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Cold Beef Hashed with Vinegar

Cold beef pieces seasoned and simmered in vinegar with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Cold Beef Hashed with Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the cold meat into pieces about ½ inch square.

  2. Season the meat with Cayenne pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

Pickle the meat

  1. In a saucepan, heat enough vinegar to cover the meat.

  2. Add a few grains of whole allspice and a couple of cloves to the vinegar and bring to a boil.

  3. Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the meat and let it cool.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold roast beef, beef steak, or boiled shin meat
Provides the main protein that is cut up and seasoned as the body of the hash.
Vinegar
Acidity that flavors the meat and gives it a tangy, pickled character.
Whole allspice
Adds warm, aromatic flavor to the hot vinegar.
Cloves
Adds warm, aromatic flavor to the hot vinegar.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Clovethe original
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, vinegar, allspice. 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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