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Savoury Salt Beef Baked

A beef tongue side cured with salt, spices, and suet, then baked for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Savoury Salt Beef Baked

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the cure

  1. Hang the beef for 2-3 days.

  2. Pound together saltpetre, sugar, black pepper, allspice, ginger, herbs, and common salt.

  3. Remove the bone from the beef and rub the meat with the mixture, turning it daily for 14 days.

Bake

  1. When ready to cook, place the beef in a pan with water.

  2. Cover the meat with shredded mutton suet and minced onions.

  3. Cover the pan with a crust and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 6 hours.

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 + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  5. Ginger + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,595 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tongue side of beef
Is the main meat that is cured and then slowly baked until tender.
Saltpetre
Gives the cured meat its pink colour and helps preserve it during the long cure.
Common salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during the long cure.
Mutton suet
Covers the meat with fat, keeping it moist as it bakes.
Coarse sugar
Balances the salt and adds mild sweetness to the cure.

The step that matters

Turning the meat daily during the 14-day cure. Salt and curing mixture must reach every part of the meat evenly. Skipping turns leaves some areas under-cured and others overly salty, so the cure works unevenly.

Swap the ginger

The recipe marks ginger as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, sugar, pepper, allspice, mutton, onion):

  1. Clovefits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Cinnamonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, pepper, allspice, mutton, onion. 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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