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Potted Beef

A preserved beef prepared by brining, baking, and packing in clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 coarse sugar in a bowl.

  2. Rub the mixture onto the beef and let it brine for 50 hours.

  3. Drain and dry the beef, then season it well with black pepper.

Bake and pound

  1. Place the beef in a pan and arrange slices of butter around it.

  2. Cover with a paste crust and bake at 300°F (150°C) for 4.5 hours.

  3. Allow the beef to cool, then remove stringy pieces and pound the meat in a mortar.

Pot and seal

  1. Combine the pounded meat with fresh butter and some gravy until smooth.

  2. Season with ground allspice, mace, and pepper, then pack into jars.

  3. Cover the mixture with clarified butter.

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
Provides the meat that is cured, baked, and pounded into the potted texture.
Common salt
Cures the meat, drawing out moisture and seasoning it through the brine.
Saltpetre
Helps the meat keep its pink colour during the long curing period.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and seals the surface of the potted meat.
Coarse sugar
Balances the salt in the cure and adds a mild sweetness to the meat.

The step that matters

Pounding the cooled meat with butter and gravy. Pounding breaks the meat into fine fibres so it blends into a smooth spread. Adding butter and gravy while it is still mixing keeps the texture moist and spreadable rather than dry and crumbly.

Swap the mace

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

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

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

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