Skip to main content
Main

Pressed Beef

A cured beef prepared by salting, simmering, and pressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,873 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Pressed Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the beef

  1. Dissolve saltpetre in a little water, mix with coarse sea salt and moist sugar.

  2. Rub this mixture into the meat daily for 8 days, turning it each day.

  3. Drain and bone the beef.

Cook and press

  1. Place it in a saucepan and cover with lukewarm water.

  2. Add onion, carrot, and bay leaf.

  3. Bring to a boil, skim, then reduce heat and simmer gently until cooked.

  4. Remove from heat and let the beef sit in the liquid for 30 minutes.

  5. Drain the beef and place it between two flat dishes with a heavy weight on top.

  6. Let it sit overnight.

  7. Remove the weight.

Glaze

  1. Glaze the beef by dissolving the glaze in a jar with cold water, then steaming it in boiling water until melted.

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 + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

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

  5. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Brisket of beef
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and sliceable after cooking.
Saltpetre
Gives the cured meat its characteristic pink colour and helps preserve it.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it during the cure.
Moist sugar
Balances the salt and adds sweetness to the cured flavour.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until cooked. A rolling boil toughens the muscle fibres of the beef, so keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer after the initial skim yields a more tender result.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, onion, carrot. 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.

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes