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To Prepare Spiced Beef

A preserved beef seasoned with salt, cloves, allspice, pepper, saltpetre, vinegar, and brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice 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 ↓

To Prepare Spiced Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Roll the beef tightly and tie it.

Pack and pickle

  1. Pack the prepared beef into a keg.

  2. Add vinegar and enough beef brine to cover the beef.

  3. Let it stand for about one week.

Store

  1. This will keep for six months or more.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 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
Is the main meat that is cured and preserved by the brine and vinegar.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it during the brine cure.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the meat's pink colour during curing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that helps preserve the meat and sharpens its flavour.

The step that matters

Covering the beef fully with brine. Any meat left above the liquid is exposed to air and can spoil or discolour. Keeping every piece submerged keeps the curing and acidic environment even throughout the keg.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, clove, allspice, pepper, vinegar. 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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