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Spiced Beef

A spiced beef brisket or flank, seasoned with cloves, peppercorns, mace, parsley, marjoram, lime zest, Nepal pepper, and optional Madeira.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Spiced Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove all bones from the brisket or flank.

  2. Rub the joint well with coarse sea salt and let it sit in brine for 2 days.

  3. Spread the spice mixture over the inside of the meat.

  4. Roll up the brisket tightly and tie it with string.

Cook and finish

  1. Stew the meat until tender.

  2. Place it under a weight to cool.

  3. Once cold, remove the string and trim the joint neatly.

  4. Glaze the meat and let it dry before serving.

  5. Mix a couple of glasses of Madeira with the cooking liquid for added flavor.

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. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Marjoram + limetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together59 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lime + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Clove + marjoramtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Parsley + limetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together547 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Brisket or flank
Provides the meat that is rolled, stewed and sliced, giving the dish its main body and texture.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the meat during the brine and helps it hold moisture as it cooks.
Ground cloves
Adds a warm, pungent spiced aroma to the meat.
Ground peppercorns
Adds sharp, peppery heat and aroma through the spiced interior.
Ground mace
Adds a delicate, nutmeg-like warmth and aroma to the spice mix.
Madeira
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Place it under a weight to cool. Pressing the cooked joint as it cools compacts the rolled meat and lets it set into a firm, even shape, so it slices neatly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, parsley, marjoram, lime, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, parsley, marjoram, lime, 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.

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