Spiced beef is a form of salt beef, cured with spices and braised or boiled. It is a traditional festive dish in many countries. In England and Wales it has been known for more than 300 years. It remains a traditional Christmas or New Year dish in Ireland.

England and Wales

Elizabeth David Elizabeth David ( Gwynne, 26 December 1913 – 22 May 1992) was a British cookery writer. In the mid-20th century she strongly influenced the revitalisation of home cookery in her native country and beyond with articles and books about Europea ...

notes that spiced beef has been a familiar dish in English cookery for at least 300 years, sometimes under the name of "Hunting Beef" or "Beef à l'Écarte".David, p. 105 A recipe for spiced beef is given in John Simpson's ''A Complete System of Cookery'' (1806). He comments, "This is more a Christmas dish, than any other time of the year, not but it may be done any time, and is equally good". His recipe calls for only

saltpetre Potassium nitrate is a chemical compound with a sharp, salty, bitter taste and the chemical formula . It is a potassium salt of nitric acid. This salt consists of potassium cations and nitrate anions , and is therefore an alkali metal nitrate ...

, salt and sugar to be rubbed into the meat every few days for three weeks. He does not specify which cut of beef to use. David specifies

round Round or rounds may refer to: Mathematics and science * Having no sharp corners, as an ellipse, circle, or sphere * Rounding, reducing the number of significant figures in a number * Round number, ending with one or more zeroes * Round (crypt ...

or silverside, and to Simpson's ingredients she adds crushed black pepper,

allspice Allspice, also known as Jamaica pepper, myrtle pepper, pimenta, or pimento, is the dried unripe berry of ''Pimenta dioica'', a midcanopy tree native to the Greater Antilles, southern Mexico, and Central America, now cultivated in many warm par ...

berries and

juniper Junipers are coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Juniperus'' ( ) of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on the taxonomy, between 50 and 67 species of junipers are widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere as far south ...

berries.David, p. 106 The last, she notes, appear in old recipes from

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...

Cumberland Cumberland ( ) is an area of North West England which was historically a county. The county was bordered by Northumberland to the north-east, County Durham to the east, Westmorland to the south-east, Lancashire to the south, and the Scottish ...

, Wales,

Sussex Sussex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈsʌsɪks/; from the Old English ''Sūþseaxe''; lit. 'South Saxons'; 'Sussex') is an area within South East England that was historically a kingdom of Sussex, kingdom and, later, a Historic counties of England, ...

and other places where juniper grew wild. The spices are rubbed into the meat every day for 9–14 days. The meat is then cooked slowly in a low oven for between 5 and 7½ hours. In ''

The Oxford Companion to Food ''The Oxford Companion to Food'' is an encyclopedia about food. It was edited by Alan Davidson and published by Oxford University Press in 1999. It was also issued in softcover under the name ''The Penguin Companion to Food''. The second and t ...

'', Alan Davidson lists other spices sometimes used in addition to those specified by Simpson and David:

cinnamon Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several tree species from the genus ''Cinnamomum''. Cinnamon is used mainly as an aromatic condiment and flavouring additive in a wide variety of cuisines, sweet and savoury dishes, biscuits, b ...

cloves Cloves are the aromatic flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae, ''Syzygium aromaticum'' (). They are native to the Maluku Islands, or Moluccas, in Indonesia, and are commonly used as a spice, flavoring, or fragrance in consumer products, ...

ginger Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice and a folk medicine. It is an herbaceous perennial that grows annual pseudostems (false stems made of the rolled bases of l ...

, mace and

nutmeg Nutmeg is the seed, or the ground spice derived from the seed, of several tree species of the genus '' Myristica''; fragrant nutmeg or true nutmeg ('' M. fragrans'') is a dark-leaved evergreen tree cultivated for two spices derived from its fru ...

.Davidson, p. 743

Ireland

Unlike England and Wales, where the dish went out of fashion before the 20th century,Leigh, Rowley
"Beef up your Christmas menu"
, ''The Financial Times'', 29 November 2008. Retrieved 18 October 2020 in Ireland spiced beef () has remained what Davidson calls "an important part of Christmas fare". The cut of beef in the Irish version varies according to different writers; cuts suggested include round, silverside, topside, rump, and

brisket Brisket is a cut of meat from the breast or lower chest of beef or veal. The beef brisket is one of the nine beef primal cuts, though the definition of the cut differs internationally. The brisket muscles include the Pectoralis major, superficial ...

.Drennan, p. 24 The meat is rubbed with some or all of the spices mentioned above,"Spiced Beef"
, Coughlan Butchers, The English Market, Cork. Retrieved 18 October 2020 and then usually boiled,

broiled Grilling is a form of cooking that involves heat applied to the surface of food, commonly from above, below or from the side. Grilling usually involves a significant amount of direct, radiant heat, and tends to be used for cooking meat and v ...

or semi-

steamed Steaming is a method of cooking using steam. This is often done with a food steamer, a kitchen appliance made specifically to cook food with steam, but food can also be steamed in a wok. In the American Southwest, steam pits used for cooking ha ...

in water,

Guinness Guinness () is a stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness at Guinness Brewery, St. James's Gate, Dublin, Ireland, in the 18th century. It is now owned by the British-based Multinational corporation, multinational alcoholic bever ...

(or a similar

stout Stout is a type of dark beer that is generally warm fermented, such as dry stout, oatmeal stout, milk stout and imperial stout. Stout is a type of ale. The first known use of the word "stout" for beer is in a document dated 1677 in the E ...

)."Traditional dry spiced beef"
Bord Bía It is served cold, usually in thin slices, often with brown bread and apricot and almond

chutney A chutney () is a spread typically associated with cuisines of the Indian subcontinent. Chutneys are made in a wide variety of forms, such as a tomato relish, a ground peanut garnish, yogurt, or curd, cucumber, spicy coconut, spicy onion ...

. The chef and food writer Rowley Leigh wrote in 2009: In ''Classic Irish'', a 1999 book of Irish recipes, Matthew Drennan writes, "Christmas in Ireland would not be complete without a cold side of spiced beef to see you through the holiday season".

Other countries

Davidson mentions that spiced beef is a traditional festive dish in many other countries, but does not specify which. Some spiced beef dishes, including

pastrami Pastrami is a type of cured meat originating from Romania usually made from beef brisket. The raw meat is brined, partially dried, seasoned with herbs and spices, then smoked and steamed. Like corned beef, pastrami was created as a way to pres ...

and

Sauerbraten Sauerbraten () is a traditional German roast of heavily marinated meat. It is regarded as a national dish of Cuisine of Germany, Germany, and is frequently served in German-style restaurants internationally. It can be cooked from a variety of me ...

, differ from the English and Irish versions, among other ways, by being wet-cured in

brine Brine (or briny water) is a high-concentration solution of salt (typically sodium chloride or calcium chloride) in water. In diverse contexts, ''brine'' may refer to the salt solutions ranging from about 3.5% (a typical concentration of seawat ...

or other liquid."How to make pastrami"
, ''The Guardian'', 30 November 2010; an
"Sauerbraten"
, Britannica. Retrieved 18 October 2020

References

Sources

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Spiced Beef Beef dishes Christmas food Cumbrian cuisine English cuisine Irish cuisine Welsh cuisine Yorkshire cuisine

England and Wales

Ireland

Other countries

See also

References

Sources