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Cold Beef Garnished with Jelly

Cold beef that has been salted, simmered, and coated with a gelatinous broth made from the cooking liquid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Cold Beef Garnished with Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the beef

  1. Hang the beef for three days to tenderize.

  2. Rub the beef with saltpetre and coarse sea salt, then let it sit for four to five days with water in the salting pan.

Cook and make the jelly

  1. Place the beef in a pot, cover with water, and add carrot, onion, marjoram, parsley, peppercorns, and allspice.

  2. Simmer gently for about four hours until the beef is tender.

  3. Remove the beef and strain the broth into a larger pot, skimming off the grease.

  4. Boil the broth until it reduces to a strong jelly.

  5. Beat the egg whites and shells with a little cold water, then add to the jelly.

  6. Remove from heat, let settle for a few minutes, then strain through a fine napkin.

Glaze and set

  1. Brush a little jelly over the meat to glaze it.

  2. Pour the remaining jelly into a flat dish about an inch deep and let it cool completely.

  3. Once cold, cut the jelly into shapes and garnish the beef.

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. Marjoram + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Marjoram + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Carrot + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Parsley + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 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 ramp
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long simmering and is served cold.
Saltpetre
Cures the meat, giving it a pink colour and a firmer, cured flavour.
Egg whites and shells
Bind impurities during simmering so the broth clarifies into a clear jelly.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and savoury depth to the broth that becomes the jelly.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the broth that becomes the jelly.

The step that matters

Strain the jelly after the egg white clarification. Letting the jelly settle before straining lets the egg white and impurities bind together, so straining through a fine napkin yields a clear, sparkling jelly instead of a cloudy one.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, marjoram, parsley, allspice, egg):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, marjoram, parsley, allspice, egg. 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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