Name: Dutch Beef
Ingredients: 1 raw buttock of beef; 2-3 tablespoons brown sugar; saltpetre; common salt; coarse cloth; cheese-press

Why it works: Beef and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,193 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Dutch Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Cut off the fat from the beef.
Rub the lean meat all over with brown sugar.
Let it sit in a pan for 2-3 hours, turning it occasionally.
Salt the beef with saltpetre and common salt.
Let it sit for a fortnight, turning it daily.
Roll the beef tightly in a coarse cloth.
Place it in a cheese-press for 24 hours.
Hang it to dry in a chimney.
When boiled, wrap it in a cloth and let it cool before slicing.

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 + cheesetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,193 recipes

Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).
Sugar + cheesetop 36% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,387 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Beef + sugartop 37% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,435 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).