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Spiced Beef

A pickled beef prepared with salt, sugar, spices, pickled onions, juniper berries, and hot water, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove 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 Beef

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Cure

  1. In a large crock, combine the salt, saltpetre, brown sugar, allspice, cloves, mace, pickled onions, juniper berries, and pepper.

  2. Add the beef to the mixture, ensuring it is fully submerged in the pickle.

  3. Cover and let it sit for five to six days.

Cook and serve

  1. Afterward, draw off the liquid and add a little hot water.

  2. Cover the crock and place it in a 300°F (150°C) oven for five to six hours.

  3. Serve cold, keeping the beef submerged in the pickle with a clean paving stone on top.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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

Bottom round beef
Forms the meat that is cured and then slowly cooked until tender.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the beef during the cure.
Saltpetre
Helps the beef keep its pink color during curing.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the salt in the pickle.
Juniper berries
Contribute a resinous, aromatic flavor to the pickle.

The step that matters

Keeping the beef submerged. Any part of the meat exposed to air can spoil or dry out during the long cure and oven cooking. Keeping it fully covered by the pickle protects it and keeps the cure even.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

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