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Spiced Beef

A preserved beef dish soaked in pickle, spiced, baked, and served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove 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 ↓

Spiced Beef

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Cure

  1. Soak the brisket in pickle for three days.

  2. Rub the meat with a mixture of spices and brown sugar daily for a week.

Prepare and bake

  1. Cover the brisket with pounded dried sweet herbs and roll or tie it tightly.

  2. Place it in a pan with a small amount of water and bake at 300°F (150°C) for eight hours.

Press and serve

  1. Remove from the oven, untie it, and place a heavy weight on top.

  2. Serve cold as a relish.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + nutmegtop 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. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Brisket of beef
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and sliceable during long slow baking.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the rubbed surface brown and develop flavour during baking.
Ground allspice, black pepper, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg
Supply the warm aromatic spice flavour that penetrates the meat during the daily rubbing.
Dried sweet herbs
Add aroma to the outside of the meat as it is rolled and baked.

The step that matters

Baking at a low temperature for eight hours. Long, gentle heat in a covered pan with little water breaks down connective tissue slowly, making the brisket tender without drying it out. Too high a heat would toughen and dry the meat.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

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