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Spiced Beef

A boiled beef dish seasoned with salt, pepper, sage, and thyme, then sliced after cooling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Spiced Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Wash the beef and trim off any unsuitable parts and fragments of bones.

  2. Cut the meat into small pieces and cover with boiling water.

  3. Skim the surface as it boils, then simmer until the meat falls apart and the liquid reduces to ½ pint.

Season and set

  1. Remove the meat and season the liquid with salt, pepper, sage, and thyme.

  2. Mix the seasoned liquid with the meat using a fork until fully broken.

  3. Transfer to a pan, press with a plate and weight, and let cool.

  4. Once cold, cut into slices.

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. Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Beef + thymetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,051 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the bulk of the dish and, as it breaks down, provides the meat that sets into the slices.
Beef liquid
Concentrated cooking liquid that carries seasoning and helps bind the meat together as it cools.

The step that matters

Simmering until the meat falls apart and the liquid reduces. Long, gentle simmering breaks down the connective tissue in the meat, and reducing the liquid concentrates its gelatin so the mixture sets firm when cold. Stopping too early leaves the meat tough and the liquid too thin to hold the slices together.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Rosemaryfits better
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

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