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Spiced Beef

A rolled loaf of spiced beef mixed with suet, eggs, breadcrumbs, and seasonings, baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Summer savory and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 263 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. 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 bowl, combine chopped beefsteak, suet, pepper, salt, summer savory, eggs, bread crumbs, cream, and butter. Mix well and add flour until the mixture holds together.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the mixture into a roll.

  2. Place the roll in a pan with a little drippings and water. Bake in the oven until cooked through.

Serve

  1. Allow to cool, then slice thinly.

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. Summer savory + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together263 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + summer savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together671 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Beefsteak
Provides the main meat body and savory flavor of the roll.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when baked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the roll a light, sliceable texture.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the roll moist and rich as it cooks.
Cream
Adds moisture and tenderness to the mixture.

The step that matters

Mixing in the flour. Adding flour until the mixture holds together matters because too little leaves the roll crumbly and too much makes it dense and tough. Cooks should add it gradually and judge by how the mixture binds.

Swap the summer savory

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, pepper, bread, cream, butter, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Summer savorythe original
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, bread, cream, butter, flour. 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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