Irish Spiced Beef

A couple of months ago my boss ( see flapper pie, cheesecake cookies, and let's not forget the birthday cake incident) asked me to do him a favor. Sure, I said. He whipped out some photocopied pages from cookbooks and a handwritten letter and asked me if I would make him an Irish Spiced Beef.
"It's roast beef that you rub with sugar and spices and then boil. It's delicious!"
He'd had it when he was in his 20's, he told me, when he was dating a girl whose Grandmother would make it on a monthly basis. When he and the girl broke up, no more spiced beef. Another girlfriend had found him some recipes for spiced beef a few years ago and while cleaning up some old boxes at his house he came across them.
"I remember how wonderful the spiced beef was. Please, will you make it for me? I'll pay for all the ingredients. And share the roast with you too."
We sat down and looked at all the recipes and notes he had. He pointed out things he thought I should do from certain recipes, and things he didn't think I should follow in others. We talked about ingredients - what he remembered was in it and pointed out spices he didn't want used. I promised to take everything home and see what I could cobble together.

And I forgot all about it. But then when I was cleaning some papers off my desk at home, I found all his notes and decided to give it a try. Why not? I wouldn't be out of pocket for anything, and it would be fun to blog about. Which is the yardstick for my life. So I sat down with his papers and came up with a recipe for what I hoped would taste good in the end.

Day 1 - I went shopping and got all my ingredients. Since it wasn't my money I was spending I went to the butchers and got a beautiful 6 lb organic beef roast. That night after dinner the roast was untied and washed, then dried and placed in a large bowl. I mixed together all my rub ingredients - 1 POUND of salt; 1 oz sodium nitrate; 1/2 tsp each of ground cloves, ground allspice, and whole peppercorns; 1/4 tsp each of ground ginger and ground mace; 3 dried bay leaves, crumbled; 1/4 cup diced onions; and 1 1/2 cups brown sugar - and rubbed the mixture all over the beef. The house smelled like Christmas.

The bowl was covered very very well with plastic wrap and put in the fridge, where it would live for the next 15 days.

Day 2 - I am going to turn and rub the roast every day. I pull it out of the fridge, remove the plastic wrap and am horrified by what I see. The roast is visibly smaller and is surrounded by.....juices.

I knew that the salt would be pulling out the liquid from the meat, but I didn't expect quite so much. Also, the texture of the roast has changed in just one day; it's hard. Even Scott is a little grossed out by it. We don't know what to do; do we leave the liquid in there, or should we drain it off? I carefully read all the recipes and notes again. None of them say anything about liquid. We quickly rub and turn the roast and put it back in the fridge. My boss has gone on a holiday and I don't really think I want to call him to ask his opinion about it. What am I going to do? I think about it as I wash my hands for 20 minutes.

Day 3 - I Google "Irish Spiced Beef" and am put at ease right away. The first 3 results all mention liquid and say to not discard it. I still think it's pretty gross though. We take the bowl out of the fridge, turn the beef, and scoop up the spices from the bottom of the bowl to rub all over the meat.

And so it goes.

Day 15 - time to finish up! I take the beef out of the fridge.

Mmmm. So.....appetizing? The beef is washed and dried. For fun we measure how much liquid has ... come out ... of the beef.

Just under 4 cups. (!!!)
The beef is very poorly tied by me, then placed in a large pot. An onion cut in half, 2 carrots, and a celery stick are added. Pour in water to cover, and bring the pot to a simmer. Simmer very gently, covered, for 2 1/2 hours.


Remove the beef, wrap well in aluminum foil and let sit at room temperature until cool. Refrigerate overnight.

Unwrap and thinly slice the meat. Traditionally Irish Spiced Beef is served cold.
This was very salty. I mean, how could it not be, with a pound of salt! But still, it was very borderline edible for me. Scott liked it, and my boss said that it was very similar to what he remembered, which was good. The roast was very tender too, but I wouldn't make this again. Too much meat, too much time, too much salt. It was interesting to try though, and I am glad I did, if only to share it here with you.

Have you ever had Spiced Beef? Is it/was it a tradition in your family?