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Spiced Beef

A brisket of beef cured with salt, saltpetre, spices and sugar, then rolled, cooked and served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Spiced Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cure

  1. Pound and mix the salt, saltpetre, cloves, allspice, and sugar together.

Cure the beef

  1. Rub the brisket of beef with the pickle daily for two weeks.

  2. When ready to cook, roll the beef tightly and tie it with string.

Cook and serve

  1. Place it in a deep earthenware pan with a little stock or water and cover with suet.

  2. Bake gently for four hours or boil until cooked.

  3. Once cooled, cut the string and glaze or cover with breadcrumbs.

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. Beef + clovetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Beef + allspicetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,940 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Allspice + sugartop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,938 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Clove + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Clove and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 17,182 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 and becomes tender and sliceable after long curing and cooking.
Saltpetre
Helps the beef keep its red colour and gives the cured meat its characteristic flavour.
Common salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat, helping it cure and preserve.
Coarse sugar
Balances the salt with sweetness and softens the harshness of the cure.
Suet
Covers the meat during cooking, adding fat that keeps it moist.

The step that matters

Rolling and tying the beef tightly. A tight roll keeps the meat compact and evenly shaped, so it cooks at a uniform rate and slices neatly once cooled.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, allspice, 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.

More spiced beef recipes

Roast 24Stew 17Roll 10Loaf 9Tongue 9Pickled 7 See all 71 →

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