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To Prepare Spiced Beef

A preserved beef seasoned with salt, sugar, spices, and vinegar, boiled and pressed for a week.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

To Prepare Spiced Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Rub the beef pieces with coarse sea salt, sugar, cloves, allspice, pepper, and saltpetre.

  2. Roll the beef tightly and tie it.

  3. Pack the prepared beef into a keg.

  4. Add vinegar and enough beef brine to cover the beef.

  5. Let it stand for about one week.

Cook and serve

  1. To cook, boil an 8-pound piece of beef for six hours.

  2. Press the beef for eight hours before serving it 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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Brisket or rattleran
Lean and fatty meat that becomes tender and succulent after long curing and boiling.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat while helping it cure.
Sugar
Balances the salt and adds mild sweetness to the cured surface.
Saltpetre
Helps the meat keep its red colour during curing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the brine.

The step that matters

Pressing the beef after boiling. Pressing while the beef is still warm and then chilling it compacts the meat into a firm, sliceable block. Pressing too early or without a full chill can leave it crumbly.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

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

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