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Preserve

Pounded Beef

A paste of cold roast beef seasoned with salt, pepper, mace, and clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: White pepper and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,695 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Pounded Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. Pound the cold roast beef to a paste.

  2. Add salt, white pepper, mace, and clarified butter; mix well.

  3. Pass the mixture through a wire sieve.

Pot and seal

  1. Put into pots, press down, and cover with hot clarified butter.

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. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Mace + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Beef + macetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,969 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. White pepper + buttertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Mace and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,405 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Roast beef
Forms the main body of the paste, giving the dish its substance and texture.
Clarified butter
Adds richness and moisture, and when poured hot on top it seals the pots against air.

The step that matters

Pressing into pots and sealing with hot clarified butter. Pressing removes air pockets so the paste packs densely. Clarified butter poured over it while hot forms a layer that excludes air, which helps the paste keep and prevents surface spoilage.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, mace, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, mace, 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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