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Potted Beef

A preserved beef dish made by salting, curing, and slow baking, then mincing and seasoning with butter and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Potted Beef

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Cure the beef

  1. Trim the beef of skin and sinews.

  2. Rub the beef with salt, saltpetre, and sugar.

  3. Let it sit for 2 days, turning and rubbing twice daily.

Bake

  1. Place the beef in a jar with ½ cup of water.

  2. Cover the beef with its fat or suet.

  3. Seal the jar with a layer of paste.

  4. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 4 to 5 hours or overnight.

  5. Drain the gravy.

Pound and season

  1. Remove skin and gristle from the meat.

  2. Pound or mince the meat finely in a mortar.

  3. Gradually mix in ½ pound of softened butter.

  4. Season the mixture with spices to taste.

  5. Add optional ingredients for extra flavor as desired.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the main body of the potted meat and carries its flavor.
Saltpetre
Helps the meat keep its pink colour during the long cure.
Sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during curing.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, spreadable texture to the pounded meat.

The step that matters

Baking the sealed jar slowly. A low oven with a sealed fat layer cooks the meat gently so it becomes tender and moist rather than dry. Too high a heat or an unsealed jar lets moisture escape and toughens the meat.

Swap the mace

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

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

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