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Strasburg Potted Meat

A preserved beef dish from Strasbourg, cooked with butter, spices, anchovies, and suet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Strasburg Potted Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Place diced beef and butter in an earthen jar.

  2. Seal the jar with paper and boil in a pot.

  3. When nearly done, add spices and boil until tender.

Finish and pot

  1. Let the mixture cool, then pound the meat with anchovies.

  2. Mix in oiled butter and warm slightly, adding cochineal for color.

  3. Press into small pots and pour melted mutton suet on 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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

Rump of beef
Provides the main body of the potted meat, becoming tender and rich after long gentle boiling.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the meat stay soft and spreadable.
Anchovies
Contribute savory depth and salty umami that rounds out the spiced meat.
Oiled butter
Lends a smooth, spreadable texture and extra fat to the pounded meat.
Mutton suet
Forms a sealed top layer that protects the potted meat from air.

The step that matters

Boil until tender in the sealed jar. The beef must cook fully so it pounds into a smooth paste. Sealing the jar traps moisture so the meat stays juicy rather than drying out during the long boil.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, clove, allspice, nutmeg, pepper, mutton. 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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