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Potted Game or Poultry

A preserved meat mixture of game or poultry, salt, pepper, bacon fat, anchovy, and clarified butter, stored in pots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,697 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Potted Game or Poultry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Remove bones and skin from the cold meat.

  2. Season the meat with coarse sea salt and plenty of Cayenne pepper.

Pot and store

  1. Pound the meat in a mortar with an equal amount of scraped cold bacon fat and a little anchovy.

  2. Press the mixture firmly into pots.

  3. Pour clarified butter over the top.

  4. Store in a cool place.

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. Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Rabbit + anchovytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together53 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Rabbit + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + anchovytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Rabbit + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-pentylpyridine (fat).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold game, poultry, or rabbit
Forms the main body of the potted mixture and gives it its meaty texture.
Scraped cold bacon fat
Adds richness and fat that binds the pounded meat into a smooth paste.
Clarified butter
Poured over the top, it seals the surface and helps keep air out.

The step that matters

Pour clarified butter over the top. The butter layer seals the surface from air, which slows oxidation and spoilage. Without a full, even seal, the top of the potted meat can turn rancid or dry out during storage.

“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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