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 ↓
Cured Brisket of Beef for Christmas
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Cure the beef
Rub the brisket of beef with saltpetre at night.
The next morning, mix sugar and coarse sea salt together.
Rub the beef well with the sugar and salt mixture.
Let the beef cure in the pickle for two weeks, turning and rubbing it daily.
Bake and serve
After two weeks, place the beef in an earthen pan.
Cover the bottom of the pan with chopped suet and place some on top of the beef.
Add a little water to prevent burning.
Bake slowly at 300°F (150°C) for six hours.
Serve cold.
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
- Brisket of beef
- Forms the main body of the dish, becoming firm and sliceable once cured and cooked.
- Saltpetre
- Helps cure the meat, preserving it and giving it a pink colour.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it deeply during curing.
- Sugar
- Balances the sharpness of the salt and softens the savoury flavour of the cure.
- Suet
- Adds fat that keeps the beef moist during the long, slow baking.
The step that matters
Bake slowly at 300°F (150°C) for six hours. Low, slow heat gives tough connective tissue time to soften gradually, so the meat becomes tender without drying out. Raising the heat risks a tough, dry result.
“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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