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Scarlet Beef

A preserved beef rubbed with mace, cloves, allspice, black pepper, salt, and suet, baked and served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Scarlet Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the beef

  1. Mix mace, cloves, allspice, black pepper, and saltpetre.

  2. Rub the mixture into the beef.

  3. Let it sit for six days, turning daily and rubbing with the pickle.

  4. Roll and tie the beef firmly with tape.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the beef and pickle in a small jar with a slice of beef suet underneath and on top.

  2. Tie the jar closely and bake for one hour.

  3. Serve cold, sliced thin, and garnished with parsley.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the body of the dish, becoming firm and sliceable once cured and baked.
Saltpetre (in the method)
Cures the meat, preserving it and giving it a rosy colour.
Beef suet
Adds fat that bastes the beef in the jar and keeps it moist.
Black pepper
Adds sharp aroma and warmth that flavours the cured surface.

The step that matters

Let it sit for six days, turning daily and rubbing with the pickle. The cure must penetrate the whole piece of meat. Turning and rubbing daily spreads the salts and spices evenly, so the interior is preserved and not left uncured or spoiled.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, clove, allspice, pepper):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, clove, allspice, 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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