Why it works: Meat and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,594 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Potted Meat
Ingredients
Directions
Mince the cold meat using a meat grinder.
Season and flavor the minced meat as desired.
Add 4 to 6 ounces of melted butter for every pound of minced meat. Mix thoroughly until well combined.
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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Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,594 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cold meat
- Forms the main body of the potted meat, giving it its bulk and savory flavor.
- Butter
- Adds fat that coats the minced meat, giving a rich, smooth texture and helping it hold together.
The step that matters
Mixing in the melted butter. Butter must be fully and evenly mixed into the minced meat. Unevenly distributed fat leaves greasy pockets and dry patches, so the texture of the finished spread suffers.
“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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