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Spiced Beef

A large piece of beef cured with saltpetre, salt, pepper, allspice, ginger, cloves, mace, sugar, and water, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spiced Beef

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the beef

  1. Remove any gristle, skin, or bones from the beef.

  2. Rub the beef with saltpetre and coarse sea salt.

  3. Mix the spices and rub them all over the beef.

Cure

  1. Add common salt and coarse sugar, then let the beef sit in the mixture for two weeks, turning and rubbing it daily.

  2. After two weeks, cover the beef with spices and chopped sweet herbs, roll it tightly, and tie it with tape.

Bake and press

  1. Place it in a pan with water and suet, then bake at 400°F (200°C) for six hours.

  2. Put a heavy weight on it, and once cooled, remove the tape.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and sliceable as it cooks slowly.
Saltpetre
Helps cure the meat and gives it the characteristic pink colour and cured flavour.
Common salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during the long curing period.
Coarse sugar
Balances the saltiness and adds mild sweetness to the cure.
Suet
Adds fat in the pan, keeping the meat moist during the long bake.

The step that matters

Turning and rubbing the beef daily during the two-week cure. Salt and cure must reach every part of the meat evenly. Skipping the daily turning can leave uneven seasoning and patchy curing, and the centre may stay underseasoned.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, allspice, ginger, clove, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, allspice, ginger, clove, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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