Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
To Pot Beef
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Cure the beef
Rub the beef with brown sugar and saltpetre; let it sit for 24 hours.
Wash the beef clean and dry it with a cloth.
Season the beef with beaten mace, pepper, and salt.
Bake and pound
Cut the beef into 5 or 6 pieces and place in an earthen pot with lumps of butter on top.
Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 3 hours.
Remove from the oven, cut off the hard outsides, and beat the beef in a mortar.
Add more mace, pepper, and salt as needed.
Melt a pound of butter in the beef gravy and mix in as required, beating until fine.
Pot and store
Pack the mixture tightly into pots and pour clarified butter over it.
Store in a dry place.
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 + peppertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,971 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,257 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,847 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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
- Beef
- Forms the bulk of the dish, providing the meat that is cured, baked and pounded.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps balance the salty cure.
- Saltpetre
- Preserves the meat and gives it a characteristic pink curing colour.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture, and seals the finished meat in the pots.
The step that matters
Beating the baked beef until fine. Beating while the beef is still warm and moist breaks down the fibres into a smooth paste; if it cools or dries out, the texture becomes coarse and crumbly.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, sugar, pepper, butter):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, pepper, 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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