Skip to main content
Main

Potted Beef

A preserved beef cured with salt, saltpetre, sugar, spices, and butter, then baked, cooled, ground, and stored in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Potted Beef

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Cure the beef

  1. Mix the salt, saltpetre, and sugar in a bowl.

  2. Rub the beef with the mixture.

  3. Let the beef brine for 50 hours.

  4. Drain the beef.

  5. Dry the beef.

  6. Season the beef with black pepper.

Bake

  1. Place the beef in a pan.

  2. Surround the beef with slices of butter.

  3. Cover the beef with a paste crust.

  4. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 4.5 hours.

  5. Allow the beef to cool.

Pot the meat

  1. Remove the meat from the pan.

  2. Separate stringy pieces.

  3. Pound the meat in a mortar.

  4. Mix in fresh butter and some gravy.

  5. Season the mixture with allspice, mace, and pepper until smooth.

  6. Transfer the mixture to jars.

  7. Cover the jars with clarified butter.

  8. For long storage, cover with bladder skin.

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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Lean beef
Forms the main body of the potted meat and gives its texture once pounded.
Common salt
Cures the beef, drawing out moisture and seasoning the meat throughout.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the cured beef and gives it a characteristic pink colour.
Coarse sugar
Balances the salt in the cure and adds a mild sweetness to the beef.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and the clarified layer seals the jars against air.

The step that matters

Cover the beef with a paste crust before baking at 300°F. The crust and surrounding butter hold moisture in during the long, low bake. Without a tight seal the beef can dry out and toughen, so the crust should cover it fully.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, beef, pepper, butter, meat, allspice):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, beef, pepper, butter, meat, allspice. 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.

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes