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Beef

A beef dish seasoned with brown sugar, saltpetre, pepper, mace, and butter, baked and then processed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the beef

  1. Rub the brown sugar and saltpetre into the beef.

  2. Let it sit for 24 hours, then wash and dry it well.

  3. Season with pepper, salt, and mace, and cut into 5 or 6 pieces.

Bake

  1. Place in an earthen pot with lumps of butter on top.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 3 hours.

Beat and pot

  1. Remove from the oven, cut off the hard outsides, and beat in a mortar.

  2. Add more pepper, salt, and mace as needed.

  3. Oil a pound of butter in the beef gravy and fat, and mix well.

  4. Press the meat into the pot, pour clarified butter over it, and store in a dry place.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the salty, cured flavour of the beef.
Saltpetre
Gives the beef its cured colour and helps preserve it during the long resting period.
Beef
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through slow baking and beating.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and seals the meat when poured over as clarified butter.

The step that matters

Rub the brown sugar and saltpetre into the beef. Saltpetre must be evenly distributed and the meat left to cure for the full 24 hours; uneven rubbing leaves patches that are poorly cured and can spoil during storage.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, beef, pepper, butter. 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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