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Dried or Smoked Beef

A method of drying and smoking beef seasoned with cloves and allspice, then served sliced or fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Dried or Smoked Beef

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the beef and dry it thoroughly with a cloth.

  2. Mix equal parts of ground cloves and allspice.

  3. Rub the spice mixture into the beef.

Pickle

  1. Prepare a pickle as directed in the previous article.

  2. Boil the pickle and skim it.

  3. Pour the hot pickle over the spiced beef.

  4. Let the beef sit for at least six weeks.

Smoke and serve

  1. Smoke the beef for about three weeks.

  2. Serve the smoked beef thinly sliced without cooking.

  3. Fry the smoked beef in a skillet with a little butter until hot.

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. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Beef + allspicetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,940 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Clove + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,045 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Round beef
Forms the main body of the dish and carries the spice, pickle and smoke flavours.
Ground cloves and allspice
Add warm, aromatic flavour that penetrates the surface of the beef.
Pickle
Brine that seasons the beef and helps preserve it during the long rest.
Butter
Adds fat and helps brown the surface when the sliced beef is fried.

The step that matters

Let the beef sit for at least six weeks. The long rest in the pickle lets salt and spices slowly penetrate the meat and cure it. Cutting the time short leaves the centre under-seasoned and less well preserved.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Allspicethe original
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, clove, butter. 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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