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Potted Beef

A dish of boiled lean beef seasoned with salt and pepper, chilled and sliced.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potted Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beef

  1. Boil the beef in enough water to half cover it until tender.

  2. Chop the beef finely.

Season and pot

  1. Season with salt and pepper.

  2. Moisten with the cooking liquid.

  3. Pack into a dish, press down, and refrigerate.

Serve

  1. Slice and serve cold.

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the main body of the dish, becoming tender through simmering and then holding together when packed and chilled.
Cooking liquid (in the method)
Adds moisture so the chopped beef stays soft and cohesive after pressing.

The step that matters

Pack into a dish, press down, and refrigerate. Pressing removes air pockets and packs the chopped meat together, so it sets into a firm block that slices cleanly when cold.

“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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