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Savoury Salt Beef Baked

A beef roast cured with saltpetre, spices, and sea salt, then baked or stewed for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 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. In a mortar, combine saltpetre, sugar, black pepper, allspice, ginger, herbs, and sea salt by pounding them together.

  3. Remove the bone from the beef and rub the meat well with the mixture, turning and rubbing it every day for 14 days.

Bake and serve

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

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

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

  4. Alternatively, cover with water and stew gently for about 5 hours.

  5. Before serving, garnish with finely chopped parsley.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Allspice + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

Beef
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender during long, slow cooking.
Saltpetre
Cures the meat, giving it a pink colour and preserving it during the long rest.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during the cure, helping preserve it.
Coarse sugar
Balances the salt and softens the flavour of the cure.
Mutton suet
Adds fat that bastes the meat and keeps it moist while it cooks.
Onions
Add aroma and savoury sweetness as they cook into the suet and juices.

The step that matters

Rubbing the cure in every day for 14 days. Salt and saltpetre must reach the centre of the thick cut. Skipping turns or days leaves uneven curing, with grey or under-seasoned patches and a higher risk of spoilage.

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, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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