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Potted Meats

A preserved meat made by pounding roast, seasoning, steaming, glazing, baking, and storing in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Potted Meats

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the meat

  1. Remove bones, fat, and gristle from the cold pot-roast and pound to a paste using a mortar or potato masher.

  2. Season the meat with spices, seasoning sauces, coarse sea salt, and cayenne pepper to taste.

Steam and make the glaze

  1. Place the mixture into an earthen dish and steam for 2 to 3 hours.

  2. Cover the bones with water and boil down to a glaze.

Combine and bake

  1. Add the glaze to the pounded meat along with 1 teaspoon of melted butter for each ½ cup of meat.

  2. Pack the mixture into small jars, enough for one occasion, and bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 30 minutes.

Finish and store

  1. Once cooled, pour ¼ inch of melted butter over each jar and store in a cold 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. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Sauce + peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cold pot-roast of veal, lamb, or poultry
Provides the meat that is pounded into a paste and forms the body of the dish.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, and as a top layer seals the jars against air.
Water
Used to draw flavour and gelatin from the bones into a concentrated glaze.

The step that matters

Pounding the meat to a smooth paste. Removing all bones, fat, and gristle before pounding keeps the texture smooth rather than stringy or chewy, and an even paste blends evenly with the glaze and butter.

“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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