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Black Strong Beer

A spiced beer brewed with anchovies, garlic, nutmegs, cloves, black pepper, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Black Strong Beer

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the black strong beer and anchovies in a pot.

  2. Add the garlic, nutmegs, cloves, black pepper, and mace.

  3. Simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Dissolve into the liquid to add deep savory, umami flavor.
Garlic
Adds pungent, aromatic flavor that mellows during simmering.
Black strong beer
Forms the liquid base and carries the flavors of the other ingredients.
Cloves
Contribute warm, pungent aroma to the simmered liquid.
Nutmegs
Contribute warm, sweet, aromatic spice notes to the liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Gentle simmering lets the spices and anchovies release their flavors slowly into the beer. Stirring keeps solids from settling and scorching on the bottom of the pot, which would make the mixture taste burnt.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beer, nutmeg, clove, pepper, mace):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beer, nutmeg, clove, pepper, mace. 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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