Name: Hamburgh Pickle for Beef, Hams and Tongue
Ingredients: 2 gallons of water; 3 pounds of coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt') or 5 pounds of common salt; 2 pounds of coarse sugar; 2 ounces of saltpetre; 2 ounces of black pepper, bruised and tied in muslin

Why it works: Sugar and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 32% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,401 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Hamburgh Pickle for Beef, Hams and Tongue

Ingredients

2 gallons of water
3 pounds of coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt') or 5 pounds of common salt
2 pounds of coarse sugar
2 ounces of saltpetre
2 ounces of black pepper, bruised and tied in muslin

Directions

Make the pickle

Boil the water, salt, sugar, saltpetre, and black pepper together for 20 minutes, removing the scum as it rises.
Pour the pickle into a deep earthen jar and let it cool.

Cure the meat

Once cool, submerge the meat completely in the pickle, turning it occasionally.
A middling sized round of beef will be ready to serve in two weeks.

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.

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

Salt: Draws out moisture and seasons the meat while preserving it in the brine.
Saltpetre: Helps the meat keep its pink colour during curing.
Sugar: Balances the salt and adds a mild sweetness to the cured meat.
Black pepper: Adds aroma and a mild, spicy flavour to the brine.

The step that matters

Submerging the meat completely. Any meat left above the brine can spoil or cure unevenly, because the salt and curing agents only preserve what they fully reach. Turning the meat helps the brine penetrate evenly.

“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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Hamburgh Pickle for Beef, Hams and Tongue