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To Make Hunters' Beef

Uses saltpetre.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice 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 ↓

To Make Hunters' Beef

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Hang the beef for 2-3 days.

  2. Rub the saltpetre, sugar, cloves, nutmeg, allspice, and common salt into the beef.

  3. Turn and rub the beef every day for 2-3 weeks.

  4. Remove the bone from the beef.

  5. When ready to cook, dip the beef in cold water to remove loose spices.

  6. Bind the beef tightly with tape.

  7. Place the beef in a pan with ½ cup of water at the bottom.

  8. Cover the top of the meat with shredded suet and cover the pan with a brown crust.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Beef + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,495 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Beef + clovetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Cardamomfits less well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, nutmeg, allspice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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