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Deviled or Potted Meats

A cured meat mixture of pork, beef, and spices, packed into cans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Deviled or Potted Meats

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the meats into small pieces.

  2. Cure the meat with 4 lbs. of coarse sea salt, 2½ lbs. of saltpetre, and ½ lb. of sugar per 100 lbs. of meat, mixing thoroughly.

Cure

  1. Pack the mixture tightly into containers.

  2. Cure for 15 to 20 days.

Finish and fill

  1. Grind the cured meat and mix in the spices.

  2. Stuff the mixture into cans while hot.

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. Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Saltpetre
Helps the cured meat keep its pink colour and adds a cured flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during the cure.
Granulated sugar
Balances the salt and softens the sharpness of the cure.
Red pepper
Adds heat and sharpness to the spiced meat.

The step that matters

Cure for 15 to 20 days. The salt and saltpetre must work through the packed meat over the full period. Stopping early leaves uneven seasoning and colour, and the meat may not keep safely.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, beef, pepper, celery, nutmeg, mustard, ginger):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, beef, pepper, celery, nutmeg, mustard, ginger. 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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