Why it works: Beef and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,051 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓
Potted Beef, As Hare
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the beef
Hang the beef skirts in dry air for a week or in cold weather for ten days.
Beat the beef with a rolling pin.
Remove the skin from the beef.
Cure the beef
Place the beef in a deep earthen pot.
Rub both sides of the beef with Jamaica pepper, eschalots, thyme, sugar, and coarse sea salt.
Let the beef marinate for six days, turning it daily.
After marinating, wipe the beef dry.
Pot and cook
Cut the beef into pieces.
Layer the beef in a deep straight-sided jar.
Add lumps of salt butter between the pieces of beef.
Place the jar in a water bath until the meat is tender.
Increase the water temperature by adding salt to the bath.
Once the water is hot, pour off the gravy.
Finish
Let the meat cool in a dish.
The next day, remove the butter and fat from the gravy.
Cut the meat into dice.
Remove any films and strings from the meat.
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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Beef + thymetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,051 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,847 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Thyme + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,758 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Beef + sugartop 37% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,435 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Beef skirts
- Main meat; its connective tissue softens during the long slow cook, making it tender.
- Salt butter
- Enriches the meat with fat and seals the pieces in the jar, keeping them moist.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it, firming the texture during curing.
- Eschalots
- Add a sharp, aromatic onion flavour that penetrates the meat during marinating.
- Thyme
- Adds an herbal aroma that infuses the meat during the marinating period.
- Coarse sugar
- Balances the saltiness and promotes a rounded, mellow flavour in the cured meat.
The step that matters
Holding the jar in the water bath until the meat is tender. Gentle, prolonged heat in water slowly breaks down the tough connective tissue of skirt beef without drying it out. Surrounding the meat with melted butter and fat helps keep it moist and tender, so heating too hard or too briefly can leave it tough or dry.
Swap the thyme
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, sugar, butter):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Pepperfits better
- Thymethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, butter. 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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