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Beef, Salted Quickly

A brisket or other boiling cut of beef salted and seasoned, then boiled with carrots and dumplings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef, Salted Quickly

Ingredients

Directions

Cure

  1. Combine salt, sugar, pepper, and mixed spice in a bowl.

  2. Warm the mixture slightly.

  3. Rub the mixture onto the beef for 10 minutes.

  4. Let it sit for 1 hour and rub again.

  5. Repeat a few times, then let it rest overnight.

Cook and serve

  1. Rinse the meat.

  2. Place it in a saucepan with tepid water.

  3. Bring to a boil slowly, skimming off any foam.

  4. Cook for about 30 minutes per pound.

  5. If using brisket, tie it with tape to maintain its shape.

  6. An hour before serving, add young carrots and dumplings to the pan.

  7. Serve the meat with the carrots, dumplings, and some of the cooking liquid as gravy.

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. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + carrottop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,211 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 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

Beef
Forms the main body of the dish; long gentle cooking makes it tender.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture from the meat and seasons it deeply during the cure.
Sugar
Balances the salt and adds mild sweetness to the cured surface.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil slowly, skimming off any foam. Starting in tepid water and heating gradually keeps the meat from seizing up and turning tough. Skimming removes foam and impurities so the cooking liquid stays clear for gravy.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotthe original
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

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