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Potted Beef

A preserved beef and bacon mixture seasoned with herbs, spices, wine, and eggs, baked and cooled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Potted Beef

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Cut the beef and bacon into small pieces and place them in a marble mortar.

  2. Add parsley, thyme, savory, chopped eschalots, pepper, salt, essence of ham, mushroom powder, mace, cloves, allspice, and beaten eggs.

  3. Pour in the rhenish wine and pound the mixture until it is fine.

Bake and set

  1. Fill small pots with the mixture and cover with paper.

  2. Bake gently at 300°F (150°C) for 40 minutes.

  3. Once cooled, cover the mixture with 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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  5. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef fillet
Provides the main meaty body and structure of the potted mixture.
Bacon fat
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the cooked meat soft and succulent.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when baked.
Rhenish wine
Adds acidity and aroma while moistening the pounded mixture.
Eschalots
Contribute a mild savoury sweetness and aromatic depth.

The step that matters

Pounding until fine. A fine, evenly pounded mixture gives a smooth, cohesive texture after baking. Coarse pieces stay chunky and can separate, so the meat and fat should be broken down thoroughly before filling the pots.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, parsley, thyme, pepper, ham, mushroom, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, parsley, thyme, pepper, ham, mushroom, clove. 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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