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Spiced Beef

A cold, shredded beef loaf seasoned with salt, pepper, thyme, and sage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Spiced Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Cut the beef into pieces and cover with boiling water.

  2. Skim the surface as it boils.

  3. Simmer until the meat falls apart and the liquid reduces to ½ pint.

Shred and pack

  1. Remove the meat and season the liquid with salt, pepper, thyme, and sage.

  2. Add the meat back to the liquid and mix with a fork until thoroughly shredded.

  3. Pack the mixture into a brick loaf pan and press down.

  4. Serve cold, sliced thin.

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. Thyme + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Beef + thymetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,051 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Clear stewing beef
Provides the meat that breaks down into the shredded body of the loaf.
Boiling water
Extracts flavour and gelatin from the beef, forming the liquid that sets the loaf.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the cooking liquid and brings out the flavour of the meat.
Black pepper
Adds a sharp, aromatic bite to the seasoned liquid.
Thyme
Adds herbal aroma that complements the beef.
Sage
Adds earthy, savoury aroma to the seasoned liquid.

The step that matters

Skimming the surface as it boils. Foam and fat rising to the surface can make the broth cloudy and greasy. Removing them keeps the liquid clear and clean-tasting, which matters because it sets the loaf.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Rosemaryfits better
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, thyme. 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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