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Leicestershire Spiced Beef

A preserved beef cured with saltpetre, spices, and bacon, 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 nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Leicestershire Spiced Beef

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Cure the beef

  1. Rub the beef with saltpetre.

  2. Let the beef stand for 1 day.

  3. Season the beef with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and allspice.

  4. Let the beef sit in the pickle for 1 month.

  5. Turn the beef daily.

  6. Add common salt three times a week.

  7. Wash off the salt and spices.

Prepare and bake

  1. Lard the beef with bacon.

  2. Stuff the beef with a green stuffing of chopped herbs.

  3. Place the beef in a deep pan, adding beef suet at the bottom and on top.

  4. Tie the beef with tape to maintain its shape.

  5. Cover the pan with brown paper.

  6. Cover the pan with a paste made of barley flour.

  7. Cover the pan with another layer of paper on top.

  8. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 7 to 8 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour off the fat and gravy.

  2. 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. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef round
Forms the large joint that is cured, larded, stuffed and slowly baked.
Saltpetre
Cures the meat, helping it keep its pink colour and firm texture during the long pickle.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the beef during the long pickling period.
Allspice
Adds warm aromatic spice flavour that penetrates the meat during curing.
Beef suet
Adds fat that bastes the meat and keeps it moist during the long bake.
Bacon fat
Larding adds fat and savoury flavour that keeps the lean meat moist as it cooks.

The step that matters

Baking for 7 to 8 hours in a sealed pan. The long, low-moisture bake under paper and flour paste tenderises tough connective tissue, but too little cover lets the joint dry out, while the pan must stay sealed to hold in steam and fat.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, allspice, nutmeg. 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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