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Spiced Beef

A beef preserved in a spiced brine and baked until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

Make the brine

  1. Make a brine by boiling the salt, saltpetre, sugar, cloves, allspice, black peppercorns, and bay leaves in 1 pint of water for a few minutes.

  2. Let the brine cool, then pour it over the beef.

Cure the beef

  1. Turn the beef every day for 14 days.

Bake and serve

  1. When ready to use, place the beef in a deep pan with the brine, a little water, and the suet.

  2. Bake until tender, then let it cool in the brine.

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. Clove + beeftop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Allspice + beeftop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,940 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Sugar + allspicetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,938 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

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

Sugar and clove 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

Common salt
Preserves the beef and seasons it through the long cure.
Saltpetre
Helps the beef keep its pink colour during curing.
Sugar
Balances the saltiness and adds mild sweetness to the cured meat.
Beef
The main cut that is cured, then baked until tender.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the beef moist during baking.

The step that matters

Turning the beef daily during the cure. Brine penetrates the meat unevenly if the beef is not turned, so some areas may cure poorly or stay grey. Daily turning keeps every surface in contact with the brine for the full 14 days.

Swap the clove

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

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

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