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Spiced Beef

This recipe uses saltpetre, which may pose food safety risks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove 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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

  1. Rub the beef with 2 oz of saltpetre and let it sit for 24 hours.

  2. Mix the sugar, black pepper, nutmeg, allspice, ginger, mace, cloves, cayenne pepper, and common salt.

  3. Rub the spice mixture over the beef and let it cure for 3 weeks, turning and rubbing daily.

  4. Place the beef in a deep baking pan with 1 teacup of water and cover it with shredded suet.

  5. Add the brine and spices to the pan.

  6. Cover the pan with a paste made of flour and water.

  7. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 5 hours or boil slowly for the same time, ensuring the meat is covered with water and plenty of suet.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, pepper, nutmeg, allspice, ginger, clove. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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