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Pickled Meat

A preserved meat boiled and pickled with spices and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Pickled Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the meat for 4-5 hours until the bones are loose but not falling out.

  2. Place the meat in a large jar and cover with the boiling water.

Pickle

  1. Add the allspice, cloves, and black peppercorns to the jar.

  2. Add vinegar equal to one-third of the water used.

  3. Monitor the liquid level and add more water and vinegar as needed.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Clove + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Meat + clovetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Meat + allspicetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together566 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Provides the main body of the dish, becoming tender as it boils until the bones loosen.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that flavours the liquid and helps preserve the meat.
Whole allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling liquid.
Whole cloves
Adds strong, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling liquid.
Whole black peppercorns
Adds pungent, aromatic heat to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Monitor the liquid level. The meat must stay fully submerged in the acidic liquid. Exposed surfaces are more prone to spoilage, so topping up with water and vinegar as the level drops keeps the pickle protected.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, allspice, vinegar):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Cinnamonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, allspice, vinegar. 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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