Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
Spiced Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Cure
Rub the beef with a mixture of salt, molasses or brown sugar, cloves, allspice, pepper, and saltpetre.
Turn and rub each side twice a day for a week.
Cook and press
Wash off the spices and place the beef in a pot of boiling water.
Add a teacup of cold water whenever it boils hard.
Simmer for five hours on low heat.
Press the beef under a heavy weight until cold.
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.
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Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,874 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together17,451 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,395 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,971 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Molasses + clovetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,483 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Beef
- Forms the meat that is cured, cooked and pressed into a firm, sliceable piece.
- Saltpetre
- Helps the meat keep its pink colour during the long cure.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during the cure.
- Molasses or brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the salt in the cure.
The step that matters
Adding cold water when the pot boils hard. Boiling vigorously toughens meat proteins and can make the outside dry or stringy. Adding cold water drops the temperature so the beef simmers gently and cooks evenly.
Swap the allspice
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, molasses, clove, pepper):
- Allspicethe original
- Cinnamonfits about as well
- Gingerfits less well
- Nutmegfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, molasses, clove, 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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