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Potted Meat

A preserved steak dish stewed with cloves, water, butter, and optional anchovy essence, then minced and stored in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Potted Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Remove the skin and fat from the meat and cut it into 2-inch squares.

Cook the meat

  1. Stew the meat with the cloves and water in a jar, simmering until tender.

Mince and season

  1. Once cold, pass the meat twice through a mincing machine.

  2. Add melted butter, a little gravy, seasoning, and anchovy essence. Mix well.

Pot and seal

  1. Place the mixture in jars or pots and pour clarified butter over the top.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Clove + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,045 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

Steak
Provides the main body of the potted meat once stewed and minced.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and clarified butter over the top helps seal the pots.

The step that matters

Stewing the meat until tender. Meat must be fully tender before mincing, because connective tissue that is not broken down by slow simmering will leave the paste tough and stringy.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, anchovy):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, anchovy. 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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