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Spiced Beef for Drying

A method of drying beef that is spiced with cloves, ammonia, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,462 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Spiced Beef for Drying

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the beef

  1. Tear the beef into pieces by hand, do not cut it.

  2. Roll each piece in coarse sea salt.

  3. Place the salted beef in an earthen dish for 3-4 days, salting each day.

Spice and rest

  1. Mix cloves, ammonia, and sugar together.

  2. Rub each piece of beef with the spice mixture once a day until used up.

  3. Let the beef stand for another 3-4 days.

Dry and serve

  1. Hang the beef in a dry, warm place.

  2. The beef will be ready in 2 weeks; smaller pieces will be ready sooner.

  3. Slice thinly to serve as a relish.

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. Beef + clovetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Clove + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Beef + sugartop 37% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Clove and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 17,182 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

Beef
Main protein that dries and firms into the chewy texture of jerky.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the meat and helps preserve it during curing.
Cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the surface of the beef.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the salt and the spice.

The step that matters

Hanging the beef to dry. Salt slows spoilage only while the meat dries evenly. Damp pieces or humid air can let bacteria grow before the beef is dry. Thicker pieces take longer, so check that each piece is firm before serving.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Pepperfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar. 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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