Why it works: Allspice and clove 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
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
Mix ½ cup common salt, 1 teaspoon saltpetre, and 1 ounce brown sugar.
Rub the mixture into the beef daily for 3 days.
Combine equal parts of ground allspice, black pepper, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg with a little brown sugar.
Rub this spice mixture into the beef daily for a week.
Prepare and bake
Cover the beef with pounded dried sweet herbs, roll or tie it tightly.
Place it in a pan with a little water and bake at 300°F (150°C) for 8 hours.
Remove from the oven, untie it, and place a heavy weight on it.
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 + clovetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,874 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,331 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
-
Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,686 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,038 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,620 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Brisket of beef
- Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and moist during long slow cooking.
- Common salt
- Draws out moisture and seasons the meat, helping it cure and firm up.
- Saltpetre
- Preserves the meat's colour and helps keep the cure stable over the curing days.
- Brown sugar
- Balances the salt with sweetness and adds flavour to the cure and spice rub.
The step that matters
Rubbing the cure in daily. Salt and saltpetre need repeated contact over several days to penetrate the meat evenly. Skipping days can leave the centre under-cured and uneven in flavour and colour.
Swap the ginger
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, sugar, allspice, pepper, clove, nutmeg):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Cardamomfits better
- Marjoramfits about as well
- Gingerthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, allspice, pepper, clove, nutmeg. 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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