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Spiced Beef

A roll of spiced beef mixed with suet, eggs, bread crumbs, cream, and butter, baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 the mixture

  1. Chop the beefsteak and suet finely.

  2. Season with pepper, salt, and summer savory.

  3. Add the eggs, bread crumbs, cream, and butter; mix well.

  4. Add enough flour to hold the mixture together.

Bake and serve

  1. Form into a roll and place in a pan with drippings and a little water.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until cooked through.

  3. Slice thin when cold.

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

Tough beefsteak
Provides the meat base and the main savory flavor of the roll.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm once baked.
Bread crumbs
Add body and absorb moisture so the roll holds its shape.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the meat moist and tender during baking.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the texture of the mixture.

The step that matters

Adding enough flour to hold the mixture together. Too little flour leaves the roll crumbly and likely to fall apart when sliced, while too much makes it dense and dry. The mixture should be firm enough to shape but still tender.

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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