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Leicestershire Hunting Beef

A preserved beef seasoned with saltpetre, allspice, and salt, then cured with suet and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,940 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Leicestershire 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

  1. Rub the saltpetre and allspice over a fine round of beef.

  2. Let it stand for 24 hours.

  3. Rub in enough common salt to sufficiently salt the beef.

  4. Keep it in a cool place for 12 days, turning it every day.

Bake

  1. Place the beef in a deep pan and cover it with 3 pounds of beef suet.

  2. Cover the pan with a thick paste.

  3. Bake slowly at 300°F (150°C) for 6 hours.

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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, which becomes tender during the long slow bake.
Saltpetre
Cures the meat and helps it keep its colour and firm texture during the long rest.
Beef suet
Covers the beef in fat, keeping it moist as it bakes slowly.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic flavour to the cured meat.

The step that matters

Baking slowly at low heat. Holding the oven at 300°F for six hours lets the tough connective tissue in the beef break down gradually, so the meat becomes tender without drying out. Too much heat would toughen and dry the meat.

“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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