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 ↓
To Salt Beef Red
Ingredients
Directions
Cure
Sprinkle the beef and let it drain on a clay surface.
Rub the beef with coarse sea salt, sugar, saltpetre, and cochineal in fine powder.
Rub the mixture into the meat daily for a week, then turn it.
After eight days, it will be ready; drain it from the pickle.
Smoke and serve
Smoke the beef at the oven mouth or send it to the baker's for a few days.
To serve, boil until tender and enjoy with greens or carrots.
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.
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Beef + sugartop 37% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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 main meat that is cured, smoked and then cooked until tender.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it during curing.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat and gives it its cured colour and flavour during curing.
- Cochineal
- Adds a red colour to the cured beef.
The step that matters
Rubbing the cure in daily for a week. Salt and saltpetre must reach the centre of the meat evenly; turning and rubbing in the mixture every day keeps the cure distributed so the beef cures through rather than only at the surface.
“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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