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Baked Beef

A beef leg baked with herbs, vinegar, port, onions, bay leaves, and mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Baked Beef

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Bone the beef and wash it clean.

  2. Chop the parsley, thyme, shallots, marjoram, savory, and basil, then mix the herbs with allspice, mace, cloves, pepper, and salt.

  3. Rub the beef with the herb mixture and place it in an earthen pan.

  4. Add vinegar, red port, onions, bay leaves, and mushrooms.

Marinate and bake

  1. Let the meat marinate overnight.

  2. The next day, add enough water to cover the meat, cover the pan, and bake until tender at 300°F (150°C).

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Marjoram + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Thyme + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

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

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 through long, slow, covered baking.
Vinegar
Acidity in the marinade helps begin softening the meat's surface before baking.
Red port
Adds sweetness and depth to the marinade, contributing flavor to the meat and juices.
Onions
Release sweetness and moisture as they cook, adding body to the braising liquid.
Shallots
Provide a mild onion-like aroma and savoury flavor to the herb rub.

The step that matters

Adding the water and baking covered. Covering the meat with water and baking it slowly with the lid on keeps the moisture in, so the tough connective tissue breaks down gently into tender meat rather than drying out.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, parsley, thyme, shallot, marjoram, basil, allspice):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, parsley, thyme, shallot, marjoram, basil, allspice. 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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