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Potted Beef

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg 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 ↓

Potted Beef

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Trim all fat from the beef and place it in a jar with a little water.

  2. Set the jar in a kettle of boiling water and let it cook for at least 5 hours.

  3. Drain the gravy and dry the meat by heating it before the fire.

  4. Shred the meat into small pieces using two forks or your fingers.

  5. In a mortar, combine the meat with your preferred spices, moistening with gravy and butter as needed.

  6. Pound the mixture to a smooth paste and pack it into tin canisters.

  7. Pour clarified butter over the top and cover each pot with a bladder, keeping them dry.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, clove, nutmeg, celery, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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