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Potted Meat

A preserved beef dish made by curing, baking, and sealing the meat in a paste with spices and clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Potted Meat

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Cure the beef

  1. Rub the beef with a mixture of salt, saltpetre, and sugar.

  2. Let it sit for 2 days, turning and rubbing it twice daily.

Bake and pound

  1. Place the beef in a stone jar with a little beef gravy and cover it with a paste.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for several hours until tender.

  3. Pour off the gravy and let the meat cool.

  4. In a mortar, pound the meat into a smooth paste, adding melted butter gradually.

  5. Season with spices and optional flavorings to taste.

Potting and sealing

  1. Press the mixture into small shallow pots, filling them nearly full.

  2. Top with a layer of clarified butter and seal with a bladder or rubber sheet.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the meat that becomes the tender, spreadable paste.
Saltpetre
Helps the meat keep its pink colour during curing.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the beef during the cure.
Coarse sugar
Balances the salt and softens the flavour of the cured meat.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and moisture, giving the pounded paste a smooth texture.
Clarified butter
Forms a sealed top layer that protects the potted meat from air.

The step that matters

Baking until tender. The meat must cook slowly until fully tender so it pounds into a smooth paste; a hot oven can toughen it and leave it stringy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, butter, pepper, allspice, nutmeg, 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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