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Potted Beef, Ham, Etc

A preserved paste of beef residue mixed with spices and fat, formed into small pots and sealed with melted lard or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Potted Beef, Ham, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Remove all gristle, skin, and bone from the meat residue.

Make the paste

  1. Place the meat in a mortar and add salt, pepper, mace, allspice, nutmeg, and butter or dripping.

  2. Pound the mixture until a smooth paste forms.

  3. If desired, add a few drops of chilli or tarragon vinegar.

Pot and seal

  1. Press the paste into small pots.

  2. To preserve, pour melted lard or butter over the top to exclude air.

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. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat residue from beef-tea
Provides the beef flavour and the main body of the paste.
Butter or clarified dripping
Adds richness and a smooth, spreadable texture to the paste.
Melted lard or butter
Forms a sealed top layer that keeps air away from the paste.

The step that matters

Pounding the mixture until smooth. Thorough pounding breaks the meat into fine fibres and blends in the fat, so the paste spreads evenly rather than being grainy or dry.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, beef, tea, pepper, allspice, nutmeg, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, beef, tea, pepper, allspice, nutmeg, 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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