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Vexis0x Beef

A cured beef prepared by rubbing with sugar and saltpetre, soaking in wine and vinegar, baking, then grinding into a spiced paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Vexis0x Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the beef

  1. Cut the beef into pieces and rub in the brown sugar and powdered saltpetre.

  2. Let it sit for 2 days.

  3. Wipe the beef dry and soak it for 24 hours in equal parts red wine and vinegar.

Bake and season

  1. Drain the beef well and bake it with plenty of fresh butter until tender.

  2. Once cooled, beat the beef to a paste in a mortar, adding the cold butter from the baking dish.

  3. Mix in pounded cloves, cayenne, and black pepper.

  4. Pack the mixture into pots.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Red wine + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  4. Red wine + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together575 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Beef + red winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,017 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Tender beef
Forms the bulk of the paste and provides the meaty base of the dish.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharp, salty cure.
Powdered saltpetre
Cures the meat, giving it a pink colour and a preserved flavour.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the beef become soft and spreadable.

The step that matters

Drain the beef well before baking. Surface liquid left from the wine and vinegar soak can steam the meat rather than letting it brown, and it dilutes the butter, so the texture and flavour suffer.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, sugar, red wine, vinegar, butter, pepper):

  1. Rosemaryfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, red wine, vinegar, butter, 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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