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Savoury Salt Beef, Baked

A beef roast cured with salt, sugar, spices, and suet, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Savoury Salt Beef, Baked

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Cure the beef

  1. Remove the bone from the beef and let it hang for 2-3 days.

  2. Sprinkle the beef with common salt and rub it in.

  3. Let the beef sit for 2 days.

  4. Pour off any brine.

  5. Mix the remaining ingredients and rub them into the meat daily for 14 days.

Bake and serve

  1. When ready to cook, place the beef in a pan with water and chopped onions.

  2. Cover the beef with a thick layer of mutton suet.

  3. Make a stiff paste with flour and water.

  4. Cover the suet with the paste.

  5. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 6 hours.

  6. Let the meat cool on a stand or fish-drainer before slicing.

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 + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  5. Ginger + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,595 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
Forms the meat that is cured, then slowly baked until tender.
Common salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during curing.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the meat and gives it its characteristic pink curing colour.
Coarse sugar
Balances the salt and adds a mild sweetness to the cure.
Mutton suet
Forms a fatty layer over the beef that keeps it moist during baking.
Juniper berries
Adds a resinous, aromatic flavour to the cure.

The step that matters

Daily rubbing during the 14-day cure. The cure must reach the whole piece of meat evenly. Skipping days or rubbing unevenly leaves parts under-salted, so they may spoil or cook up with uneven seasoning and texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, sugar, pepper, allspice, ginger, mutton, flour):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, pepper, allspice, ginger, mutton, 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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