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Spiced Beef

A loaf of spiced beef mixed with eggs and crackers, wrapped in bacon and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Spiced Beef

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, mix the chopped beef with the beaten eggs, crushed soda crackers, pepper, coarse sea salt, and thyme until well combined.

  3. Mold the mixture into two loaves.

  4. Cover each loaf with strips of bacon.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 45 minutes or until tender.

  2. Serve sliced cold or hot with tomato sauce.

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. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Beef + thymetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,051 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Beef + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + thymetop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Chopped beef
Provides the main body and meaty texture of the loaves.
Beaten eggs
Bind the meat so the loaves hold their shape when sliced.
Soda crackers
Absorb juices and keep the loaf moist as it bakes.
Bacon
Adds fat that bastes the surface and gives savoury browning and flavour.

The step that matters

Mix until well combined. Evenly mixing the beef, eggs and crushed crackers distributes the binder throughout. Unevenly mixed loaves may crumble when sliced or bake with dry and wet patches.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Thymethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, egg, pepper. 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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