Why it works: Allspice and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
Hunting 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.
Cure the beef
Rub the beef with saltpetre and let it stand for 5-6 hours.
Pound the allspice and black pepper, then mix them with the coarse sea salt and brown sugar.
Rub the beef all over with the spice mixture.
Let the beef cure for 14 days, turning and rubbing it with the pickle every other day.
Wash off the spices from the beef.
Bake and serve
Place the beef in a deep pan.
Cut the beef suet into small pieces and place some at the bottom of the pan and the rest on top of the beef.
Cover the beef with a coarse paste.
Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 8 hours.
Once cooled, remove the crust.
Pour off the gravy.
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.
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Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,395 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,971 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Beef + allspicetop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,940 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Allspice + sugartop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,938 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Pepper + sugartop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,401 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 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
- Beef
- Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long slow cooking.
- Saltpetre
- Helps cure the meat and keep its colour during the long curing period.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during curing.
- Beef suet
- Adds fat that bastes the meat and keeps it moist while baking.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the salt in the cure.
The step that matters
Curing for 14 days with turning. Saltpetre and salt must reach every part of the beef evenly. Turning and rubbing the meat every other day keeps the cure distributed, so the meat is seasoned and preserved throughout rather than only on the surface.
Swap the allspice
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, sugar):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Rosemaryfits about as well
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Allspicethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, 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.
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