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Spiced Pressed Beef

A pressed beef made from boiled shin, seasoned with spices, and pressed with crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Spiced Pressed Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beef

  1. Boil the shin of beef with the bird peppers in enough water to cover for 5 hours.

  2. Let the water simmer until only 1 pint remains.

  3. Remove the bones and chop the meat and gristle slightly.

Season and press

  1. Mix the chopped meat with the remaining juice and season with salt, sage, summer savory, curry powder, clove, allspice, and black pepper.

  2. Add the pounded crackers and place the mixture in a deep dish.

  3. Cover with a plate and press down with a weight.

  4. Slice thinly when 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. Sage + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together237 recipes

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

  3. Sage + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together331 recipes

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

  4. Summer savory + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together52 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Summer savory + clovetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together143 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

Shin of beef
Provides the meat and gristle that set into a sliceable, firm mass once cooled.
Pounded crackers
Absorb the cooking juices and help bind the chopped meat so it holds together when pressed.
Bird peppers
Add heat and pungency to the broth the beef is cooked in, flavouring the meat as it boils.
Curry powder
Contributes warm, earthy spice aroma that seasons the meat throughout.

The step that matters

Press down with a weight before cooling. Pressing while the mixture is still warm lets the gelatin from the gristle and juices bind the pieces together, so the cold mixture slices into neat, firm slices rather than crumbling.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, meat, pepper, sage, summer savory, allspice):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, meat, pepper, sage, summer savory, 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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