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To Make Hunters Beef

A preserved beef seasoned with saltpetre, sugar, spices, and suet, then baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

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.

Prepare the beef

  1. Remove the bone from the beef.

  2. Mix saltpetre, sugar, cloves, nutmeg, allspice, and coarse sea salt into a fine powder.

  3. Rub the mixture into the beef and let it hang for 2-3 days.

  4. Turn and rub the beef daily for 2-3 weeks.

Cook and serve

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

  2. Tightly bind the beef with tape and place it in a pan with 1 teacup of water at the bottom.

  3. Cover the beef with shredded suet and the pan with a brown crust and paper.

  4. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 5-6 hours.

  5. Once cooled, remove the paste and tape.

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

What each ingredient does

Round of beef
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender during long, slow cooking.
Saltpetre
Cures the meat and helps keep its colour and firm texture during the long curing period.
Coarse sugar
Balances the salt and spices and contributes to the savoury-sweet flavour of the cure.
Shred suet
Adds fat that bastes the beef and keeps it moist in the oven.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture into the beef and let it hang for 2-3 days. The cure must fully penetrate the meat, and turning it daily during the long curing period spreads the salt and saltpetre evenly so no area is left under-cured or spoiled.

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.

“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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