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Savory Beef

Cold slices of boiled beef seasoned with salt, pepper, clove, and sage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Savory Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the shin of beef into four pieces.

  2. Place the pieces in a pot and boil until the meat and gristle separate from the bones.

Make the set meat

  1. Finely chop the meat and transfer it to a dish.

  2. Season the meat with salt, pepper, clove, and sage to taste.

  3. Pour the cooking liquid over the meat and allow it to set.

  4. Slice the meat 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. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Clove + sagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together731 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  5. Beef + clovetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef shin
Provides the meat and gristle that break down during long boiling, giving the dish its body.
Liquor from boiling the beef
Carries gelatin from the gristle and bones, so the chopped meat sets firm when cold.

The step that matters

Boiling until the meat and gristle separate from the bones. Boiling must run long enough for collagen in the gristle and bones to break down into gelatin. Undercooked beef yields a weak liquor that will not set when chilled.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Rosemaryfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

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