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A Common Receipt for Salting Beef

A method of preserving beef by rubbing it with saltpetre and coarse sea salt, then keeping it in pickle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

A Common Receipt for Salting Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cure

  1. Dry and finely powder the saltpetre and coarse sea salt.

Cure the beef

  1. Rub the saltpetre evenly over the beef.

  2. Apply the coarse sea salt to all parts of the beef.

  3. Place the beef in a tub and cover it with the pickle.

  4. Turn the beef daily for 7 to 10 days.

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 + 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

Beef
Is the meat that the cure penetrates and firms as it salts.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the meat and gives cured beef its characteristic pink colour.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it during curing.
Sugar
Balances the salt and adds mild sweetness to the cured flavour.

The step that matters

Turning the beef daily. Turning keeps every surface in contact with the salt and pickle, so the cure penetrates evenly. Skipping turns can leave uneven curing and spoilage at exposed spots.

“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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