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Spiced Beef

A beef roast seasoned with saltpeter, spices, garlic, and sugar, pickled, boiled, and served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spiced Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the beef

  1. Mix the saltpeter, saltpetre, pounded spices, garlic, and moist sugar together.

  2. Rub this mixture well into the beef and let it sit in the pickle for a week, turning and rubbing it daily.

Cook the beef

  1. Tie up the beef and place it in cold water.

  2. Slowly bring to a boil, skim well, and then simmer for 2 to 3 hours.

Press and serve

  1. Place under heavy weights and serve cold.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long, gentle simmering.
Saltpetre
Helps the cured meat keep its pink colour and resist spoilage.
Moist sugar
Sweetens the cure and softens the sharpness of the salt.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that penetrates the meat during the week of curing.
Pounded spices
Contribute warm aroma and flavour that infuse the beef during curing.

The step that matters

Simmer gently after bringing to a boil. Starting in cold water and holding a gentle simmer keeps the meat tender and the broth clear. Vigorous boiling tightens muscle fibres and makes the beef dry and stringy.

Swap the garlic

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, mace, cinnamon, clove, allspice, nutmeg, 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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