Name: Spices for Salted Beef
Ingredients: 2 ounces dried thyme; 2 ounces dried sage; 2 ounces dried nutmeg; 2 ounces dried cloves; 2 ounces dried mace; 2 ounces dried bay leaves; 3 ounces white pepper; 1 ounce dried marjoram; 1 ounce dried rosemary

Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Spices for Salted Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Make the spice blend

Pound each herb separately in a mortar, then sift the pounded herbs through a fine sieve.
Combine all the herbs in a bottle and keep tightly corked.

Use the blend

When ready to use, mix 1 ounce of the spice blend with 1 pound of salt.

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.

Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,225 recipes

Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).
Sage + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together507 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Sage + rosemarytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together465 recipes

Shared aroma: 1,8-cineol (eucalyptus, camphor).
Thyme + sagetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,485 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Thyme + rosemarytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,340 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

Dried bay leaves: Adds a subtle herbal, aromatic background to the blend.
White pepper: Adds sharp, warm heat and aroma to the blend.
Dried thyme: Contributes earthy, herbal aroma to the blend.
Dried sage: Contributes savory, slightly bitter herbal aroma to the blend.
Dried cloves: Contributes intense warm, sweet aroma to the blend.
Dried nutmeg: Contributes warm, sweet, aromatic depth to the blend.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (thyme, sage, nutmeg, clove, mace, marjoram, rosemary):

Winter savoryfits better
Allspicefits better
Cinnamonfits better
White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against thyme, sage, nutmeg, clove, mace, marjoram, rosemary. 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.