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Pressed Beef

A brisket seasoned with spices, boiled, pressed, and garnished with vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 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 ↓

Pressed Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the beef

  1. Mix all the spices together.

  2. Trim the meat and rub the spice mixture into it, placing it in an earthenware pan.

  3. Let it stand in a cool place for 5 to 6 days, rubbing the mixture in twice or thrice daily.

Cook the beef

  1. Place the vegetables and herbs in a stew-pan and half fill with water. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  2. Skewer the meat and tie it into a good shape.

  3. Wipe the meat with a damp cloth.

  4. Place the meat in boiling seasoned water. Bring to a boil.

  5. Remove any scum.

  6. Simmer for 3 hours, skimming occasionally.

Press and serve

  1. Remove the meat.

  2. Press it between two weighted boards for 12 hours.

  3. Trim the meat neatly with a sharp knife.

  4. Place on a wire tray.

  5. Glaze thoroughly.

  6. Decorate with garnishes.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 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 + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Brisket
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and sliceable after long cooking and pressing.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the salty cure.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during the curing period.
Saltpetre
Helps the meat keep its pink colour during curing.

The step that matters

Rubbing the cure in twice or thrice daily. Salt and curing agents penetrate meat slowly by diffusion, so regular rubbing spreads the cure evenly and prevents dry or unevenly seasoned patches.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, nutmeg, clove, pepper, mustard, onion, carrot):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, nutmeg, clove, pepper, mustard, onion, carrot. 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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