure

Rub the beef with saltpetre and coarse sea salt.
Let it cure for 2 weeks, turning it daily.

Press and dry

Roll the beef tightly in a coarse cloth.
Press it in a cheese‑press for 24 hours.
Hang it to dry in a chimney.

Cook

When ready to cook, boil it in a cloth.

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

Buttock of beef: Forms the main body of the dish and is the meat that cures and cooks.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and helps flavour the surface of the lean meat.
Saltpetre: Helps cure the meat and gives it a pink colour during curing.
Coarse sea salt: Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it during curing.

“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.