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Pressed Beef

Pressed Beef is a gelatinated beef dish made by boiling beef shank, adding gelatin, chopping finely, seasoning, and pressing into a loaf.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pressed Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beef

  1. Boil the beef shank until the meat falls from the bones.

  2. Remove the meat from the pot and let it cool.

  3. Boil down the broth to about 1 pint.

  4. Soak the gelatin until soft and add it to the broth.

Make the pressed beef

  1. Chop the meat, including the fat and softened gelatin, very fine.

  2. Season the mixture with salt, pepper, mustard, and herbs.

  3. Pour the broth over the meat mixture, pack it closely, and set aside under a heavy weight until the next day.

  4. Once set, turn it out and slice thinly.

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 + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Beef + mustardtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

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

  4. Gelatin + mustardtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together45 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Beef + gelatintop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together59 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef shank
Provides the meat and fat that form the body of the pressed beef.
Gelatin
Sets the broth so the chopped meat holds together when cold and sliced.

The step that matters

Packing and pressing under a heavy weight. Packing the chopped meat closely and pressing it under weight while it cools expels air and squeezes the mixture together. Gelatin then sets it into a firm block that slices cleanly. Loose packing leaves gaps and a crumbly slice.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, gelatin, pepper. 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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