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To Press Beef

A method of curing and pressing beef with salt, saltpetre, herbs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

To Press Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Salt the brisket, thin flank, or rib tops with coarse sea salt and saltpetre for five days.

  2. Boil the meat gently until extremely tender.

  3. Place the meat under a heavy weight or in a cheese press until completely cold.

  4. Choose the thin end of the flank for collar beef.

  5. Rub the thin end with salt and saltpetre daily for a week.

  6. Remove bones and skin from the meat.

  7. Cover the meat with chopped parsley, sage, thyme, marjoram, pennyroyal, pepper, salt, and allspice.

Roll and cook

  1. Roll the meat tightly.

  2. Bind the rolled meat.

  3. Wrap the meat in a cloth before binding.

  4. Boil the bound meat gently for seven to eight hours.

  5. Place the wrapped meat under weight while hot to shape it oval.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Sage + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Brisket
A tough cut that becomes tender and sliceable after long, gentle boiling.
Saltpetre
Cures the meat, helping preserve it and keep a pink colour.
Sage
Adds a savoury, herbal aroma that flavours the rolled meat.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the meat.

The step that matters

Boil the bound meat gently for seven to eight hours. Gentle simmering lets the connective tissue slowly soften into gelatin, making the meat tender. A hard, rapid boil tightens the muscle fibres and can make the meat tough and break up the roll.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, sage, thyme, marjoram, pepper):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Rosemaryfits better
  3. Oreganofits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, sage, thyme, marjoram, pepper. 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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