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To Press Beef

A method of curing and pressing beef with salt, spices, and pressure, then baking until tender.

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 ↓

To Press Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Salt and cook

  1. Salt the meat with coarse sea salt and saltpeter for five days.

  2. Boil the meat gently until extremely tender.

  3. Place the meat under a heavy weight or in a cheese press until perfectly cold.

Spice and cure

  1. For Hunter's Beef, mix saltpeter, sugar, cloves, nutmeg, allspice, and common salt in fine powder.

  2. Rub the mixture into a 25-pound round of beef, turning and rubbing daily for two to three weeks.

  3. Remove the bone from the beef.

Bind and bake

  1. When ready to cook, dip the beef in cold water to remove excess spice.

  2. Bind the beef tightly with tape and place it in a pan with a teacupful of water at the bottom.

  3. Cover the meat with bacon or lard and the pan with a brown crust and paper.

  4. Bake for five to six hours.

  5. Once cooled, remove the paste and tape.

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. Nutmeg + allspicetop 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 + teatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together181 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Nutmeg + teatop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Brisket
A tough cut that becomes tender as its connective tissue breaks down during long, gentle cooking.
Saltpetre
Curing agent that keeps the meat pink and helps preserve it during the days-long cure.
Common salt
Draws moisture out of the meat and preserves it during curing.
Coarse sugar
Balances the sharpness of the salt and softens the savoury, cured flavour.
Cloves
Adds a warm, pungent aroma and spiced flavour to the crust.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic flavour that rounds out the spice mix.

The step that matters

Simmer the beef gently. Boiling hard toughens muscle fibres and dries the outside, while a gentle simmer lets connective tissue soften slowly into a tender, moist result.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, clove, nutmeg, tea):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Allspicethe original
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, clove, nutmeg, tea. 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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