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Potted Beef

A slow-cooked beef dish with spices, salt pork, and wine, baked in a sealed pot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Potted Beef

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Cut the lean beef into square pieces, 2 inches thick.

  2. Mix salt, pepper, cloves, mace, cinnamon, allspice, thyme, and sweet basil in a bowl.

Layer and seal

  1. Layer beef pieces in an earthen pot, sprinkling some spice mixture over each layer.

  2. Add a layer of thinly sliced fat salt pork and sprinkle with spices.

  3. Repeat layering until the pot is filled.

  4. Pour tarragon vinegar or Madeira wine over the top.

  5. Cover the pot with a paste made of flour and water to seal it.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the pot in a 350°F (175°C) oven and cook for 8 hours.

  2. Let it cool and store for up to two weeks in moderate weather.

  3. Serve warm with slices of lemon or cold.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the meat that becomes tender and rich during long, slow cooking.
Salt
Seasons the meat and helps draw out and preserve moisture.
Fat salt pork
Adds fat that keeps the meat moist and carries the spice flavour.
Tarragon vinegar or madeira wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich, long-cooked meat.

The step that matters

Sealing the pot with the flour and water paste. A tight seal keeps moisture and aroma inside during the 8-hour bake, so the meat cooks in its own juices rather than drying out.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, clove, cinnamon, allspice, thyme, basil):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, clove, cinnamon, allspice, thyme, basil. 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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