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Spiced Beef

A pickled beef prepared with salt, spices, juniper berries, and 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 coarse sea 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 5 to 6 days.

Cook

  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 5 to 6 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve cold, keeping the beef submerged in the pickle with a clean 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. Beef + oniontop 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

Beef
The main cut, which the cure penetrates and the slow oven cooking tenderises.
Saltpetre
Gives the cured meat its pink colour and characteristic cured flavour.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the salt in the pickle.
Juniper berries
Adds a resinous, piney aroma to the cured beef.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes to the pickle.

The step that matters

Keeping the beef fully submerged during the cure. Any part of the beef left above the pickle can cure unevenly and spoil. Keeping the meat under the brine throughout the curing period lets the salt and nitrate penetrate evenly and protects the surface from spoilage microbes.

Swap the mace

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

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

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

More spiced beef recipes

Roast 24Stew 17Roll 10Loaf 9Tongue 9Pickled 7 See all 71 →

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