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Pickled Meat No. 1

A method for preserving meat in a brine of water, salt, sugar, molasses, baking soda, and saltpetre.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Pickled Meat No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Make the brine

  1. In a large pot, bring 6 gallons of water to a boil.

  2. Add 9 pounds of coarse salt, 3 pounds of brown sugar, 1 quart of molasses, and 1 ounce of saleratus.

  3. Stir until all ingredients are dissolved.

  4. Skim any impurities from the surface while boiling.

  5. Allow the brine to cool completely.

Pack and cover

  1. Pack 100 pounds of meat tightly in a container.

  2. Pour the cooled brine over the meat, ensuring it is fully submerged.

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. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + meattop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,866 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Molasses + meattop 37% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together441 recipes

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Coarse salt
Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it, helping preserve it in the brine.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the saltiness of the brine.
Molasses
Adds depth, color, and a mild sweetness to the brine.
Saleratus (baking soda)
Raises the brine's alkalinity, which affects the meat's texture and color.
Meat
The main ingredient that absorbs the brine and becomes the finished pickled meat.

The step that matters

Allow the brine to cool completely. Pouring hot brine over meat would partly cook its surface and could raise its temperature into a range where bacteria grow faster, so the brine should be fully cool before it touches the meat.

“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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