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Home Made Potted Meat

A preserved beef dish made by curing, baking, and sealing in pots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Home Made 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 coarse sea salt, saltpetre, and coarse brown sugar.

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

  3. Remove the beef from the brine and place it in a stone jar with a few spoonfuls of stock or glaze.

  4. Cover with a good paste.

Bake and pound

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

  2. Pour off any gravy.

  3. When cold, pound the meat in a marble mortar until smooth, adding fresh melted butter gradually.

  4. Season with ground pepper, nutmeg, mace, cloves, and any other preferred spices. Mix thoroughly.

Pot and store

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

  2. Top with a ¼ inch layer of ghee and seal to keep air out.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the meat body that becomes tender and spreadable after slow baking and pounding.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during the curing rub.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the meat and gives it a characteristic pink cured colour.
Coarse brown sugar
Adds mild sweetness and balances the salt in the cure.
Fresh melted butter
Adds fat and richness, making the pounded meat smooth and spreadable.

The step that matters

Slow baking until tender. Cooking at a low, steady 300°F allows connective tissue to break down gradually, so the meat becomes tender without drying out. Too high a heat toughens the protein and dries the meat.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, butter, pepper, nutmeg, clove, ghee. 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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