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Spiced Pickle for Beef, Venison and Rabbits

A vinegar-based pickle solution with bay leaves, cloves, pepper, juniper, salt, and onions for preserving beef, venison, and rabbit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Spiced Pickle for Beef, Venison and Rabbits

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pickle

  1. Combine vinegar, bay leaves, cloves, whole pepper, juniper leaves, and coarse sea salt in a porcelain kettle.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil for 5 minutes.

  3. Add sliced onions to the pickle immediately after removing it from the heat.

  4. Cover the mixture closely and let it cool.

Soak and reuse

  1. Soak 6 pounds of beef for 8 days, 6 pounds of venison for 6 days, and a rabbit for 3 days.

  2. Reuse the pickle up to 3 times in winter by adding more vinegar.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Clove + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Cider vinegar
Acidic base that preserves the meat and carries the spice flavours into it.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it during the long soak.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury flavour to the pickle as it infuses.
Bay leaves
Contribute aromatic, herbal flavour to the pickle.
Cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice to the pickle.
Juniper leaves
Add resinous, piney aroma that suits game meats.

The step that matters

Add sliced onions immediately after removing the pickle from the heat. Adding onions while the liquid is still very hot softens them and releases their flavour into the brine. Letting the mixture cool fully before soaking the meat matters because warm liquid can begin to cook the surface of the meat and encourage spoilage.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, vinegar, clove, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, clove, pepper. 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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