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Beef, Hunters'

A salted and spiced beef, baked with suet and a flour paste, preserved in its own gravy.

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

Beef, Hunters'

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the beef

  1. Hang the beef for 2-3 days, depending on the weather.

  2. In a salting pan, reduce the saltpetre, sugar, cloves, nutmeg, allspice, salt, and bay salt to powder.

  3. Rub the mixture into the meat every morning for 18-20 days. Turn the meat each time.

  4. Once salted, cleanse the meat from brine.

  5. Wrap the meat with a bandage to maintain its shape.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the beef in a pan with ½ pint of water at the bottom.

  2. Top the beef with shredded suet.

  3. Cover the beef with a paste made of flour and water.

  4. Bake for about 6 hours.

  5. Do not remove the paste until the heat has completely dissipated.

  6. Preserve the gravy left in the pan for use in other dishes.

  7. Optionally, glaze the beef.

  8. Garnish with savory jelly.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Allspice + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Round of beef
Is the main meat that is cured, then slowly baked until tender.
Saltpetre
Cures the meat, helping it keep its pink color and resist spoilage.
Coarse sugar
Balances the salt and spices and adds mild sweetness to the cure.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it during the cure.
Shredded suet
Adds fat that bastes the beef and keeps it moist during baking.

The step that matters

Do not remove the paste until the heat has completely dissipated.. Opening the flour paste while the oven is still hot lets moisture and heat escape, which can dry out the beef. Letting it cool fully keeps the meat juicy and the crust sealed.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, nutmeg, allspice, 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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