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Spiced Beef

A baked roll of spiced beef, suet, eggs, breadcrumbs, cream, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Summer savory and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 263 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Spiced Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop together the raw beef and suet.

  2. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and summer savory.

  3. Add the eggs, bread crumbs, cream, and butter.

  4. Mix well and add flour to hold the mixture together.

Bake and serve

  1. Shape into a roll and place in a baking pan.

  2. Bake until cooked through, then slice 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. Summer savory + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together263 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + summer savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together671 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Raw beef
Forms the bulk of the roll and provides the meaty body of the dish.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the mixture moist and rich during cooking.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when cooked, helping the roll hold its shape.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add softness, giving the roll a lighter texture.
Flour
Helps hold the mixture together so the roll keeps its shape.

The step that matters

Bake until cooked through, then slice when cold. Raw beef mixed with egg must reach a fully cooked interior before serving. Slicing only after it has cooled lets the set structure firm up, so the slices hold together cleanly instead of crumbling.

Swap the summer savory

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, egg, pepper, bread, cream, butter, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Summer savorythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, egg, pepper, bread, cream, butter, flour. 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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