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Beef, Spiced

A beef cured with saltpetre, sugar, spices, and water, then baked after a fourteen‑day pickling period.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Beef, Spiced

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Cure the beef

  1. Rub ½ lb saltpetre and 1 tablespoon brown sugar on the beef.

  2. The next day, season with ½ lb coarse sea salt, 1 oz black pepper, and 1 oz allspice.

  3. Let the beef sit in the pickle for fourteen days, turning it daily and adding common salt three times a week.

Bake and serve

  1. Wash the beef and place it in a deep glazed earthenware pot.

  2. Add beef suet underneath and pour in 1 pint of water.

  3. Cover the pot with paste or a plate.

  4. Bake for seven hours at 400°F (200°C).

  5. Pour off the liquid and let it cool before cutting.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Allspice + beeftop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,940 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Sugar + allspicetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,938 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Saltpetre
Cures the meat and gives it a pink colour and cured flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the beef during the pickling period.
Brown sugar
Adds a little sweetness that balances the salt in the cure.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, spicy aroma and flavour to the crust and meat.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the cured beef.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the beef moist during the long baking.

The step that matters

Pouring off the liquid before cutting. Cooking the beef in a sealed pot with its liquid for hours keeps it moist, but the liquid must be drained and the meat cooled so it firms up and slices cleanly.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Rosemaryfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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