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Potted Meats

A preserved meat product made by pounding roast, seasoning, and baking in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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.

  2. Pound the meat to a paste using a mortar or potato masher.

  3. Add spices or seasoning sauces to taste, or simply season with coarse sea salt and cayenne pepper.

Make the glaze

  1. Cover the bones with water.

  2. Boil the water down to a glaze.

Cook and pot

  1. Place the mixture into an earthen dish.

  2. Steam the mixture for 2 to 3 hours.

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

  4. Pack the mixture into small jars, enough for one occasion.

  5. Bake the jars in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 30 minutes.

  6. Once cooled, pour ¼ inch of melted butter over each jar.

  7. Store the jars 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. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Veal + meattop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Pepper + meattop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

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

Pot-roast meat
Forms the paste that gives the potted meat its body and richness.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, and forms a sealing layer over each jar.
Bones
Release gelatin and flavor into the water, forming a savory glaze that adds body.

The step that matters

Boil the water down to a glaze. Boiling reduces the bone water until its gelatin concentrates, so the glaze sets firm and binds the meat. Too little reduction leaves the mixture loose and watery.

“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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