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Spiced Beef

A beef roast cured with salt, saltpetre, spices, pickled onions, juniper berries, then cooked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove 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 ↓

Spiced Beef

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Cure the beef

  1. Combine the salt, saltpetre, brown sugar, allspice, cloves, mace, pickled onions, juniper berries, and pepper in a large crock.

  2. Add the beef to the mixture and ensure it is fully submerged; cover with a clean paving stone.

  3. Let it sit for five to six days.

Cook and serve

  1. Draw off the liquid and add a little hot water.

  2. Cover and cook in a 300°F (150°C) oven for five to six hours.

  3. 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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the beef and helps preserve it during the cure.
Saltpetre
Helps the beef keep its pink colour during the long cure.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the saltiness of the cure.
Juniper berries
Add a resinous, aromatic flavour to the cured beef.

The step that matters

Keeping the beef fully submerged during the cure. Any part of the beef left above the brine can spoil or cure unevenly. The paving stone keeps the meat under the liquid for the full five to six days.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, allspice, clove, onion, pepper, beef. 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.

More spiced beef recipes

Roast 24Stew 17Roll 10Loaf 9Tongue 9Pickled 7 See all 71 →

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